International Equestrian Education Services: EXAMPLE of a Centered Riding Clinic

THE FOLLOWING REPORT WAS WRITTEN BY GAIL AND I WOULD LIKE TO THANK HER FOR GIVING ME PERMISSION TO USE IT ON THIS PAGE.
I FOUND HER REPORT ON ONE OF THE BEST AND MOST COMPREHENSIVE BULLETIN BOARDS ON THE WEB:
www.ultimatedressage.com
THANK YOU "Hoss Boss"!

Now, this is fairly long - but good reading....and if you were curious how a CR clinic can look like, here you can read about one of them:
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Centered Riding Clinic, August 5, 2000, Greene, Maine, with Karen Irland, Level III CR instructor

I was only able to audit the first day of this clinic, but it was very worthwhile. The audit fee included lunch, and the auditors
were also included in the two hours of ground exercises and theory.

The clinic started with groundwork - for the riders, not the horses. Karen led us through a number of different exercises to help us become more aware of how our body position affected us, and therefore our horses.

- Finding our center vs. tipping forward/back (ever so slightly!)
- Breathing from the rib cage & abdomen vs. the upper chest
- Looking ahead vs. looking down
- Turning through the pelvis vs. collapsing to the inside
- Eyes in the back of the head vs. in front of the face (revised version of soft/hard eyes)

Although I think most of the above are self-evident, I do want to explain the eyes in the back of the head. This is not the same
thing as the powers your mother used to claim for herself. Karen explained that our eyes are not just pupils located on the front
of our face, but actually go almost all the way through our skull. If you think about this you realize it must be true, because the
optic nerve connects to the spinal cord, which comes up the back of the neck. Therefore, she said, when you look ahead while riding, you can look with your eyes in the back of your head, rather than the frontal focus that we normally have. She had us go back and forth several times between these two types of focus. There's a little knack to the "back of the head" eyes but it
allows you to relax much more. My first Eureka of the day was that the instant I tried to do the frontal focus, I stopped
breathing! This is a riding problem I've had for years, that I forget to breathe when I concentrate. When I looked from the "back of my head," I had no problem breathing - and my peripheral vision was better, too.

We practiced all these things first while seated (or sometimes standing) in a circle. Then she had us go out and use the whole
arena. As we followed each other around the arena, a couple of kibitzing dogs joined in the line, but soon gave up when they
realized they couldn't ride. We practiced weaving cones with first our "bad turns," looking down and pulling back on the
imaginary reins, and then the balanced turns from the pelvis, with a slight opening rein. I was stunned to feel how just a slight
tightening of my inside rein tightened my entire side and actually prevented the turn.

Then she had us get in a small circle and place our hands on the shoulder blades of the person in front of us. We were to try to feel the person breathing. Most everybody was breathing from their upper chest. With a request to breathe into the hands on
our backs, we began to allow our rib cages to expand and it was much easier to feel.

We then did what she called "square dancing." Everybody paired up with one person as the horse and the other person as the rider. The rider stood on the horse's left and put her right arm around the horse at the rib cage, with the left hand holding the left hand of the "horse." Since horses don't understand English, we were not allowed to talk. We first practiced the "bad turns," being dragged around by the inside rein. As the horse, I was startled to discover how much this threw me off balance! Then we did the turns with the rider in balance and using an outside pushing aid, and it was incredibly easy, just the way I would have done it by myself. In fact, my rider had me leg yielding with no problem. Next Karen asked the riders to "drive" the horses as if by pushing with their seat. As a horse I found this annoying, and there was no way I could keep a rhythm. When I tried this as a rider, I almost pulled my horse over on top of me! A third exercise was to halt, first by yanking back on the "reins," then by rebalancing (she said she didn't like the term half-halt). Again the difference was amazing to me. With the "prepare, prepare, do it" method it was so easy! It really was like the horse and rider were one. And finally, Karen asked us to try loosening up the contact until it was practically nonexistent. As a horse I found this really let my mind wander, and when I tried it as a rider my horse broke her silence and complained, "Now I don't know what to do."

We then found a dry patch of lawn and practiced being horses and riders in a different way. One person knelt on all fours and another person stood with their legs over them, just touching their sides. (We were not to sit on people!) The rider stood
balanced and practiced turning by use of the pelvis, and the horses turned very naturally and easily. In fact, I asked my "horse"
if he had been exaggerating his turns just to be nice to me, and he said no, he was just trying to keep an even pressure on both
of his sides. When I tried doing this by looking down and pulling, nothing at all happened. When it was my turn to be the horse, I found that he was right - as he turned slightly, I naturally wanted to turn just a little more to keep comfortable.

The biggest revelation to me about all this groundwork was how counterproductive some common things are, especially looking
down, pulling with the inside rein, and the frontal focus of the eyes. And the second biggest was that it was so EASY to get the
horse to do things, if you just controlled your own body. Sure, I've heard the explanations for these things dozens of times and have gotten pretty good about using the correct aids, but there's nothing like feeling it for yourself to drive the lesson home.

Actual Riding

Karen gave one-hour lessons to two riders at a time. I have changed their names to protect their privacy. The first pair was Mary, an adult student with some physical issues, and Jen, a local rider, with Raz, a TB cross who is recovering from a stifle injury. Mary rode Sey, a 10-year-old TB gelding school horse. Sey is a ewe-necked exracehorse who prefers to travel hollow. Karen spent 5-10 minutes working on one rider's position while the other warmed up. She then announced that they would not be training the horses today, so should not worry about roundness, for example. She would be concentrating only on the riders.

Karen did not tell anyone what to do. She encouraged the riders to do whatever they would normally do in their warmup and
whatever they wanted to work on in their riding. Mary and Jen, for example, did not canter at all but did a great deal of walk
work. Mary spent a lot of time at first trying to make Sey round with the reins, but after being persuaded to leave that alone and
work on her own body, by the end of the hour she had some really fine trot work with much freer movement. Mary's legs had relaxed and come down dramatically from the beginning of the lesson through Karen's suggesstion that she do ankle circles. Mary remarked that she had known her legs were tight but thought it was in her knee.

The next pair was Joanne, a local low-level eventer, with a sturdy TB gelding, and Kathleen, an older adult, with a rangy
chestnut horse. Karen told Kathleen that she was, if anything, too flexible and had her quiet her body somewhat. Kathleen commented that this made her feel more confident. She worked with both these riders on leg yields, having them keep their bodies straight and just look where they were going a little.

I noticed that Karen never said to any rider, "You need to work on your . . ." even when there was an obvious problem from the beginning. She always started out by making sure the rider was centered on her seatbones, stretching equally on both sides up from her pelvis through her shoulders to the top of her head, and down equally through both legs. She would then usually address their hands, which she asked them to carry just a little above the straight line. Joanne resisted doing this at first and was told to "ride saddleseat," and promptly lifted her hands up almost to her chin! It was quite interesting to see how this got the horses off their forehands. Karen only seemed to ask this of people who were hanging on the reins or had their hands too low.

Next were Kristin, a 20ish eventer, with her 13-year-old thoroughbred gelding named David, and Pamela, the farm owner and instructor, with Oscar, a talented TB gelding. This pair had the two most advanced riders and was a pleasure to watch. Pamela did half passes and flying changes with Oscar and by the end of the hour they looked effortless. Karen reminded Pamela to keep her energy flowing out through the top of her head as if she were a princess with a crown, although Pamela said she preferred a halo. Kristin is an excellent rider and very competitive, and seemed to get more frustrated as the lesson went on. She seemed to be having trouble breaking old habits with her hands, and I could only sympathize because they seemed to be the exact same bad habits I have! Karen told her to be patient and not expect to get everything right away, and Kristin retorted,
"But I still want it." I wished I could go back the next day to see her second ride, because Karen said she had some other
things to try with her.

The last pair of the day was Becky, an adult beginner, who trailered in from New Hampshire with her 17-year-old Anglo-Arab mare, and Morgan, Pamela's teenage working student, who rode Sey again. Becky got my vote as the most improved rider of the day, and also perhaps the bravest. I believe I heard her say she's not cantering yet, but her mare was quite rushy and sensitive, and didn't appear to be an easy ride. Yet Becky never acted nervous, listened to everything Karen asked, and at the end of the hour was getting a nice quiet, rhythmic trot on her own while Karen was concentrating on Morgan. Morgan did an
excellent job with Sey but didn't seem too confident about her leg yields, and was encouraged to "let the wall suck you over."
Morgan ended with some outstanding canter work with Sey that prompted considerable praise by Karen.

One of the nicest things about this clinic was the fact that everybody was very supportive of each other. I did not hear a single negative comment about any rider, even the ones who started out with their knees bent at 90 degrees. Although I was only an
auditor, I felt completely welcome and included by both Karen and the riders. I hope that next year I'll be able to actually ride in this clinic.

EXAMPLE of a Centered Riding Clinic

Ooooohhhhhh!

Centered riding instructor

Richard Weis

Format of Robin Brueckmann CR clinic

Especially for Sue