Riding Instruction

The Holistic Equitation Centre is a positive and supportive learning environment where horses and their riders alike can feel calm, safe and understood. Our aim is to help all our clients focus on learning, living life to the full and having fun.

We see many horses labeled as ’difficult’, ’dangerous’ or ’unsuitable’ when often they are stressed, in pain or psychologically depressed. Sometimes the difficulties stem from their living arrangements and very often (in spite of their owner’s best intentions) because of the way they are ridden and trained.

Background

During The Golden Age of Equitation, in the great European riding academies of the 17th and 18th centuries, novice riders began learning under close instruction on perfectly trained horses until able to ride with the sympathy, skill and understanding demanded by these extremely sensitive animals. Grace, ease and elegance on horseback were considered the hallmarks of good riding.

But when riding education became primarily a military matter, around the time of the French Revolution, the emphasis shifted towards the rider’s pure survival in life-threatening circumstances. Enjoyment, excellence and the horse’s experience of being ridden were naturally relegated to much lower importance.

Not long after this and thanks to the industrial revolution, another unfortunate but popular idea began to spread - that the horse was just like a steam engine where the rider's legs were responsible for generating the steam and the hands for regulating it! While this idea of ridng with the aids ’in opposition’ was socially popular and appealed to many mechanically-minded experts of the day, it completely failed to take account of the horse’s thoughts and feelings as a living, breathing, sentient creature trapped between conflicting signals.

Unfortunately for horses, the vast majority of modern-day riding and teaching practices have evolved from these latter principles and methods. Some of the consequences of this heritage include the widely held beliefs that riding ’advanced’ dressage movements like lateral work, piaffe or flying changes is difficult (it really isn’t) and worse, that riders need to be physically strong and use musclepower, leverage and special bits to control ’difficult’ horses (they really, really, absolutely don’t!).

Here in Britain, of course, the emphasis has long been on courage, bravado and high-speed, cross-country riding rather than the finer details of riding technique that can help transform nervous riders into skilled and confident equestrians in a very short space of time.

To bridge the gap between these worlds we offer a range of services to suit the needs of riders of all levels and experience who want to develop their abilities, feel more confident and have much more fun and who also care what their horses think and feel about the whole riding experience.

Seat training

One of the first challenges for any rider is to learn how to sit without blocking the horse’s movement. The critical factor is that it’s not whether you LOOK as if you are balanced on a horse that matters - it’s whether you really ARE balanced, as that’s what any horse you are riding will respond to.

Educated riders strive to stay on board the horse by balance and the erectness of the upper body and not by holding on with their arms or legs - even a little bit. Because of this, they can free up their bodies to give clear, precise and subtle aids and avoid (even accidentally) contradicting themselves from the horse’s point of view. Taken together, these conditions are the foundations of real skill and confidence on horseback.

So while riding a simulator or having someone place you in the ’correct’ position may be a useful starting point, real equestrian balance is something that must be felt internally and continually tested rather than visually judged. All riders, therefore, whether novices or Olympic champions, benefit from regular seat training.

Seat work is actually a very old way of teaching riding and also very safe as well as being highly effective. In fact, the method was originally developed so instructors could teach their royal patrons how to ride to a high level while minimising the risk of accidents. Just imagine being responsible if the future king should fall and be injured - simply unacceptable!

One factor that makes developing an ’independent seat’ a significant challenge is that the postural muscles we use to maintain our balance are not actually under our conscious control. In addition to that, any time a rider’s psychological or emotional balance becomes disturbed (through fear, for example), the resulting tension in the body will affect the way they ’sit’ and interfere with their ability to feel, follow and direct their horse.

Dynamic seat training with the horse on or off the lunge enables the rider to develop their own unique independent seat by performing various balance-development exercises at various gaits and in varying degrees of complexity as their skills and confidence improve.

Seat training with a skilled instructor enables each individual rider to develop their own natural balance according to their individual body shape. It’s also the most effective way to perfect the suppleness, neuro-muscular co-ordination and ’survival reactions’ that will enable you to stay in REAL balance without undesired muscle tension - even in times of great stress when your horse may be rearing or bucking underneath you. This, in fact, is the main practical purpose of the airs above the ground in a rider-training context.

Use of the aids

When we ask a group of riders what the aids are used for, the most common answer we hear is ’to control the horse’. While, of course, there’s some truth in this answer, the common expectation is that control comes from mechanically manipulating the horse’s body in much the same way as turning the steering wheel of a car or the handlebars of a bike.

Being ’controlled’ like this is about as much fun for the horse as it would be for you to be manhandled around a shopping centre by your significant other. Not surprisingly, it often causes the same sorts of mental, emotional and physical responses in horses (described in equestrian language as ’resistances’) as it would do in you!

It's perhaps interesting to consider that the equivalent words used to mean ’aids’ in French, German and Swedish actually translate into English as ’helps’ and not ’makes’. Following this understanding, our philosophy (based on centuries-old French classical riding) is that the aids work best when we use them as a way to communicate our wishes to the horse’s mind and then let the horse’s mind do the necessary controlling of the horse’s body.

This philosophy of lightness, of allowing the horse complete autonomy over his or her own body and balance, is key to helping highly sensitive horses (often described as ’difficult’) become calm and easy to ride and manage. Many of the great masters also regard it as the only gateway to impulsion, grace and flow.

The term ’natural aids’ refers to the rider’s hands, legs and bodyweight. A well-trained horse can actually be ridden using any of the hands, legs or bodyweight separately or in combination and there can be times during every ride when one method might be preferred over another. As well as allowing an educated rider to dance with horses with delightful ease, this flexibility also enabled the cavalry rider to always return to safety in the event of a leg injury, broken reins or other problem.

The other side of this coin is that horses will respond to what the rider is actually doing with his or her hands, legs and bodyweight whether he or she is aware of it or not. So our recommendation is that it’s probably best if we riders learn what we are really up to with our own bodies before blaming any difficulties on our poor equine friends!

In the course of our lessons, clinics or intensives, we will help you discover just what effects each of the hands, legs and bodyweight really have - and we know you will be amazed at some of the effects they CAN actually have! At the very least you’ll learn how to spare your horse from the irritation of having to work for ’five different bosses who disagree with each other’. More likely, you’ll discover just how light and easy it can be to ride all the movements up to Olympic level and beyond. Either way, your horse will thank you for it!

Work in-hand, lunging and long-reining

While often regarded as accessories to working under saddle, these skills are actually the foundations on which the language of riding is built and can be very useful additions to any rider’s ’toolbox’.

Fundamentally, all riding is based on good leading and while work in-hand represents leading the horse from the closest possible point of contact at the end of his spine, good lunging is no more or less than good work in-hand performed at a larger distance away from the horse’s mouth but without the added complication of being on the horse’s back.

That said, there is much more to lunging and long reining than just taking your horse for some exercise at the end of a rope and studying these skills is a great way to develop and refine your tact and communication.

Jumping, outdoor riding and high-school

In our view, there isn’t really any such thing as advanced riding, just basic riding done very, very well. With the basic building blocks in place you will find that jumping, outdoor riding and even progressing to High School Dressage are well within the capabilities of any dedicated and educated rider.

Price list

Private lessons

Home Free stuff Who we help How we work Success stories Livery services Equine Podiatry Riding Lessons Intensive Courses Clinics Philippe Karl’s School of Lightness Clinics with Craig Stevens About Us Opportunities Practitioner Network Shop Contact Us