My Training Days' feedback from Henry XVIII !!

I guess the title might be a bit cryptic so let me explain. A month ago an actor turned up for a lesson with me in order to prepare him for a role of the young King Henry the XVIII. I asked him how long did he have and he said: 'A month'...!!!
So for the last several weeks we worked rather hard running the future king through a very condensed but very thorough riding education process.

I received a couple of thank you lines tonight saying the 'horse scenes' "went smoothly" :) Looks like the Training Days work as well for beginners as they do for more advanced riders!

All my February dates are now taken and I am starting taking the bookings for March so hope to hear from you guys out there!

Twenty four hours in a drizzle

I think we entered rainy season on this non tropical island! It was raining ALL day today with not even a tiny break. Thankfully all my teaching and riding today was indoors.

Just a few pics from the day.

This fellow is coming back into work and is on walk and trot exercise. He was quite adventurous to ride a few weeks ago but was like a donkey today. An all important scratch after being ridden:

My other ride of the day, a blue-eyed lady who had me on the floor once but we are getting there and she made me work hard today (think our arena mirrors need cleaning ;):



And a short visit to my friend's youngster; he really did enjoy all the attention ;)

When I grow up...

4pm ish

- So, P., did you enjoy your ride today?
P. looks at me intensely and there is an expression of deep thought on his face. He's 10 years old with lots of funny black curly hair escaping from underneath his riding hat, smart little kid who has been riding with me for a year.
- Yeah, I did - he pauses and glances up at the pony, then me again.
- What's up? Let's take your pony to...
- Miss - he steps in - when I grow up I am going to do what you do, I am going to be a riding instructor, as good as you...And I am going to have so much fun like you do.
That shuts me up for a moment. I can't help but smile. I look at my muddy boots, feel my hands getting really cold as I forgot my gloves, think about the hours I spent this morning to revenue & customs trying to sort out some update I need to file my self assessment online and which they forgot to make on my file, I think of the teaching hours still in front of me as I am doing late night tonight and I say:
- That's cool P., that really is great, you got to do what you love in life, then you will be mega happy. And now, let's take this dear pony back to his stable...
He looks up at me again:
- I am serious - and he smiles.

Got to love my job ;)

Some more interesting lines from the book I am reading now:

"Relaxation [of the horse] is the underlying quality required for all developmental stages [...]. Any time spent on a tense horse is detrimental to him. The horse learns, then habituates, all of his activities. Thus, doing any work with a tense horse will promote the learning of incorrect habits."

Greedy me

Just had these super tasty crepes! I am not normally crazy about food but give my anything pancakes like and I would certainly not say no ;)

The Charles De Kunffy book I wrote about in the post below is proving equally addictive to read as crepes to eat!

Some interesting lines so far:

"'Feel' is predominantly an ability to physically seek harmony through the most accommodating position of togetherness".

"There comes a day, and later on perhaps every day, when one feels that one looses the awareness of skills. We become unaware of ourselves, become oblivious to our aids and whatever the limbs, the torso, and musculature are doing. We become absorbed in an effort that seems independent of the senses and so thoroughly effortless that it suggests a feeling of being in a dream where we can ride for the first time without awareness of effort. When we no longer feel busy, we have entered the artistic experience. And there we find the motion, the flight, the suspension that eluded us before but now begins to flow almost in spite of ourselves...[...] Often, instruction spoils the chance for the artistic experience of the rider. Instruction, indispensable for the teaching of riding skills, is no longer necessary during the artistic effort. As in painting, once the artist has learned to use the tools of the craft from his master, he no longer finds use for the overseer [...]. Therefore, in artistic rider, silence is essential. When the rider succeeds in harmony, it is not done verbally but as a multidimensional effort."

I haven't come across that sort of view before and I am thinking that maybe that is why I feel that I only get the best out my lessons after I have ridden through them on my own the next day...If I think about it I am only ever pleased with my results if I truly feel the horse responding and that is usually only when I just switch off the outside world and go 'into' the horse's motion.

This is not to say I think I got to the stage in my riding that De Kunffy is talking about, I am still way below that level. I still cannot switch off like that every time I ride and often am distracted by people talking, instructing etc But there are moments...when I ride a horse I connect well with or when people around are those who trust me with their horses and I know they know I won't do anything to make things worse...then I can just focus entirely on what I feel in the horse and it all feels effortless indeed. I wish it happened more often...

Reading This Week - Charles De Kunffy

Cold and Wet

All the best to...

M. who is starting her new job at assouline-dressage. Hope all goes well and I will certainly miss our Thursday rides! Who am I going to be telling off for being arrogant now, hey?? ;)

Maybe Rome wasn't built in a day...

...but some excellent foundations can be laid in just that time! I am thoroughly enjoying running my daily training days and I can say with confidence they are making remarkable difference to the skills of all the riders I have seen through the days so far.
They are not only an excellent occasion for me to fully assess my riders' strengths and weaknesses but also for the riders themselves to work on those.

I think providing training of this sort is the direction I would like my teaching to go in at the moment...

......................................................................................................................

It is at times positively overwhelming and very touching how much some people mean to us, how much they can help us by just being around and giving us a hug, how much it means to know they are willing to always be there if we need them, how much it means they will listen...

Fun Day

Despite the cold and a horrid journey home I had a fab day today. A bit of challenging teaching plus some fun with Reading Uni lessons and a bit of roaming around Berkshire countryside.

Reading Uni riders on a hack

Don't you just...

....feel old some of those days? Not because of some glossy magazine like, some-point-in life crisis or because of any particular traumatic event. What makes me feel old are people who behave as if their life was the belly button of the universe and who cannot let go of their own selfishness . I talk to them, look at them, listen to them and wonder: how, while you are so much older than me, are you so much more immature (?) in so many ways?

But what makes me feel old most of all is when I realise that it is no longer that difficult to keep some feelings and emotions behind velvety curtain of amazingly genuine smile. I watch children play with ponies, their joy, anger and sorrow so powerful, uninhibited, in your face like.

And there is me who can isolate her hauling dogs in a sound-proof room so well you can stay at my house without even knowing the room existed...you won't even know I have any dogs.

The thought of letting them loose, letting them bark and cry out loud crosses my mind for a short moment but I know you might be afraid of dogs. The moment is gone. Without regret. Without pressure. And that's when I feel old.

But then, the truth is: [Anais Nin] We do not grow absolutely, chronologically. We grow sometimes in one dimension, and not in another; unevenly. We grow partially. We are relative. We are mature in one realm, childish in another. The past, present, and future mingle and pull us backward, forward, or fix us in the present. We are made up of layers, cells, constellations.

Just about the most certain thing I can say about my good old self is that at least I have a job that equals play. And someone once said that we don't stop playing because we grow old; We grow old because we stop playing! (or something in those lines anyway;).

So I will see you all tomorrow ;))

Video from one of my riders!

This is why I persevere with some places where really I probably shouldn't as it doesn't add much to my career as such. I do it for the riders though, those who really want to learn and who I love teaching.
Thank you Pip! You are going to be very good one day...just keep riding.



And this is what I deal with on Sundays ;) Pip, I think I need to charge you for the rights to use my voice ha ha (joking!!). And yes, it is me riding that tiny pony, oh dear!

Days off are for...

resting*catching up with reading*having a nap midday*write answers to some quality assurance quizzes you get at work*think about how to improve your riders*plan the content of next training courses*popping out for a coffee*just resting :)

Why write?

I am reading this book now (more on the author). There is this fragment in it that stayed with me for some time since I left the page it was on: [...] I'd see it and then I'd write about it as a way of understanding it better. That is what I always used writing for. To make sense of things [...].

The book has this woman-writer as one of the main characters and the reason the above sentences stayed with me is that they describe one my views on writing so well. I used to write a lot. Short stories, long stories, essays, non-classified pieces of "literary" fiction, you name it. I would just sit and write and disappear in my own world. Not for anybody to read, I guess I tend to think my floating thoughts are not necessarily interesting to anyone, but just for myself so I could see it from that written perspective.

I no longer write nearly as much but there are times, at evenings or nights, when I just feel like I have to translate all those thoughts into little black letters...I don't sort them, just let them flow and write them down. I re-read them later usually concluding to myself: "what on earth were you thinking?????" ;)

In a way, this blog is also here for the very reason of making sense of everyday events.

The Ultimate teacher - the horse??

Question: How fast can a pony run on a lunge?

Answer: VERY, VERY FAST!

Yes, it was sunny today indeed but not at all that great...The best tool of a riding instructor is a well behaved, well schooled pony. On some days some of my tools are in need of substantial repair...!!
Following this analogy, if you are, let's say, a carpenter and work with kitchen utensils, then whatever you are building is not going to have much quality or substance.
And however you try and whatever you do that spoon is not going to help you in building a house.

It makes me feel frustrated as well as helpless and angry while I try to construct that fine piece of furniture using forks, rolling pins and balloon whisks! And I try to be patient, I really do but sometimes I really do have enough.
I got to give it to my riders though as they never give up, keep trying and even try to defend my tools...go figure.
They either have more belief in the power of kitchen utensils or my ability to miraculously change them into sophisticated woodworking tools.

To make today even more cheerful I am feeling a bit run down - great! Just stuffed myself with aspirin, some Polish medicines, I am tucked in in bed and am planning to stay here for the foreseeable future ;)