standards of riding slipping?

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Rosiejazzandpia

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I went with a friend to watch her friends lesson today. The lesson was a group lesson of about 6 who were all teenagers from about 13 to 17/18. Honestly I was apalled at the kids in the lesson. The lesson was a jump lesson and the riders didnt even have the basic flatwork sorted. None of them were riding properly and some were sat in armchair seats like a sack of potatoes! The horses were heaving themselves round jumps while the riders flopped and flapped about.
Two of the girls in the lesson fell off and the general thing was if the horse refused flap and smack and kick till it went over! We were speaking a girl in the lesson who said she had been riding for 6 years but only does jumping now because shes too good to do flatwork. The lesson she takes is twice a week and they just jump every single lesson.
I know riding schools are a place to learn but this is a riding school with a good reputation yet the instructor was pretty useless and wasn't trying to help the riders improve.
Honestly this scared me a bit, is this the standard of riding nowdays? When I was at a riding school it was drilled into us that you had to do well with flatwork and establish all the basics before we were allowed to go near a jump. Even then we didn't jump often, probably about once a month and this was only 10 years ago!
 
When I was young and just wanted to jump, I always remember my instructor saying that for a jumping round which takes a minute, you would only spend about 10seconds in the air and the majority of the time was spent doing flatwork which is why you should spend more time getting your flatwork right! That mentality doesn't seem to exist nowadays though - it's all about jumping constantly and jumping higher without a second thought about the flatwork element from what I have seen!
 
Just let them all get on with it sure. There are people going out hunting now and going around cross country courses with a few lessons under their belt. If you want to concentrate on flatwork now you are boring. All teenagers want to do is go on the gallops at top speed. Who can blame them. I prefer to become a better rider, so I suppose my journey will take the rest of my life. What a joy though. :)
 
Are standards of riding slipping? Hell yes, standards are non-existent! I can't watch most lessons at the average riding school without wanting to scream (so I tend to avoid), and when I do give the occasional lesson now (rare) am bewildered at what people don't know (they know nothing, John Snow). WHAT are people being taught? Where is the good old riding school? Even the BHS (which isn't exactly my go-to set of standards) had some sort of a PLAN.
 
I used to ride very well. Quiet hands, good seat, up straight with legs that didnt move. 10 years of work riding racehorses later I can't ride to save myself.

I would love to get lessons to sort me out but as yet I haven't found an instructor that does even a half decent job!
 
I think that there have always been novices, but nowadays people jump well before they ever would have as learners in my day. You'd never have got lead rein classes in jumping, for example, and general classes are so low at local level that you can get round without having to be very good. Also people can afford horses much easer now - the price of an equine is a lot lot lower than it was twenty or thirty years ago (relative), so they don't have to be as good or as keen to get a horse.

As for riding schools, they seem to fall into two catagories nowadays. Lots of riding schools around here start out as plain trekking centres that have evolved to give lessons. One of them is run by a lady who does not jump herself and has no qualifications, yet teaches jumping. At the other end of the scale, there is a very good riding school, very BHS, all insured, all qualified, indoor schools etc, that doesn't let the horses do too much jumping as they are scared of accidents and law suits. I'm a BHSAI and rode their when I got back into riding and was thinking about getting a horse again, I just wanted to get into the swing again first, yet they'd never do more than cross poles on a lesson.
 
I think that is 100% the fault of the riding school and their parents if they are horsey too, not the young girls who are by nature fearless and over confident! The instructor shouldn't be allowing it, so I don't think it is so much the standards of riding slipping as the standards of teaching in that instance? I have certainly never met an instructor who would allow someone to ride like that.
 
My daughter is 7 next month and has been taking weekly lessons for the last 2 years though I've only just moved her to a new riding school. I couldn't bare to watch her sitting on the pony in the previous place. The saddle was always tipping back making her sit in an armchair position and the pony was only good on lead rein so she never progressed.
She is now taking lessons with my dressage coach and is flying. There are 5/6 children in the lesson and she teaches them the right position and use of the leg aids to turn the pony not just yank them round with the rein like so many other schools.
I remember an instructor telling me once that they have to end all lessons with some jumping or the parents watching feel they aren't getting value for money!
 
I went to watch my sister's riding lesson a few months ago. The RS had just bought a very sharp, very sensitive PRE who had been shipped over from Spain. My sister's group is classed as intermediate but I wouldn't really class the standard as intermediate tbh. They saw fit to put one of the riders on said horse (not my sister, they put her on him the week before and he frightened her - she's never sat on anything like it before). It was pretty painful to watch tbh, the horse was clearly confused and upset by being pulled about and ridden by someone who was very off balance. Not rider's fault, she was trying to ride what she had been given and the horse was not suited to that environment. The instructor may as well not have been there for all the help she gave.

As I was watching the lesson from the viewing room, the owner of the RS came in chatting to some friends. She pointed out the PRE and commented on how he didn't look happy and she was thinking of selling him as he's not suited to an RS environment. Duh, I could have told her that before she bought him! She went on to comment on how bad the standard of riding was in RS pupils, she kept saying things like "look at this lady coming past now, that's a typical RS rider's position, they all ride like this and it means I just can't use these more advanced type of horses". All I could think was "YOUR instructors are the ones teaching these people! Why don't YOUR instructors start teaching better position and feel, these people are paying YOU for their lessons, teach them properly"! We have now found my sister an alternative.
 
I think standards have fallen dramatically in the last twenty years or so, it all seems to be based on working on the horse when getting the rider balanced and deep seated and using the aids correctly means that the horse will work properly anyway in most cases. I hate the current trend for a chair seat and fixed hands that you see such a lot now, no wonder horses have back problems!

The trouble is that riding schools need to make money and most teenagers want a quick fix and be able to canter/jump, the good grounding and riding correctly probably doesn't appeal to many of them. I know I can remember being bored to tears having to learn turn on the forehand for a whole lesson when I was twelve. If they aren't having 'fun' then they stop going, and no clients means no school. I agree that the instructors should be instilling good riding as well as enjoyment in their lessons.
 
You can still have fun just learn to ride properly too, those poor RS ponies constantly jumping, their legs must be knackered
 
I'm going to defend us a bit here:) I myself am 18, my instructor is a BHSI runs his own riding school, I've been riding since I was 8yrs old and have spent the last 8 of those years being taught by him! In my first two years of riding I was a rather rubbish rs, and was jumping within 18months! I was 10 when I moved to my currant instructor, (purely due to the fact he was closer!) and I've never looked back. He taught my about doing things properly, and that a good walk can be as exciting as a gallop! His horses can all walk, trot canter jump and hack, but they're all established in lateral work! And riders will wait years before even seeing a fence:) but everyone is satisfied, everyone will be as good as they can possibly be with his help and they don't need to jump all the time to know they're getting somewhere! In fact it's only in recent years I've begun to jump again, in the hope to make myself a better alround rider:) -not all teenagers want to gallop and jump and not all riding school's standards have slipped:)

Although having said that, parents play a massive role! Just to day, said instructor was getting a gob full off someone's push father beacause the little girls friends who go to another riding school 'are already jumping' and I quote ' his daughter 'was just pansy-ing around' (being taught about the important of horse and rider suppleness and working through some basic lateral work...)
Quite of term peoples attitudes today, make RI's jobs much more difficult? So they do what the paying cliant wants or do they do what they know is correct and risk upsetting clients and loosing business?
 
This is not a new problem.

I learnt to ride in the early-mid 90s at a riding school which I won't name. The procedure at this riding school was that you did lessons to til you were pronounced competent to go on hacks and then you did hacks til you decided you wanted to start jumping lessons. Well after hacking out for a year or so I decided I was getting into some bad habits position wise and I ought to book a lesson or two to sharpen myself up. Anyhow I turned up for this lesson and the instructor asked me what I was doing there!

I gave up riding a couple of years later and I think the main reason was that I was painfully aware that I wasn't being properly taught. There were moments when I knew what it was to be truly in harmony with a horse but they were few and far between. If I ever start again (and these days my physique is more suited to rugby which became my next sport) I'm going to somebody who teaches classical dressage. And I have zero ambition to be a classical dressage rider.
 
I think the RS really struggle financially with the costs of insurance etc going up and with more livery yards available more people are buying their own horses and not using the RS.

The RS have to provide a service that people want to buy and lots of young people want to jump, gallop and have fun in a group, if the RS does not cater to their needs they will go to another one that does. So RS may have a combination of clients perhaps some of the older people or nervous people are not so interested in jumping so it balances out a bit. I am not sure if the BHS qualifications provide much training on how to deal with difficult clients or parents who want to do more than they capable or those who just do not want to listen to what they are being taught and think they know best.

Teaching young people to ride requires the same skills as teaching young people any subject it is not just about subject knowledge the how to teach people and plan lessons element is very important and I am not sure that the BHS qualifications spend so much time on that aspect than say someone who is for example training to be a secondary school teacher.

I did not learn to ride at a RS my dad taught me to ride and he had not had ridden for over 20 years himself since he was part of pony club and was not a qualified instructor. I had a pony at home and my riding skills were very basic not very refined and I taught myself to jump. All the pupils at the RS school were better riders than me and probably still are! Also things have changed over the years as has riding styles so when I learnt to ride over 35 years ago I was learning a style that my dad had learnt 30 years before with the old hunting seat. If you did not fall off and could get your horse to do what you wanted it to it was sufficient for most people. Dressage was not very popular at the time it was all about SJ, hunting and hunter trials and hacking out at speed!

I think people expectations have changed with lots of people not just wanting to be able to be a basic rider but want to be more technical too inspired by the high profile dressage or competition riders.
 
Hah! Ther reason you all seem to think that the standards have slipped is because we have all the good kids in our yard!. And yes they are great, concientious ,hard working horse/pony lovers who just want to learn. They also tend to get helped and given ponys and horses to ride by other adult liveries who value their youth and enthusiasm.
 
I'm 21 and was brought up riding through pony club.. At about the age of 16 it started to become more about how well dressed up the horse was with fancy tack that it didn't need, instead of how well the partnership actually performed.

I think a bigger problem is that having regular lessons is the same price or more expensive than having your own horse, so you end up with a load of people owning horses that arent actually ready to...
 
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A couple of years ago we stewarded for the chap who, along with his wife, used to teach sis and I to ride. He is now in his 80's, his children now run the school they moved to. He was despairing of the standard of riding and that how teaching has had to change, no correcting position by moving a childs arms or legs, everything must be praised (very different from his style lol) Parents expect instant results and no-one must fall off! I am thankful that I was taught by this chap
 
It's not only the riding that's deteriated.
Too many wanabees, too many parents thinking of the 'status' horse ownership will bring their kid, too much trash being bred which any idiot can buy for pennies and too many greedy people wanting to make a quick quid. Factor in fashion and the whole scene is ridiculous.
Ban the bling and get back to basics.
 
Part of the problem is that instructors aren't mean enough any more - because they're not allowed to be! Riding instruction has changed dramatically in the last 5-10 years.

Humiliation was a hard truth of learning to ride when I started out, but I found it very effective! If you went the wrong way, wrong diagonal, weren't sitting correctly, your lower leg wobbled etc, you would get shouted at, told off, made to do it again properly until it was second nature.

These days it's all praise, even if the person/child is hopeless, the istructor has to tell them how good they are. Or face the consequences from the parents.

My instructor is also my friend so she can be mean if I'm being rubbish. If I had a penny for the amount of times I heard "what the hell was that!?" lol. I can laugh it off as I'm aware of my own ability.

RS students aren't necessarily so resilient. And the parents think their kids are riding prodigies.
 
As a recent returnee to teaching I am appalled at the riding being taught at some riding schools.
Rigid arms stretched in front so no softness
Stirrups far too short legs in front of the knee rolls
Sitting on the back of the pelvis rocked back
Uneven seat in the saddle so leaning to one side or the other
shoulder one or other forward and out of balance
These are just a few of the positional things I have had to start with on people who own their own horses and want training as opposed to those just starting to ride
 
Maria13 said:
I went with a friend to watch her friends lesson today. The lesson was a group lesson of about 6 who were all teenagers from about 13 to 17/18. Honestly I was apalled at the kids in the lesson. The lesson was a jump lesson and the riders didnt even have the basic flatwork sorted. None of them were riding properly and some were sat in armchair seats like a sack of potatoes! The horses were heaving themselves round jumps while the riders flopped and flapped about.
Two of the girls in the lesson fell off and the general thing was if the horse refused flap and smack and kick till it went over! We were speaking a girl in the lesson who said she had been riding for 6 years but only does jumping now because shes too good to do flatwork. The lesson she takes is twice a week and they just jump every single lesson.
I know riding schools are a place to learn but this is a riding school with a good reputation yet the instructor was pretty useless and wasn't trying to help the riders improve.
Honestly this scared me a bit, is this the standard of riding nowdays? When I was at a riding school it was drilled into us that you had to do well with flatwork and establish all the basics before we were allowed to go near a jump. Even then we didn't jump often, probably about once a month and this was only 10 years ago!
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Yes I find this to be the average standard of riding these days. I see it in livery yards all the time, often on young or green horses they bought cheap and are supposedly breaking and schooling them. Many of the riders cause and then can't cope with basic 'naughty horse' problems eg bucking, napping etc.

Those that don't flap or wobble so much are the ones who tell me they jump affiliated, though the competition riders are more likely to have lessons than the hackers and some do reach a decent standard of riding. Most people I've met won't have lessons unless the instructor lets them do what they want though, which is often jumping.

I suppose the standard of teaching may be deteriorating because the instructors may go out of business if they don't provide what the client wants. There seems to be a thing in riding schools where those who jump are seen as better riders than those who don't, and horse riders are seen as better riders than pony riders.
 
It wouldn't surprise me if standards are slipping - there are so few decent riding schools about. I have been riding at various riding schools for a long time and am a fairly good rider. To go to a decent riding school that has suitable horses I would have to drive for at least 40 min - even then I am not sure they would have suitable horses and that the level of instruction would help me improve (not being big-headed but realistic). It woud probably be cheaper for me to buy and keep a horse than to keep having private lessons and hiring horses to compete. I currently ride at a small establishment where to be honest the teaching style doesn't suit me 100% but the horses and knowledge of the instructor are excellent. I keep searching for alternatives near here but just can't find them.
 
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