By now you are probably well aware that enrollment is open for our What, Why, How Online course, and I am sure you expect us to tell you all about the things the last students learned in the last course. However, they’re not the only ones that learned something. We came away from this course with some really interesting observations, which I’d like to share with you here today.
In the previous online course we made several observations:
- Many riders had non-standard horses that didn’t respond well to cookie-cutter training, which had created problems with standard riding lessons. The course allowed them to find individual solutions for their horses so that they were able to get out of their rut.
- Some riders had horses that were only marginally sound at the beginning of the course due to muscular tightness and imbalances. By the end of the course they didn’t show any gait abnormality or signs of unsoundness.
- Some horses were not especially happy with riding or with dressage before the course. By the end of the course they had started taking an interest in the work and were even enjoying it.
- Some horses were very unbalanced in the canter and bolted for the door at the beginning of the course. At the end of the course they were balanced and offered flying changes and half passes.
- Some horses were very spooky and distracted at the beginning of the course, and became much more focused and calm.
- Many riders were insecure before the course, afraid to try anything, afraid to hurt the horse. Through the course they became calmer and more confident because they knew they had acquired the knowledge to diagnose problems and to come up with a solution.
- Riders reported that their tool box expanded exponentially through the course, so that riding became much more interesting and creative, and they didn’t get stuck any more.
- Riders reported that as a result of the course they got much more out of their regular riding lessons because they were able to understand the reasoning behind the instruction much better.
- Riders reported that they had gained a much deeper understanding of dressage as a result of the course and were now able to trace surface level symptoms to their root causes. Mistakes that happened were no longer mysterious.
- Some riders reported that they were able to solve problems through the course and my long distance support that they had not been able to solve in regular riding lessons with an instructor in the arena.
- Some riders said that they learned more in this course than in many years of regular riding lessons (“Why has nobody told me this in the last 30 years?”).
One of the things that make this course so effective is that it gives you a complete systematic overview over the theoretical framework with its individual moving parts and the rules and principles that govern the interaction of its basic components. The theory is complemented by practical gymnastic arena exercises that help you to put the theory into action and to study how the theoretical principles work in practice. The practical exercises help you to understand the theory, and the theory helps you to understand what is happening in the practical exercises. This gives you freedom and independence because you and your horse become your own teachers.
Want to read more about the course, check out all the details here: https://courses.artisticdressage.com/p/what-why-how
