Friday - day off!

Due to Hamlet being unsound I found myself having a day off all of a sudden! My house certainly benefited from hoovered carpets and thorough cleaning in the afternoon and myself - well, I am still rather depressed about having had to withdraw from Mattingley. The event doesn't hold a waiting list which means nobody who withdraws will be refunded. That's bad.


The morning welcomed us with grey sky and substantially lower temperature but that meant "our" gardens would be relatively free of only-sunny-weather-outdoors-lovers. Excellent! Ricky and I decided to have breakfast in the park and it was a great idea - very relaxing and peaceful.

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For those of you who wonder whether to buy Mary Wanless' new book "The new Ride with your mind clinic" I wrote about HERE - I finished it yesterday and personally found it very interesting. I am going to re-read it making some notes this time as there are so many ideas in there that it was impossible to remember all after reading once. I am actually thinking of attending one of Mary's Teacher Trainings but considering they cost a small fortune it will take me a while to save up to cover the costs...It looks like they are organised once a year in September.
Mary's system "Ride With Your Mind" basically tells you HOW things are really done and not WHAT needs to be done. She challenges the old-fashioned riding tuition which does not offer much insight into how rider's and horse's bodies cooperate and influence one another. For those of you who never heard of Mary Wanless, have a look at the Coaching Articles under "Read and Learn" on her website: http://www.mary-wanless.com/.
The articles are fairly old and she has since further improved on some ideas. I read her very first book a few years ago (the new version of it is called 'Ride with Your Mind Essentials') and started testing the system on myself to start with. I gained much more awareness of what I was actually doing on the horse to get certain results which in turn helped me while teaching. What I like the most about Mary's system is that it is technical yet very purposeful - exactly the way I prefer to teach. It saves the horse and it helps the rider. Definitely recommend.
One of Mary's most famous pupils is Heather Blitz, American GP Dressage rider.

Heather Blitz riding Otto in Amsterdam, Jan 2008:


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