Ride with your mind/Centered riding - anyone retrained their horse this way??

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eatonbraynat

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I am toying with this idea and getting really into mary wanless and all the bearing down stuff!! Anyone else retrained their horse this way and how did you get on???
 
Hi there. My instructor started to train with Mary a couple years back. It has transformed my horse and moreover the way I think about & approach my riding. It is very detailed, for example many a time we are talking about utilising specific tendons in my body. It's also bloody hard work and painful engaging your core when it's not yet really developed, but the outcome definitely makes it worthwhile and gives you the motivation to stick with it. My horse is quite difficult and spends all his time getting me to do what he wants, ie falling into his traps. I never previously really realised quite to the degree that he was doing this. So a large part of my riding now is about being really strong in your core and very very balanced, so that no matter what he throws at me, I remain in control and balanced.

Certainly with my instructor (and watching the odd you tube video, it v much seems it is a Mary Wanless thing), there is an awful lot of imagery used. So for example I have a broom pushing my core energy from my sternum to his ears (it's amazing how that alone encourages him to come on to the bit).If I overdo it and he then tries to duck below the contact, I have a zip pulling /corset being tightened on my lower back (which is then incredibly effective and get him up on to the bit). I then have glue keeping me still in walk & canter, a puddle resting between my shoulder blades (defying gravity) which I have to maintain, a donald duck bum, bolts, velcro and so the list goes on. I was really struggling to 'plug'onto him (understood the concept but couldn't for the life of me do it) until my instructor recently said imagine having a wee or (sorry to be gross) pushing out a tampax - bingo I got it (although we use 'splodge' as the code word for that one. The others at my yard find my lessons and the code words both hilarious and mystifying!

I have to admit I was extremely sceptical in the past but am now a real convert and now looking to have some lessons at Overdale on their equine simulator in the new year.
 
Neither of those programs are about training horses, they're primarily oriented towards thinking differently about riding and how you use your body. The whole point is the horse doesn't have to know anything different, the rider just communicates more efficiently and uses his/her body more correctly to give the aids, balance the horse etc. They should both work with "traditionally" trained horses because they're more about physics and innate aspects of riding than they are about anything "new".

To generalise outrageously, Ride With Your Mind is a bit more "scientific" and technical and breaks down the various physical aspects of riding, along with some different mental approaches. Centered Riding tends more towards visualisation and "sense memory" to get/allow the body to do what it should without inappropriate tension and to get the rider in the correct state of mind. Lots of people use many of the more common visualisations within other systems, in fact they come up here from time to time. To be fair, many of them probably predate Sally Swift although she was originally "selling" her approach when "hang on and sweat blood" was a far more commonplace approach to riding.
 
I started having CR lessons with my mare a couple of years ago. She's a stuffy thing & has never been very forward off my leg, & I've always tended to be a rather busy and quite wonky rider. CR has really helped, it doesn't work overnight but we have gone from pony club kicks to almost invisible aids. I also compete my friend's hot cob and I used to have a proper electric bum on him but that has improved a lot too. I think a lot of my issues were to do with tension in me and a contradiction between what my legs & arms were trying to tell the horse and what my core/seat/energy were telling the horse. My mare reacted to this contradiction by putting on the handbrake, Flynn is naturally more forward & his reaction was to panic and bomb off! It's been very interesting and incredibly helpful :)
 
Mary wanless/sally swift/sylvia lock all these people are good instructors, there not teaching a different way off riding just putting into different words. Many top riders cannot tell you how they do things. These instructors have spent years disecting the rider and how to promote the right feelings so that mear mortals like us can get brilliant results. Most of it isn't magic its just common sense. But as always takes years of hard work and practice.
 
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