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glenatronIt's been a long but fun weekend. Yesterday, after visiting the ponies and setting them up for the day we went off for some riding lessons with a teacher who has been recommended to us by our friend Kerin, who owns Zorro.
It would be fair to say that the instructor, a gentleman by the name of Julian Marczak, knows a huge amount about how to teach people to ride. In fact he very literally wrote the book on it. He is exactly the way you might hope a classical english riding master would be; classy, charming and brilliant at making you feel positive about your riding. He was a student of Charles Harris, the first british equestrian to be accepted into the Spanish Riding School and he teaches in very much that way.
His teaching starts from the priniciple that the single most important thing you need to learn about is having an independant seat so initially all lessons are on the lunge, working on getting the rider's posture exactly correct, enabling them to move their arms freely without moving their body and to use exactly the movement the horse gives them without adding to it or suppressing it. Yesterday's lesson was half in halt, half in walk, all of it without stirrups.
Because we were working on the lunge and there was no need to be worrying about getting the horse moving or steering we were able to work at getting our positions absolutely correct. It took a lot of concentration to work through the exercises, especially when we were doing them with our eyes closed. Although my balance is usually pretty good I was finding that with my eyes closed I would sometimes lose the rhythm of the movement at which point my thighs were tending to tense slightly and I would start to lose my confidence in my ability to stay upright, which was interesting.
By the end of the lesson (we had two consecutive half hour lessons) both of us were sitting taller and more correctly than I think we ever have and genuinely feeling like given time and instruction at this standard we could get pretty good at this riding thing.
Amazingly the lessons cost no more than they would at any other normal riding school.
We're planning to keep going there at least fortnightly over the winter to try and get that position and way of riding into habit so we can work with it more on our horses as the weather picks up towards summer next year.
After that we went on to visit Kerin, meet her new horse (she bought the little Trakehner filly we went to see a few weeks back ) and visit Joe who is living on her yard now.
It was really nice to see dear old Patch pony again and to see just how happy he is in his field with Kerin's sweet but timid rescue mare. He was full of beans and bounce and covered in mud. Apparently living on clay is much better than living on sand if your hobby is rolling in skank. Little Trakehner had learned the same thing, having rolled in mud and then rolled again in oak leaves so she looked a bit like some kind of autumn collage. She is an amazingly sweet natured and accepting little horse ( but going to be a big horse, judging by how far off the ground her bum is now ) who is currently following Kerin's older mare around like a little shadow.
I would have offered pictures but the light and weather conditions weren't entirely conducive.
In the evening we stayed over for dinner with Kerin and her husband, who is an amazing cook and a fellow music geek and bass player. Dinner was delicious and a lot of wine was drunk. And some Amaretto was drunk. And some people were drunk.
We dragged ourselves home this morning through horrible sideways rain, said hello to ponies and wandered home to have a bit of a sleep.
All in all it was a pretty awesome weekend.
It would be fair to say that the instructor, a gentleman by the name of Julian Marczak, knows a huge amount about how to teach people to ride. In fact he very literally wrote the book on it. He is exactly the way you might hope a classical english riding master would be; classy, charming and brilliant at making you feel positive about your riding. He was a student of Charles Harris, the first british equestrian to be accepted into the Spanish Riding School and he teaches in very much that way.
His teaching starts from the priniciple that the single most important thing you need to learn about is having an independant seat so initially all lessons are on the lunge, working on getting the rider's posture exactly correct, enabling them to move their arms freely without moving their body and to use exactly the movement the horse gives them without adding to it or suppressing it. Yesterday's lesson was half in halt, half in walk, all of it without stirrups.
Because we were working on the lunge and there was no need to be worrying about getting the horse moving or steering we were able to work at getting our positions absolutely correct. It took a lot of concentration to work through the exercises, especially when we were doing them with our eyes closed. Although my balance is usually pretty good I was finding that with my eyes closed I would sometimes lose the rhythm of the movement at which point my thighs were tending to tense slightly and I would start to lose my confidence in my ability to stay upright, which was interesting.
By the end of the lesson (we had two consecutive half hour lessons) both of us were sitting taller and more correctly than I think we ever have and genuinely feeling like given time and instruction at this standard we could get pretty good at this riding thing.
Amazingly the lessons cost no more than they would at any other normal riding school.
We're planning to keep going there at least fortnightly over the winter to try and get that position and way of riding into habit so we can work with it more on our horses as the weather picks up towards summer next year.
After that we went on to visit Kerin, meet her new horse (she bought the little Trakehner filly we went to see a few weeks back ) and visit Joe who is living on her yard now.
It was really nice to see dear old Patch pony again and to see just how happy he is in his field with Kerin's sweet but timid rescue mare. He was full of beans and bounce and covered in mud. Apparently living on clay is much better than living on sand if your hobby is rolling in skank. Little Trakehner had learned the same thing, having rolled in mud and then rolled again in oak leaves so she looked a bit like some kind of autumn collage. She is an amazingly sweet natured and accepting little horse ( but going to be a big horse, judging by how far off the ground her bum is now ) who is currently following Kerin's older mare around like a little shadow.
I would have offered pictures but the light and weather conditions weren't entirely conducive.
In the evening we stayed over for dinner with Kerin and her husband, who is an amazing cook and a fellow music geek and bass player. Dinner was delicious and a lot of wine was drunk. And some Amaretto was drunk. And some people were drunk.
We dragged ourselves home this morning through horrible sideways rain, said hello to ponies and wandered home to have a bit of a sleep.
All in all it was a pretty awesome weekend.