Photo Report from Aspire Grassroots Clinic at Stajnia Sabat, Poland. JUNE 2015

Alison and Gejzer over a simple cavaletti exercise in walk – he takes the “no touching the rails” very seriously 😉

Agata and Galka – here in a self carriage exercise in a very short trot leg yielding towards me. Testing rider’s suppleness and coordination of aids.

Short session with 4 years old PRE mare

Flatwork session with a lovely “heavy” horse who moved as if he had no idea about some cold blood crosses running through his veins 🙂

Flatwork session with a lovely “heavy” horse who moved as if he had no idea about some cold blood crosses running through his veins 🙂

My cousin, Karolina, working on similar exercises as Agata and Galka. Learning about being precise and accurate with shapes of circles and figures of eights to improve self – carriage. The horse chooses his frame to some extent but the rider has to maintain line of travel, tempo and rhythm.

Ola doing some fun coordination exercises to improve the feel for diagonal use of aids.

Chatting with Dominika about her super mare 🙂

De-brief after flatwork session

The Sunday jumping session – working in a line that can be ridden for 3 or 4 strides depending on the length of canter stride chosen by the rider. Here Dominka went for shorter stride that didn’t fit either option leaving Falkata to decide and go for a long one. Very athletic little mare.

Myself with my lovely Mum and 4 years old niece 🙂

Tea time 🙂

More tea time 🙂

Jumping session – understanding a feeling of “uphill canter”

Jumping session de-brief

Karolina and I working on ironing out a postural crookedness through her upper body

Eye to eye with Krater. I am using the whip to touch Karolina when she collapses her upper body to give her proprioceptive reminder about where her seat becomes weak and ineffective.

More posture corrections – here with one stirrups very short and the other foot out of the stirrup to wake up different feels through the pelvis in relation to back motion of the horse.

Flatwork session in the sun 🙂

Ania and Zarys. Jumping session – planning a dog-leg to improve rider’s ability to ride a correct line and tempo – here ending up too close to the left wing.

Jumping session – same line and exercise as with Dominika and Falkata.

Same dog-leg line as above – testing the ability to plan a line and tempo of the canter for most optimal take off before the second jump

Natalia and Jaron – flatwork session

Fabulous weekend. I ended up doing 18 lessons in two days as we added a couple as we went and I am seriously considering investing in a portable sound system that I can use during clinics. We worked in a large outdoor arena so to limit my shouting I walked all the time which gave me a serious amount of steps per day in a rather deep surface 😉

All the riders worked so well and are so eager to learn, I wish I could teach them more often. Alas, next meeting is in October so they have plenty of time to practice what we did during the weekend.

Wx

Through coach’s eye: Reflections Before a Clinic

I know of trainers who can just turn up and teach 20 riders over couple of days without much preparation and I do envy them! 😉 Although I could do it, I always think that a little reflection and some thoughts on the riders I only see twice a year helps me do my job better. Perhaps it’s an illusion and perhaps I run the same content I would have if I didn’t prepare at all but somehow looking through videos from previous clinics and my notes on each rider gives a peace of mind and a feeling that I have done what I could to offer best coaching help I am capable of.

Tomorrow I will hop on a plane to Poland to see some lovely riders whom I last saw 27-28 September 2014 (see photos from the clinic HERE) and meet some new riders who joined the livery yard this year. I can’t prepare much for the new riders since I will see them for the first time but I am spending today re-watching the video footage from September (another great bonus of filming riders! I don’t trust my memory so much to remember what I worked on with each person in detail!).

Here is what I make mental notes of: 

1. How each rider and horse worked over the weekend – general overview (were the exercises useful, was the horse relaxed and content with work load, was the pair challenged enough/too much, what homework did I leave them with etc etc)

2. Skim through details of each exercise so I can see what improvement have been achieved when I see them this weekend

3. Rider’s seat – what did I work on with each rider, what effect it had on the horse. This again lets me compare with the now and make sure I don’t make assumptions.

4. Main training issues of the horse – many a time riders describe a plethora of issues and problems they want to work on but it is not possible to help with them all in one or two sessions so I normally focus on 1-3 aspects that I think have the biggest bearing on other problems. When I re-watch I look with a fresh perspective so when I go now I might have an idea if we focused on the correct thing at the time.

5. Main issues of the rider – as above in horse’s case but although I listed it as fifth, this is the most important focus of all of my clinics. I believe strongly that it’s the rider who needs to know what to do and how to do it in order for the training to have much meaning once the weekend is over.

6. Riders’ goals, ambitions and training needs. Although I have fairly good overall memory of riders’ I teach and once I see them I can recall the core training stuff we did in the past, I do like to reflect on the fact whether MY coaching met their needs and if not, how I can change that.

If you run clinics yourself, how do you prepare for them? If you attend clinics, what are your motivations on joining them? Always curious of your views and ideas 🙂 Please comment away!

All the best,

Wiola

What are YOUR plans for April?

Spring is definitely in the air in many areas of the UK. I am really looking forward to welcoming riders who grabbed the early bird offer on Aspire’s fresh new 2014 courses starting on the 8th of March and hope the sun won’t let us down 🙂 There are a few places still available so if you would like to join in, get in touch  In the meantime, I’ve just looked through my diary to make a rough plan ahead. I prefer to take bookings about 4-6 weeks up front for weekends and intensive training days to help riders plan their work-life-hobbies diaries 🙂

Please feel free to share our April dates with your friends and anyone who is looking for structured, motivational training with horse friendly methods. You can print the poster and pin it to a notice board at your yard too. Bookings from anywhere in the UK & Europe welcome on the weekends listed on the poster.  For more details on our Clinics, Training Days and Weekends please visit: https://aspireequestrian.wordpress.com/aspire-training-diary/ and for info on our 2014 riding courses: https://aspireequestrian.wordpress.com/aspire-academy-2014/

Hope to see you soon but while we are talking plans, what are your training/lessons plans for March and April? What are you hoping to learn or improve?

All the best,

Wiola

What’s better than the crisp, fresh, intensive, Aspire training air ? :)

Beautiful sunny day at work (thank you to Emma for pictures 🙂

Working on lateral flexibility in – hand. Emma learning how to improve the school pony’s ability to bend. She is asking the pony to walk in a shoulder fore position to help him step under his centre of balance with his inside hind leg, contract the left side of his body and relax the right (tight) side.

Emma and Orpheus earning his pat for a few good steps

Emma and Orpheus later in the lesson. She stays out of the saddle to help the pony as he tends to drop his back and basic engagement. She is learning to feel for more quality steps that in turn help Orpheus with his balance.

Gemma on straight lines mission…Learning to ride the horse straight in light seat and on a given line without overusing the reins for steering

Working on suppleness in sitting trot

Aspire Coaching Weekend 17-19 May 2013. Photo Snippets.

Learning turn on the forehand in-hand

Building awareness through visual feedback

Learning turn on the forehand in-hand

Ridden work after in-hand work. Using the knowledge from groundwork to achieve better gymnastic results