[QUOTE=Spiritwalker;7107779]
She’s got plenty of people agreeing with her on FB even those that are just learning to teach. Can’t please everyone all the time. [/QUOTE]
Nope, you sure can’t.
And if she’s pleased with herself, that says a lot.
[QUOTE=Spiritwalker;7107783]
Now that is RUDE LMAO[/QUOTE]
Yes, it was. This kathryne is honest. I thought the Lakota Sioux were peaceful people?
Eh, I read the blog, I personally didn’t find it insulting or rude at all. I also agree very much with Poltroon’s analogy to GM.
I wouldn’t go clinic with her, or any other top Dressage rider, because I am simply not good enough to get my money’s worth out of the clinic, never mine wasting their time LOL. Now, mind you, I consider my dressage skills fairly mediocre, but yet I can sit the trot, “put a horse on the bit,” stop, steer, and start young horses and bring them through about second level.
My money and my time is much better spent with one of the local FEI pros. I am also aware that I am lucky to live in an area where I have my choice of pros.
I am an eventer primarily. There is an annual clinic in my area with an Olympian that I try to attend every year. I think he is fabulous, and I learn a lot each time. This year I am not going. Why? Because my 4 year old simply isn’t ready. And that’s fine. I feel the same way about my riding as it relates to a BNT in dressage land. My riding simply isn’t ready. Now that doesn’t mean that I wouldn’t audit, because I would.
I am just not offended by her blog.
I’m not offended either just rather sad. Dressage is not a very popular sport in this country and it can use all of the help that it can get.
[QUOTE=suzy;7107332]
Her responses to the comments on her blog have been gracious, honest, and non-combative. [/QUOTE]
I gather that the post that she or one of her handlers deleted wasn’t.
And I’m still puzzled that she thinks my name isn’t classy.
Maybe I should hyphenate it.
[QUOTE=grayarabpony;7107576]
Really, she wants to teach advanced students. Otherwise she is not honored.
Straight from the horse’s mouth:
"I am often hired by a trainer to do a clinic at his or her stable. The general pattern goes like this: The trainer wants my input. So he/she hires me to teach for a full day even though the trainer rides only once, maybe twice on a somewhat advanced horse, and then watches eight to nine students from rank beginner to talented amateur learn some basics from me at a much lower level.
I realize that these students are paying for the trainer’s opportunity to ride with me. And I know that some of them are there simply in order to say, “I rode with Catherine Haddad Staller.” But this does not honor me, nor is my skill respected. If you are a fan, come by and say hello—stay, audit and learn. If you are a rider who needs help with a throughness issue, come by and get a lesson.
To show up for training with an accomplished rider before you are ready to benefit from his or her knowledge is bad form and disrespectful. I am often taken aback when clinic slots in the United States are filled with riders who can’t even put their horse on the bit."
The thing is, there are a lot of “advanced” students who cannot put their horses on the bit, in addition to lower level people. All of them want to get better at dressage.[/QUOTE]
Catherine is RIGHT ON in what you’ve quoted here. Last year I took a weekend clinic with a BN dressage trainer of international reputation. He offered both private and small group lessons, and I humored several friends by riding with them in the group to hold the price down.
Not only was I the only one who could remotely execute the clinician’s orders, I was the only one turned out decently, the only one on a properly groomed horse with clean tack (not even MY horse!) and literally the only person who could keep a proper distance and not keep piling into other horses, let alone the WALL.
The other 2 horses were not only not on the bit, they were not even STEERABLE–one woman’s seat was so execrable the clinician called her into the center and began to explain that unless he fixed THAT there was no point in continuing, and she proudly piped up, “But that’s not the problem, that’s just the way I ride!”
Clinician shot me a sub-rosa look like “God save me from asshats,” and I wouldn’t blame him for thinking “The checks cleared.” Who in the world who has anything to teach wants to waste their time and airfare on this crap? I don’t blame Catherine for venting AT ALL.
BTW, people from overseas don’t suffer from having to pay lip service to the absurd mythology that we’re all “equal” as long as we can pay . . . they’re not “anti-elitist” over there, no sirree!
[QUOTE=Ghazzu;7107906]
I gather that the post that she or one of her handlers deleted wasn’t.
And I’m still puzzled that she thinks my name isn’t classy.
Maybe I should hyphenate it.[/QUOTE]
Her going through and digging up and exposing people’s names was deeply creepy.
Oddly, it was edited out of all the comments that I saw other than the one directed at you.
She’s got plenty of people agreeing with her on FB
:lol:
I think what bothered me most the sense that she’s up there ^ and the rest of the world, is down there vv. She’s too busy and its not her job (her comments) to have a screening process. She’s also apparently too busy and its not her job to spend 10 minutes figuring out how to describe and post on a website somewhere what her criteria are. And she’s too busy to develop even the beginnings of a solution unless you are a trainer who can bring 7-8 other trainers and their horses to a clinic that you set up.
She also says “most of us… are content to pursue our own thing and be happy with our own personal progress without regard for the state of dressage in our region, our country and the world.” Well OMG since when is that a sin? I’m guessing 80% of the trainers and riders in this country are in that boat. I’m there, even as a rider who has been fortunate enough to ride a few PSG tests in my life. And she may be amazed to know that many trainers do actually get help further up the food chain, even if its not with her.
If her goals are related primarily to making the US more competitive then she needs to focus on the top 20% of the riders. She could follow Poulins and Carol Lavelle and others by setting up a grant funds to provide grants for instructors and promising riders. Etc.
It would probably be wise for clinic organizers, especially people bringing in riders they don’t know, to issue a note to all their riders about expectations for turnout, arrival time, etc. You’d think people would know… but it seems like some people don’t.
[QUOTE=Lady Eboshi;7107910]
Catherine is RIGHT ON in what you’ve quoted here. Last year I took a weekend clinic with a BN dressage trainer of international reputation. He offered both private and small group lessons, and I humored several friends by riding with them in the group to hold the price down.
Not only was I the only one who could remotely execute the clinician’s orders, I was the only one turned out decently, the only one on a properly groomed horse with clean tack (not even MY horse!) and literally the only person who could keep a proper distance and not keep piling into other horses, let alone the WALL.
The other 2 horses were not only not on the bit, they were not even STEERABLE–one woman’s seat was so execrable the clinician called her into the center and began to explain that unless he fixed THAT there was no point in continuing, and she proudly piped up, “But that’s not the problem, that’s just the way I ride!”
Clinician shot me a sub-rosa look like “God save me from asshats,” and I wouldn’t blame him for thinking “The checks cleared.” Who in the world who has anything to teach wants to waste their time and airfare on this crap? I don’t blame Catherine for venting AT ALL.
BTW, people from overseas don’t suffer from having to pay lip service to the absurd mythology that we’re all “equal” as long as we can pay . . . they’re not “anti-elitist” over there, no sirree![/QUOTE]
This seems an odd way to talk about your friends on a public forum; they all stink and you are the only one who can groom right, dress correctly and ride at all? Your friends you were humoring couldn’t even steer and one’s seat is so bad it’s execrable?
At least the clinician had one person to sympathize with his plight.
I agree with the problem of the beginner and intermediates not learning the basics to the point that they should be second nature before moving on or up or taking certain clinics. The problem is compounded by trainers unable to keep clients unless they move them up/advance them. The world is not made up of the financially independent with enough free time on their hands to learn from the ground up. And many also don’t have the patience. If a trainer or coach wants to stay in business, many end up with their hands tied on the basics issue.
However that shouldn’t be a huge problem since according to many experts on here, nobody can ride a decent dressage test anyway. 
But I also agree that even the oft-maligned, famously crotchedy and infinitely talented GM hasn’t poked fun in public of his paying students behind their backs. He’s stated flatly and unemotionally to them that they need to learn ____ and are overfaced right now and to come back another time. Constructive if blunt.
The blog is crass. There’s a difference between blunt and crass. The deleted comments were not blunt or 'just not PC." They were classless and crude. And I’m definitely not a “beat around the bush” or PC person. 
I personally don’t care about a clinician’s personality, if someone has something I can learn then I’d pay to ride with them. It’s a business transaction and IMO for me, feelings have little to do with it. But then I can also understand others who may feel differently and not want to support or recommend them to anyone else either.
JMHO for whatever it’s worth.
What finally irked me into writing this blog is this: Our trainers need more knowledge about how to train the basics—not just for themselves, but for their students as well. And they need to motivate themselves to GET RESULTS. Don’t pass off a basic problem to a visiting clinician—it does not speak well of your own teaching skills!
Could it not be that the trainers are LEARNING from the clinician more and different techniques with which to teach these students once the clinician is gone? She states that “Our trainers need more knowledge…”, well how better to get it that than to watch a more knowledgeable instructor work with and improve their own students ?
NJR
[QUOTE=grayarabpony;7107566]
Oh, really. No one said that she stopped lessons after 15 minutes to try on saddles. But it’s practically impossible not to cut into lesson time if you’re trying saddles on most of the horses.
.[/QUOTE]
This is the type of inflammatory fiction a previous poster was referring to. Where do you get this information from anyway? I have been in direct contact with someone who has ridden in several of CH’s clinics, and this is not the scenario she has witnessed.
As for CH wanting to teach the trainers to teach, it is clearly stated in one of CH’s posts, but I have neither the time nor inclination at this point to ferret it out for you.
[QUOTE=poltroon;7107916]
Her going through and digging up and exposing people’s names was deeply creepy.
Oddly, it was edited out of all the comments that I saw other than the one directed at you.[/QUOTE]
Poltroon, what about the fact that CH’s name is being dragged through the mud while you and others remain safely hidden behind screen names. I find THAT deeply creepy and cowardly.
[QUOTE=suzy;7108055]
Poltroon, what about the fact that CH’s name is being dragged through the mud while you and others remain safely hidden behind screen names. I find THAT deeply creepy and cowardly.[/QUOTE]
Aye, and whom among ye can ride in a boxcar with the door shut?
Just the usual COTH drama-llama, OH, the HUMANITY!!! :lol:
poltroon is my identity here and you will learn far more about me as a horseman and a rider as poltroon than you will under my “real name”… over 13,000 wastes of time, apparently. I do not defraud anyone with my pseudonym. I am a nobody.
I use a pseudonym because I don’t want to walk into a client meeting and have them tell me they googled me and know I’ve been up all night with a sick horse.
[QUOTE=suzy;7107332]
Well put, Bristol Bay. I’d also add that CH admits outright to being blunt, and blunt is very different than rude. Blunt is stating something as you see it. Rude is stating something, knowing that it is bound to offend people and not caring. I just don’t think it’s fair to accuse CH of that. Her responses to the comments on her blog have been gracious, honest, and non-combative. She is doing her best to clarify points from the original blog, but it’s clear that some people are just determined not to hear what she’s really saying. They’ve made up their minds and closed the door.[/QUOTE]
Were you and I reading the same comments?? 
[QUOTE=Lady Eboshi;7108068]
Aye, and whom among ye can ride in a boxcar with the door shut?
Just the usual COTH drama-llama, OH, the HUMANITY!!! :lol:[/QUOTE]
I have a terrible seat in a boxcar. Those things make a warmblood with big gaits seem pretty smooth! :lol:
[QUOTE=ToN Farm;7106859]
Do you know that for a fact? I can’t say in her case, but there are rewards (financial and tack) for other pros that endorse saddles.[/QUOTE]
No one has answered this it seems, so I will. I’ve done a clinic with Catherine. She ripped the Velcro knee rolls off of peoples’ saddles, saying that knee rolls and other devices like it are crutches for the rider that actually impede the rider’s ability to learn balance in the saddle. Like someone said and like I said on one of the early pages, she trained in a system. SHe believes in that system, it’s why she trained so long in it and remains faithful to it. I don’t understand why people are so surprised. Like I said, she rode my horse. She didn’t ride my horse in my saddle, though, she had her friend bring an old Stubben Shultheis saddle. It fit my horse well enough, and Catherine rode my horse (into the lunch, I might add - she spent over an hour with me on this day). She then had me ride my horse in this saddle so I could experience the difference. To me, it was highly educational. She didn’t push the Shultheis saddles because I think they weren’t being made anymore. But she did implore people to remove their knee rolls and thigh blocks, try closer-contact saddles, and learn to rely on their own balance. I don’t see ANYTHING wrong with that advice.
I’m guessing she teamed up with Stubben because they weren’t producing a saddle like this anymore and she believes in close-contact, minimal knee roll saddles. What is wrong with this? It’s very consistent with her philosophy.
I’ll reiterate something I said earlier. Catherine has paved her own way. She went to Germany not on some owner’s dime, but on her dime. She WORKED there in order to live there. She purchased and campaigned her own horses so she didn’t have to compromise her training methods/horse care methods. She solicited sponsorship to fund her, but she also gave back to the sponsor (i.e. a German base to work from). It’s clearly not Catherine’s MO to hawk saddles for money.
[QUOTE=wcporter;7108074]
Were you and I reading the same comments?? [/QUOTE]
I imagine so, but I like to give people the benefit of the doubt and not infer things that aren’t there.
