Have You Ever Had A Bad Instructor?

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soph21

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just thought i would see if anyone else has had bad experiences with instuctors?
i had a crap instructer for a while when i was riding my friends 17hh horse. she told my to ride with my legs right back, it looked a bit like when someones jumping! it was awful!
Aramis (the horse) was VERY LAZY, so she used to chase us round with a LUNGE WHIP and once she cracked it off on his feet and he bucked like iv never had a buck!! and she found it hilarious! that was the final straw i'll try and work out how to put dvd's form camcorder on computer and show you his lovely bucks!!!!

i live in cornwall.

sophie xxx
 
I had a poor instructor however there are lots of people that like this person. I got told to send my horse to a professional to back as it wasnt going to happen me doing it on my own with said instructor - only because she wouldnt walk and trot off the lunge on her 2nd time of being sat on.
Changed instructors and my horse was backed on my own with his help
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I had an instructor who's only comment was that I needed to put on some weight and my horse needed to lose some! Needless to say that was my first and last lesson with her!
 
I've had several...but mostly when I was younger. My parents weren't inclined to spend much money on riding lessons for me, so I rode at a lot of what i'd call "comedy riding schools", which tended to be run on a shoestring and generally didn't have qualified instructors. i had one who sat on a little folding stool in the middle of the school, never got off it and just yelled instructions at us all the time. I hated her and I hated that riding school, but I was so desperate to ride I never told my parents that I hated it.
 
went to a local XC clinic with well know instructor few years ago. She was useless and to top it we fell off and i broke my ankle ( didt know at the time) and she didnt cheeck to see if i was ok, dismissed the incident and we all moved on. Worse thing was i went for help in the water and when it came to me she said we didnt have time and I would have to come again.

Shes rubbish and i dont hear much good about her!
 
At a certain RS in east sussex yes. Group lessons were not on ability. Our lesson had 3 of us that could walk, trot canter. A seven year old who could trot. A 6 year old on the lead rein as well as a 10 year old that had never ridden!

They did nothing but just tell you to canter to the back thats all they said, then if they felt lazy they would end the lesson early and take you on a "doddle" up the path in walk!
 
Some instructors are not very good, and some you just don't get on with for one reason or another. I now go to a FBHS who come over 3 times a year, an AI who comes every 6 weeks or so, and an II about twice a year (for a few weeks at a time) - all teach in much the same way, there is lots of feedback between us, and they give me stuff to work on in between times.

As an instructor myself, I see some people every week, some every month, and some come once and then disappear! And sometimes some people are unteachable, because they don't want to listen to a thing you say
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Yes, years ago. He didn't enjoy teaching at all, and he'd spend most of the lesson on the phone to various girlfriends, saying over his shoulder from time to time 'change the rein', 'carry on trotting' etc. Actually he was a [****], but I kinda fancied him at the time!! (My current instructor is brilliant.)
 
Yes!! We had one who chased my daughter a nervous small teenager on a 17.3 horse round the school with a lunge whip and then picked up handfuls of the school surface and threw it at them!!!!
 
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Yes!! We had one who chased my daughter a nervous small teenager on a 17.3 horse round the school with a lunge whip and then picked up handfuls of the school surface and threw it at them!!!!

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What a nutter ! What exactly was this "instructor" trying to get your poor daughter to do? I think I would have waded in and lamped him / her !
 
I had an instructor for years who turned out not to be qualified at all!!
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Luckily she wasn't that bad, but still the mind boggles! Also an instructor who used to teach me before I got Suzy was banned from keeping horses - for cruelty. Not sure if she was allowed to teach after that?
 
the girl that was teaching me was only 22!!

after her i couldnt carry a whip on him cos he'd just buck!! my instructor after her who's now a good friend has many more years experience and she gave me a whip whop to use, that worked great!!

got my own horse now and dont need anything to make him move!!

my instructor also trains horses, she helped me break bear in, she came once a week for an hour, and i'd carry on what needed to be done until the following week, he was broken in in 4 weeks!!!! and cost me £80!! its much more satisfying than sending them away!!
 
not personally, but in the local pony club have been told by a mother that the instructer teaching the littlies recently at a rally told them to each trot a serpintine - the 6 yearold that was up first said he didnt know at a serpintine was (no surpirises there!), the instructer shouted at him and made him cry - shocking i certainly didnt know how to trot a serpintine at 6!
 
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horse girl you arent in cornwall are you???!!!! sounds like her to me!!!!
sophiexxx

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no surrey, this was a place in Sunbury
 
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Yes!! We had one who chased my daughter a nervous small teenager on a 17.3 horse round the school with a lunge whip and then picked up handfuls of the school surface and threw it at them!!!!

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What a nutter ! What exactly was this "instructor" trying to get your poor daughter to do? I think I would have waded in and lamped him / her !

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She wanted her to canter the horse and thought she couldn't get him into canter when actually she didn't want to canter as she was nervous about riding such a massive horse, anyone could see she was nervous by looking at her.

The instructor was just a young girl too 20 maybe, the sort who rides around with no hat, fag in mouth & pregnant!!!
 
I don't think I've ever really had a bad instructor, but there have been one or two I just didn't click with or had 'issues' with.
My Former Instructor is very knowledgeable and gives excellent advice, but IMO makes his students overjump their horses. The Bossy Old Fart on the other hand was good on grids but not very good on flatwork...
I'm not sure the 'perfect' instructor exists, at least not out here! I take the best from each one and chop and change a bit
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anakin, an unqualified instructor isn't necessarily a bad instructor. experience, and who that person has learned from, counts for a hell of a lot. i know FBHSs that i would not want teaching me or riding my horses, for example, and unqualified people who i really really rate, and would love to be taught by.
 
As a kid i had a really crap instructor and was too naieve to realise it (i use the term instructor in the loosest sense!).

She used me as a crash dummy on her horses that she was too scared to ride and ruined my mum's youngster for life both physically and mentally. At the time we thought her pulling her head in looked lovely and thought thats what an outline was. Wasn't till i got my current instructor that i found out how much damage that does (the horse had several months of sedated chiro to sort out her neck and back problems but the mental nervousness of jumping and accepting a contact are always in the back of her mind nowadays although she is a hell of a lot more confident than she was).
 
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anakin, an unqualified instructor isn't necessarily a bad instructor. experience, and who that person has learned from, counts for a hell of a lot. i know FBHSs that i would not want teaching me or riding my horses, for example, and unqualified people who i really really rate, and would love to be taught by.

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I agree - but she pretended she was qualified. That's my gripe!!!
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I've had several...but mostly when I was younger. My parents weren't inclined to spend much money on riding lessons for me, so I rode at a lot of what i'd call "comedy riding schools", which tended to be run on a shoestring and generally didn't have qualified instructors. i had one who sat on a little folding stool in the middle of the school, never got off it and just yelled instructions at us all the time. I hated her and I hated that riding school, but I was so desperate to ride I never told my parents that I hated it.

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Sounds horribly familiar!
That said, I went from an unapproved yard with horses straight from the lunatic fringe, to one with a great reputation in my area, lovely horses etc and ended up coming home in tears when the instructor basically spent an hour of a group lesson telling me how utterly useless I was and that she wouldn't let me withing 50 yards of her horse (I don't want to ride your bloody horse you old bag). This was as she puffed away on her fag right beside the 'no smoking' sign in the indoor school.
 
I had a lesson once when I moved away from home where the instructor (who owned the place) told me I was behind the movement in trot and proceeded to make me ride tipped forward with my knees jammed in the knee rolls for an hour. I said I didn't understand as at home I rode a 17.2hh IDxTB who had a lovely habit of spooking, spinning round, dropping a shoulder and throwing in the odd buck. I explained I was concerned that if I got into the habit of riding tipped forward then when I got home I may have problems, his reply was that none of his school horses would ever do that and I was obviously lacking in confidence! I didn't go back (and funnily enough have never been told I'm behind the movement in rising trot since!). I've also been to the comedy riding schools where the instructor sits in the corner and shouts with a fag in their mouth, mine used to strip down to her bra and sunbathe in the summer too!
 
Think yourself lucky that she only threw school surface...there was a well known BHSI who threw a half brick at a friend of mine for 'not listening'.
I've taught myself...and God, how I've wanted a half (or full) brick!
S
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Yep! I used to ride a horse who was very sensitive in his mouth - you had to ride him with a very light contact or he would plunge forward or go up but provided you were considerate of his mouth and rode from the seat he was fine (legs were rarely needed as he would just take off!)

Took him to a PC camp and all day my instructor shouted at me to kick him (all he ever needed was a squeeze) while pulling his mouth to control the speed - needless to say this resulted in a very tense horse, throwing his head around and plunging around left right and center!! But would she listen - no! Day ended particularly badly with a stressage lesson were she had me riding him with 8" of rein (no kidding - he had rubber covered reins and she made me hold him on the leather at the bit end). He then proceeded to scare the sh!t out of me because he wasn't happy and instructor just yelled at me and told me I was useless and shouldn't be let near a horse let alone one like him!!

I ended the day in tears not wanting to go back for the rest of the week so mum and horses owner went to talk to the DC who kindly moved me into a more advanced group with the head instructor for the rst of the camp. She was lovely and although it took her all of the next day to help me get my confidence back and bring the poor horse back down to earth she was wonderful and had us jumping all the open fences by the end of the week!!

The worst bit was though that the day after I was moved my mum overheard the evil instructor b!tching like mad about me to all the mums of the kids in her group and basically telling them I was a winey spoilt bratt that couldn't ride for dogsh!t
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Put it this way - I would never let her within 3 feet of my horse let alone teach me or my sister ever again!
 
I had an appalling instructor who I cant forgive to this day. She took me for the first lesson on Harry. a week or so after I bought him. He was very unfit at that point, so I said I only wanted a gentle walk and bit of trot lesson. She said fine. Also said he was stiff on one rein.
Well long story short she made me canter round and round and round on the left rein, insisting he wasnt going on the correct leg because he was naughty, and I was being a wimp. She said some quite horrible things about my riding ability, and more when I said I wanted to stop because he was sweating and distressed.
I was told I would ruin him by not making him obey and canter on the correct leg. Eventually I walked out.
This was to a crowd of liveries and mums watching.
Perhaps its wrong, but I when I got the diagnosis of chronic lameness from the vet, it was a tiny bit of pleasure to tell her and see her face. Total bitch.
 
sort of. More a riding school.

I warmed up the horse who felt stiff to me. Was told he took a while to settle, so trusted the instructor. But he was having problems striking off in canter, and couldn't bend or flex at all. I stopped the lesson and voiced my concern to which I was told 'Oh yeah, we're pretty sure he has a back problem. Just ride him through it.' Needless to say I got off there and then.

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