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Post by horseguy on Feb 29, 2016 13:26:25 GMT
My old farm website is still up. As a result I am getting the usual spring new student inquires. For that reason I am making a list for prospective students of what to look for in an instructor in order to spare them some of the awful experiences people have when looking for a lesson barn. My list so far is:
A good riding instructor:
teaches one or two disciplines, not "everything", i.e. English, western, dressage, etc.
asks you about your riding goals
wants to evaluate your physical agility and strength before putting you in a lesson group
Has competed successfully in their specialty(s)
keeps a clean safe barn with clear rules
has very experienced lesson horses
has been teaching for more than 10 years
Please add to this list if you have ideas. Thanks.
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Post by rideforever on Feb 29, 2016 22:39:33 GMT
I think that you might find the work has already been done for you. I did a quick internet search and found a bunch of good articles. They cover all of your points plus more.
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Post by jacki on Mar 1, 2016 1:17:48 GMT
The list is a good start. However, in light of past experience and others' posts elsewhere in the forum, I think there are some students who don't know/appreciate a good instructor when they have one. Perhaps it is erroneous preconceptions of horses/riding/their own abilities, etc. Maybe they should also ask what the instructor looks for in his/her students. There is an old saying "Those who can't - teach" -- not every expert rider or horseman is a good teacher - the ability to teach is separate from riding expertise or horsemanship and is somewhat of a gift, I think. And not every student is willing to put in the time and effort needed to achieve their goals or accept "criticism" (for lack of a better term - I'm having a senior moment!)
Things every prospective riding student should have:
an informed idea of what "riding" is
focus
some degree of fitness or willingness to work to improve an area of weakness
respect for the instructor and the rules of the barn
commitment to regular lessons - including being on time, etc.
*Note - I can only say this in hindsight, following years of real, expert instruction from Horseguy. When I took my young daughter for her first lesson years ago, I had no idea what real riding entailed. I never really thought about it, but I figured it was mostly learning how to balance on a moving horse without falling off! I had taken her older brother and sister to a barn years earlier for lessons, and they consisted of sitting on a horse and trotting around in a circle on a lead rope for half an hour while the "instructor" told them to "bounce up and down" (posting). Needless to say, the kids were bored stiff and they didn't stick with it long. And we had gone on trail rides a couple times - in Florida on vacation and a tour of Gettysburg Battlefield - on horses that followed the leader on a trail they rode every day; no skill required. I never heard of things like lead changes, "aids", "cues", etc., basically how much communication there could be between horse and rider. I learned more from watching one of Laura's lessons than I had ever known about horses. And not just about riding skills, but things like horse psychology/behavior, care, nutrition, safety, etc. Later, as she became a working student, she even learned to drive a tractor!
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Post by rideanotherday on Mar 1, 2016 11:51:14 GMT
A good instructor is also actively pursuing bettering their own skills - clinics / lessons etc.
A good instructor fits lessons to the student and paces according to development. Some people are happy in cookie cutter settings, some do not do well and an instructor should be able to tell the difference. A good instructor progresses their students.
I worked at a lesson barn and watched lessons when I could. The same people were there for years and never got better, never progressed. Why? I'm sure some of it was a lack of drive of the students. Some of it was lack of push from the instructor.
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Post by jacki on Mar 1, 2016 22:36:01 GMT
"A good instructor fits lessons to the student and paces according to development. Some people are happy in cookie cutter settings, some do not do well and an instructor should be able to tell the difference. A good instructor progresses their students."
Dittos. Bob always seemed to know when to push a student and when to go more slowly. After only a handful of lessons, a lesson pony bolted with my daughter on her back (rider error) - at 60-pounds soaking wet, she did not have the body mass to effectively halt the runaway mare and eventually fell off. She was not hurt, but she was shaken, and she could not get on that pony without making the pony nervous. She did not want to ride any horse after that, but she did not want to "give up" horses either. So Bob let her come out to the barn all winter (for free!) and just "be" around horses - grooming, feeding, helping give shots, etc. All the while, he continued to teach her about horse psychology, behavior, etc., yet he told me that she might not every ride again, and if she did, she would probably be a timid rider. In the spring, he told her he needed someone small/lightweight to help get an overweight pony in shape and asked if she would help. That got her back in the saddle. Not only did she help get that pony in shape, she learned to jump, canter, etc. Since then, she and the pony who "threw" her became the best of friends, and Bob started calling her "Hot Rod" as she put the reins in one hand so she could keep the branches away from her face with the other as they raced through the woods! She learned quickly and bounced from lesson group to lesson group as she advanced, riding all types of different horses and learning more technical skills. Years later, she has become a very skilled rider (but always wanting to learn more), and a GREAT instructor made all the difference!
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Post by horseguy on Mar 2, 2016 15:18:02 GMT
I always try to remember as a teacher how I began riding. I was 6 years old and there was a man who taught riding nearby who had a reputation for growing character in his students. I was not an easy child. My mother found me to be too much to handle after having a more easy time with my older brother. I was most likely ADD or ADHD. It was eight years after WW2 where my had been a sergeant. My instructor was a former Cavalry officer from the previous war. I believe these two vbeterans made a pact to "make a man of me", which translated to my following military discipline. So, I was sent to a riding school not so much to become a rider but to brought under control.
I was given an older Thoroughbred to ride. Being small for my age, the horse seemed enormous. Given the military context of the barn, complaints were irrelevant. I was black and blue for years from kicks, but the end result was that to this day I can mount any kicking horse. As a gift to my mother, I received lessons when school was out sometimes five days a week and was offered as a free day laborer. My fondest memory of my instructor telling me something about horses was the one time I did complain of the kicking, in an FYI non-complaining sort of way, when my he said, "There is something the matter with every horse. That's what's the matter with yours." OK, I thought, as I said thank you. Once mounted, my horse was the best. But I was not the best.
We rode in groups of four to six riders mostly over terrain. I'd say skill-wise I was in the middle to bottom of the group. I was slow to learn and I think it was then that I learned to learn from my horse. He made me look better than I knew I was. This memory is what I try very hard to keep in mind when teaching. I try to see the student's struggle and how a horse can work the student through their learning challenges. If I have a student who is sloppy, they get one of those horses that requires the exact correct cue or they ignore the rider. If I get a student who is athletically challenged, they get a horse that stays under them regardless of the rider's imbalance, and so on. If I asked what was the best aspect of my lesson barn, I would have to say the lesson horse string. We had the right horse/teacher for almost every rider, and some of the horses could play more that one role as teacher. My job was to match the horses and riders and help the students learn for the horses, which often meant getting out of the way of that process.
Remembering how difficult it was to learn to ride and to keep up with the boys who seemed to learn everything immediately is what I think made me a useful teacher. Having a cross country course on the farm brought me many students interested in eventing. We are blessed here in Pennsylvania to have a great many Olympic level eventing barns and there are more in nearby Virginia. I regularly sent better students off to lessons or clinics with some of these Olympic riders. There was one Olympian in particular who was one of the best riders but could not teach. This rider is perhaps one of the most gifted riders I have ever seen. I suspect that like the boys I rode with on the 50s, he got every bit of what the instructor taught immediately. I saw this rider go into a sunken road at the Rolex (a drop into a flat 2 stride, as if crossing a road, and then up a bank). The horse stalled in the landing. This rider rebalance this tentative horse, generated impressive impulsion out of the stall and rode up the bank dead in the saddle, as if to say, I'm with you boy all the way. Brilliant piece of improvised riding, but every student I sent to this Olympian came back saying it was a waste of money and time, but a pleasant experience nonetheless. I think a good instructor had to struggle somewhat to learn, in order to become a good instructor.
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Post by horseguy on Mar 16, 2016 15:49:23 GMT
I think the single most critical skill a riding instructor can have is to be able sort out what the rider needs to work on in the moment. A good instructor looks at a rider and sees multiple issues to address. A common issue would be the rider holding tension at a specific place or places in their body, which limits their ability to move with their horse's motion. Another would be the incorrect use of upper body balance, such as leaning into a turn as you would on a bike, which disturbs the horse's balance in a bend. Or it could be a lack of control of the extremities resulting in constant movement and touching of the horse with the legs and banging on the horse's mouth with the bit, thus creating an environment of "noise" that the horse must sort through to "hear" and aid.  The list of issues to address in order to improve a rider is typically long. An effective instructor must look at the entire list of issues for a student and pick the top one or two issues that will move the rider forward in their progress in the present moment. It is all too common for inexperienced instructors to give the rider too many issues, and try to address them all at once. This confuses the student and it can be overwhelming. Students must address only a few issues and in a way that they can feel progress. The way to give a student a feeling of progress is to pick issues that have the most bang for the buck on that lesson day but still stay within the longer line of curriculum that must be taught. In my experience, it requires many years of teaching to fully develop this skill. |
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