Riding from the inside

The course is aimed at people with horse experience who would like to develop their handling of horses and become better at sensing their riding before they act.

We can see ourselves as one half of the collaboration and the horse as the other. If you only focus on yourself, you don't notice the horse – and if you only focus on the horse, you don't notice yourself.

Often it's about doing less so you can feel more.

We can easily influence too little, too much, too quickly or too slowly. The reason is often that we forget to adapt to the individual horse. Not all horses should be ridden the same. This requires that we can feel both ourselves and the horse and continuously adapt our influence to what is happening in the moment.

To feel oneself

Through guided body scans, participants become aware of some of the patterns we otherwise don't notice. We are given the opportunity to notice and gradually change what the body does automatically.

By becoming aware of our movements and repeating new, more appropriate movements, we can influence our procedural memory – the motor memory, which, among other things, allows the body to perform movements automatically.

The goal is not to control every single movement, but to become better at mastering what the body does automatically. This can help us, among other things, to sit more upright and balanced, remain relaxed, and follow the horse's movements so that we can better adapt to the horse.

Dry training

Before working from the ground, we first work without a horse to get the movements we need into our bodies. We call this dry training.

The term dry training is used in many sports and describes training that takes place outside of the activity itself. For example, swimmers train on land, and skiers practice movements without skis. What they have in common is that you work with some of the same movements and the same body sensation – just without the element that is otherwise part of the sport.

Dry training is also a good way to train if you don't have the opportunity to ride as often. It means you can still develop as a rider – even on the days you're not in the saddle.

Dry training can be used as preparation for work from the ground, but also as preparation for riding. Here we work on standing on the ground, as if you were sitting in a vertical seat.

An example of an exercise you can work with in dry training is more about the feeling in your body than what you physically do:

Stand still, breathe calmly and try to relax.
Let go of your body – without collapsing.
Notice the difference between:
To be passive and to be relaxed and ready to act.

Directly confronting a problem is not always the most beneficial solution – especially not for larger or persistent problems.

Trailer reading is a simple example.
You have a goal: to get the horse into the trailer. If the horse is insecure, it often leads to a direct confrontation with the problem because the focus remains on achieving the goal.

If we instead let go of the final goal for a while, we can gain more control over the situation and spend the time teaching the horse to be relaxed. Therefore, we should not be afraid to stay in the problem for a longer period of time.

It's not about problems going away immediately. Problems can be seen as challenges that provide opportunities to learn.

That is also part of the learning on the course: being able to find calm in the midst of a problem and maintaining the ability to feel, think and adapt even when things don't go as expected.

From the ground to the riding

The course is structured so that we first work on understanding our own body and its effects. Then we work in interaction with the horse through simple exercises from the ground.

From here we gradually build on the riding and work on transitions between gaits with the best helpers possible.

Part of the work can be done with cordeo, where we have the opportunity to examine how little we actually need to do when our body, balance and timing become more apparent to the horse.

The course will primarily consist of classroom instruction, and a large part of the work will be done from the ground.

Max 10 participants.
Age limit: +18 years.