Have You Ever Had A Bad Instructor?

[Mithras]

I had a few awful lessons once, culminating in one where he critiicised my horse bitterly, told me to jab her inthe mouth to make her listen, circle her so quickly she almost fell and basically she got all worked up and started knocking every jump down in an almost panic. I remember in that lesson being stuck in a sort of damage limitation hoping it would end mode. He seemed in a foul mood that day. Unfortunately a few days later I took my horse over the jumps on my own with a view to calming her down, but she was still so upset she ended up falling with me over an upright, kicking me in the back of the head and standing on my arm as she got up. Miraculously neither of us suffered any long term harm. We gave up lessons for about a year and just worked on our own, making plenty of mistakes but still doign reasonably well. Fortunatley I now have a fab instructor whose criticism is constructive, not abusive, and who gives me things to do which are very effective in sorting out things I might be doing wrong.

The awful lesson happened when I was at a yard run by a very strange woman who would only let 2 instructors teach there. A somewhat bizarre scenario when you think about it!