How do you teach riders to be more effective?

[Paint it Lucky]

Particularly when asking a horse to go forwards? As I find some riders will really struggle to make horses trot or canter even though I know that if I got on the horse would do it straight away but how can you teach the rider this? How do you teach them to squeeze and use their seat instead of hopelessly kicking to no effect as I find it really hard to explain because I don't even have to think about. Any tips?

 

[Mid]

hype up the rider! get them really competitive, thinking positive thoughts, and even the most useless rider (i used to be one lol) will be a bit more assertive with the horse. also, tell them to immagine they are sitting behind the horse, rather then on top of it, and are pushing him on.

 

[Tia]

LOL!! As unethical as it sounds, I have to say I actually agree with you to a certain extent

. I have many many useless trail riders come to ride at my farm and I find if I am sharp with them or raise my voice they do seem to pay much more attention to what I am saying to them. LOL!!

 

[Shilasdair]

Do lots of acute transitions - halt to trot, trot to halt, walk to canter, canter to walk (watch pony teeth flying!) to jazz up the horses...
Another thing that helps is drill riding - put them in pairs and make them trot etc holding hands, it teaches them to be more aware....and that control is necessary.
If you sort the riders' positions out, that often helps a lot, as does doing a post mortem on bad transitions by asking the rider what went wrong...and why...so they can correct it.
S

 

[pottamus]

Transitions are good, particularly if you cut the transitions down to about 4 strides then change.
Also, I teach my horse to go off voice commands so the legs are not needed so much.

 

[Shilasdair]

[ QUOTE ]
Transitions are good, particularly if you cut the transitions down to about 4 strides then change.
Also, I teach my horse to go off voice commands so the legs are not needed so much.

[/ QUOTE ]

A dangerous strategy. If you ever lose your voice god knows where you could end up.
S

 

[dieseldog]

Make them play games - no one likes losing. Or maybe get better horses?

 

[sunflower]

[ QUOTE ]
..... I find it really hard to explain because I don't even have to think about. Any tips?

[/ QUOTE ]

Surely it's your job as a teacher to find a way to explain it to them, if you can't do that then why do you teach?

 

[clipclop]

I had to do this today.
I had to wake the rider up. She was concentrating so hard on doing her best she had kind of lost momentum. So I just hyped her up, got her excited. Got her doing snappy transitions. Put some poles out for her to use, pretended to work towards some show jumping and then finshed up show jumping because it felt like the right thing to do. LOL.

I am not qualified though.

But she wasn't paying.

I love teaching though, I think I should study towards it.

 

[clipclop]

I just thought of something else that helps me. I work well using visualisation. So if someone is saying to me "OK, today you are *insert famous rider here* and you are riding *insert famous horse here* my riding instantly perks up and it gives me confidence.

 

[Paint it Lucky]

I am only learning to teach! Hence why I asked, I don't know everything yet! Most of the ponies and horses at the school where are teach are pretty lazy which doesn't help.