Crazy Things Your 'Old School' Instructor Used To Make You Do?

SallyBatty said:
How on earth do you mount with no hands? Have you got any pictures/videos?
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Sadly no pics, I couldn't do it now, but I could then. You need very good core muscles and excellent balance, I used to get folk to do it because it helps make them realise how much they haul themselves up rather than spring up. Really your hands should only be steadying you, not pulling you. Easier said than done though.
 
Best way of describing how I do it these days is: run the stirrups up, undo the girth making sure you pull it up on to the saddle, move yourself so you are perched in front of the saddle while shifting the saddle back a bit so you are briefly sitting on the horse's withers, push the saddle back a bit more, move yourself back into position and then you can turn the top half of your body round to grab the saddle and then either place it on a fence or pass it to a friend.

You do need a patient horse who doesn't mind a bit of wriggling about on top of it.

Must admit I'm not very elegant when I do it as I'm definitely not as agile as I used to be. I did teach my daughter to do it as well although I'm not sure she would try it on her new horse!
 
I saw a cavalry person doing this last time I went past the arena in Hyde Park, SallyBatty. He wasn't very elegant either. I did wonder what on earth he was doing, so thanks :) know I'm just wondering why?
 
PingPongPony said:
My old instructor also used cups of water with jumping, but she started using them with trotting at first, to keep my hands still.
She also used to ask us to bring some 'spending money' in £5 notes. She'd stick them between the horse and our lower leg and tell us that if we dropped it, we aren't allowed to pick it up, it definitely made you keep your leg on the horse and keep it still, it also encouraged squeezing not kicking :) Of course the instructor used to arrange all this with our parents and would only ask them to bring the lesson money in £5 notes change and what we dropped she's collect and it'd be her payment for lesson anyway, then parents would make up the rest if needed, but at the time me and the others thought it was real and we were always really sorry that we lost mummy's and daddys money, but we promised we'd do better next time :)
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Gosh yes I can remember having to do this........... also you had to drop your reins and THEN remove your stirrup leathers from the saddle in all paces. By heck, we were made of stern stuff in them thar days :)
 
I remember in my teens cantering round in a group lesson kneeling on the saddle (stirrup-less, obvs) - on a 16-hands-ish nutty ex point-to-pointer that bucked. No idea how I stayed on!
 
My first riding instructor would not let you stop to adjust your stirrups or girth. If you went into the centre of the arena to do either of these she would yell to get back in line because if you're out hunting no one is going to stop the hunt so that YOU can adjust your stirrups/girth. I learned to adjust the stirrups with my foot in the iron while doing rising trot or at canter. To this day I can not adjust my stirrups if I take my foot out of the iron. I have frequently had reason to thank her over the years for teaching me this skill and I am the only person I know who does this.

Another thing she used have us do, at trot, is to try to touch your knees above the saddle (obviously, we were riding without stirrups). Then we had to lower our legs without touching the sides of the horse. It was brilliant for balance.
 
SallyBatty said:
Best way of describing how I do it these days is: run the stirrups up, undo the girth making sure you pull it up on to the saddle, move yourself so you are perched in front of the saddle while shifting the saddle back a bit so you are briefly sitting on the horse's withers, push the saddle back a bit more, move yourself back into position and then you can turn the top half of your body round to grab the saddle and then either place it on a fence or pass it to a friend.

You do need a patient horse who doesn't mind a bit of wriggling about on top of it.

Must admit I'm not very elegant when I do it as I'm definitely not as agile as I used to be. I did teach my daughter to do it as well although I'm not sure she would try it on her new horse!
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Going to have a go at this tomorrow! I think my horse will be okay, if not I'll just ended up on the floor :p

ZondaR - I also can't do my stirrups if I take my foot out of the iron but that's something I only picked up through working in racing, no one ever taught me it at the riding school. It's definitely a useful skill I think :)
 
Loving the old school torture stories
Anyone have to do a perfect 20m circle - you're tied to a lunge line held by satan/instructor in the centre. Stops you drifting out, cos he'll pull you out of the saddle if you do. Very obvious if your drifting in when you see the slack appearing in the line.

I also remember the cure for open fingers was holding a pebble - which i had to produce at the end of the lesson as proof my hands were closed, i used to put pebbles in my pocket so i could cheat if i dropped one, to avoid a boll**king
 
Not something my instructor used to make us do but I couldn't sleep the other night and was thinking about all the crazy things me and my friends did on our ponies when we were younger, he's just a few...

1) thought it was a good idea to sit on backwards bareback and lead each other over small jumps... WHY?!
2) cantering down grass verges, jumping the metal rectangular roadworks signs left out by the council
3) making jumps out of just about anything - plastic chairs, cones, using rugs slung over a pole as a filler... painting doors to use as fillers. No wonder the ponies were unphased by anything!
 
There is an instructor at the next door riding school (mum of two daughters ) who is to my mind fantastic modern ,old school . She will ocasionaly just tug a kid off a pony and bounce them on the ground . She has the perfect eye for those that can take the joke and those that cant. The kids love her lessons. In her own time and money she is training elsewhere ,professionaly and gaining reccognised qualifications.Thank god there are still some out there to replace the old uns
 
Feel like I learnt to ride a decade or two too late! No wonder my riding is so substandard and I'm such a wuss :p
Though to be fair we do have an instructor who's quite good at this kind of things (though I fear she's going soft!).
When I still had my lad I used to some of these things (because despite he's enthusiasm, being strong and fairly gungho he was as safe as a house) so I could get away with attempting to vault on him, messing around jumping bareback with no reins etc. Instructor used to get people to ride and jump in jockey length stirrups to get them to go with the horse but it the extra freedom of not having a bum in the saddle used to really fry the wires in my lads head so I missed out a few times :p
She still does the riding with reins upside down, riding with a whip behind arms, riding with a whip tucked under both thumbs etc but all very sedate. A
Come to think of it, a dressage instructor I sometimes go to often gets me to warm up with my eyes closed.

If I can talk my way into nabbing a ride on a sane horse I'll have to ditch the stirrups and reins!
 
Jumping with no stirrups or reins and once unbuckling my reins and tying cotton from rein buckles to bit rings. It was to teach me relax my seat. It did work... only because she was the last horse on the planet you'd want to ride with cotton reins!!

Used to love round the world half and full scissors... also dismounting by sliding backwards off ponies bum (depending on the pony you were riding at the time)

One I didn't like was endless trotting with knees held up towards my shoulders.
 
well I'm old enough to have gone through some of these if I could have had a pony when I was little..:( But I love this thread and having only ridden for two years have started trying some..so far whip under thumbs and last week 10 minutes bareback riding...it was amazing..and hard!! All the young girls at the stables came out to stare at me. LOL
 
_GG_ said:
we used to have to ride walk, trot and canter, holding the reins and a tray with mugs of water on. The aim was to not drop mugs or spill water. very very difficult but it teaches you to allow your hands to move with the motion of the horse, not jab them in the mouth or bob your hands around :)
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^ I had to do this too along with most of the other stuff mentioned! We also had to do rising trot with no stirrups!
 
I was petrified, genuinely petrified of my RI back in the early 90's.

However, Mrs.M at Drakes Farm RS, you were the making of me!!! and I really thank you for that :)
 
Even having learnt to ride in the last few years I have done a lot of this... Rising trot without stirrups is a killer... and competitions of who can stand up with their feet in the stirrup leathers for the longest while cantering round - no not forward position - standing up straight- the horse seems a long way away!
 
-Rose- said:
Even having learnt to ride in the last few years I have done a lot of this... Rising trot without stirrups is a killer... and competitions of who can stand up with their feet in the stirrup leathers for the longest while cantering round - no not forward position - standing up straight- the horse seems a long way away!
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Doesn't half improve balance though.
 
puppystitch said:
I still do some of these now - I often cross my stirrups for the last 10 minutes or so. I do think our school ponies must have been absolute saints though!

We also used to play Cowboys and Indians when we were really little - it was a bit like 'Tag', the instructor divided us into two teams and we would charge about the indoor school trying to touch someone from the opposite team with our whips. If you got touched you were out. I would LOVE to play this even now!
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We used to play this and a sort of netballxhorseball game involving chucking a beanbag while trying to get to goal at the ends of the school. The horse I rode used to cheat by pulling really fearsome faces at anyone coming close to tackling and getting the beanbag! This was about 13 years ago and we were all middleaged at the time. Grat fun.
 
If the lesson was in the field, the ride would stay on the top circle, you would canter down the hill, along a flat bit and back up the hill, then canter past the ride, who were trotting, join the back of the ride and trot on, this was often done without irons. Does mean that collecting rings and the 'go round' at ridden shows hold little fear!
 
Cheshire Chestnut said:
I can rememeber jumping with no reins, hands out to the side holding cups of water - we'd be shouted at if it spilled!
Other things included jumping bareback without reins (hands out to the side again - no water involved this time), riding backwards (why?!)
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God, I must be old that I can now comment on these sorts of posts (no offence!). I remember doing all these things too, but also "round the worlds", had to do those all the time including at the trot which was easy as a kid but like hell would I ever try that now. I'd often jump on the ponies and go for a canter round the field in just a headcollar and leadrope - that ended when one pony took off with me along a fence line and I landed on a fence post, the bruise on my leg was most impressive. Oh, and a different pony chucked me on a barbed wire fence while I was jumping something ridiculous bareback (4ft jump made of long sticks instead of poles as I didnt have any then! On a 13.2hh!!), ended up with stitches after that one and still bear the scars all over my back! Those were the days ;)

I also remember going to a couple of agricultural shows with my instructor when I was really young and she would stop a mile away from the show so we could hop out and hide in the trailer with the horses so we'd get in for free ;) I believe they cottoned onto that soon after and started checking trailers (darn!).

It saddens me that these fun things don't happen anymore due to health and safety and that my almost-2yo son won't experience all the fun I had.
 
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