Maybe you could take advantage of the stronger “artistic” side of your brain and visualize the course as you would a painting. The fact that you use a little song indicates to me you are using the right side of your brain. Many people have a dominant side of the brain, not just those with physical differences. Also, you might explore self-hypnosis with a professional.
Since you have a legitimate disability, I wonder if you could use one of those ear buds with your trainer or someone calling the course for you. You’d probably have to get it approved at each venue, but it might be worth looking into.
I know that one person on my circuit has some sort of disability, though I am not sure what, and uses one of these devices while she goes 'round in the hunter ring. Possibly USEF or a bigger organization would be open to receiving this but I am not sure my local organization “Greater Houston Hunter Jumper Assoc.” or Texas Hunter Jumper Assoc." would be warm towards this. Perhaps if I present them with paper work and my team of doctors they would give it a go. Thank you for the idea!
I don’t even know what to say except thank you so much!
Honestly, this has been eye-opening for me. I especially liked the ideas of “trotting & cantering” the jump course in my free time before the class.
I have been wondering this since it seems to be an implication that this is possible. Whenever I have done shows, the courses were posted only a few minutes before my class started. At the bigger shows, will my course be posted very far in advance so that I will have a few hours to look at it? Or will it be the same?
I’ve never seen people walking the course (granted, this has been at schooling shows). Does that happen at A & AA shows? I mean, I got to my shows at 4 in the morning every time even though sometimes my classes wouldn’t start until 3 in the afternoon.
I have a really good, supportive trainer now. I don’t want to discredit him by asking all these questions. Quite the opposite, I want to be as good of a student and as prepared as I possibly can be. I think I will have to pull out some flash cards, bed sheets, pencils & such :]
As to what someone said about thinking on the fly while riding. Honestly, that sounds like an incredible thing to try! I texted my trainer just now and asked if we could try that. I think that would be an incredible aid for possibly working on trying to improve my memory.
Haing taken some lessons and worked at a very good barn people do walk courses. Now the jumpers don’t often allow it as much since there is suppose to be the element of surprise. I was going to suggest letting the jumps and the path tell a story. Give them names or locations or meanings and tell yourself the story as you ride it. I imagine this would actually give you an advantage if you can relax because you won’t be thinking oh crap, oxer/rollback/skinny but instead could think "over the bridge, around the corner, thru the gate on the way to ______…
Walking the course helps too, especially if you know your horses’s pace and can say your story to yourself as you are walking it in the barn aisle, grass, etc.
Good luck. You can do this. 
I have no legitimate reason for struggling with this like you do, but I just SUCK at remembering courses. I used to do dressage, and I had the same problem there. For whatever odd reason, one thing that did help was when my mom (who was fed up with me forgetting my tests) bought me a mini dressage arena at a show. It was I guess intended as a toy, maybe at about a Breyer horse scale. It was a few feet long, and for whatever reason, when I set it up and then envisioned riding the test in there, it would stick with me a little bit better. I’m not sure how you could transition that to jumpers, but maybe bring a big piece of paper to shows, and colored pencils? I have no idea why, but for me, having a regular sized piece of paper didn’t work, but something a little bit bigger was way more effective. Good luck, and if it’s any comfort, my brain works fine and I still struggle with this. No matter what solutions you try, don’t beat yourself up too hard when you do screw up - making yourself stress over it won’t help any.
Lots and lots of practice. I can very rarely remember courses without seeing someone do the course first, or without walking it. I have had to learn to think on the fly and try to figure out what the next fence might be… in jumpers, fences are numbered, so that’s helpful. I try and call out each fence in as much detail as I can when I’m reciting my course, and I point to each fence as well.
About a year or so ago I read an article about memorizing dressage tests and it went into the 4 maybe 5 different ways that people memorize things and I fit exactly into one of them. I wish I had kept that article, maybe someone can conjure it up.
I also, like others don’t memorize each fence, but memorize them as groups of fences. I also use shapes to help me, for example if # 6 is to the right after #5 I picture the top of a #6 which goes to the right.
Grouping them makes it easy and remember you still have the numbers to follow, at least in eventing we do.
[QUOTE=Ticker;6807124]
I have often wondered how anyone can remember jump courses…I know that I would fail.
Forgive my ignorance…I am just a dressage person…is it against the rules to request the jumps be numbered?[/QUOTE]
Jumps are numbered in the jumper classes
You’ve gotten some great advice already.
& from people who are Walking the Walk :yes:
All I can dredge up from my long-ago days of showing H/J is the Eq courses are really similar to Jumpers.
I used to use a Training Jumpers class to warm up for Medals.
If your memory is helped by riding a course, could you do the reverse - ride an Eq class to warm up for Jumpers?
[QUOTE=ashjumper442;6807365]
I know that one person on my circuit has some sort of disability, though I am not sure what, and uses one of these devices while she goes 'round in the hunter ring. Possibly USEF or a bigger organization would be open to receiving this but I am not sure my local organization “Greater Houston Hunter Jumper Assoc.” or Texas Hunter Jumper Assoc." would be warm towards this. Perhaps if I present them with paper work and my team of doctors they would give it a go. Thank you for the idea![/QUOTE]
What’s the worst that happens? They say ‘no’ and you’re really no worse off than you were before. Most associations have a process for requesting accommodations for disabilities.
Heck, before you ask, see if its even against the rules. It may not be. I don’t do jumpers so I haven’t a clue what the rules actually state. If the rules are silent on the matter, I’d probably go ahead and assume its legal. I tend to take the route of, ‘Its easier to seek forgiveness than permission’ on things like this if it doesn’t clearly spell it out in the rules.
What a great thread!
I don’t have problems to your extent, but I do have an auditory processing problem. If it goes in my ears, and I don’t have a mental picture for it to attach to, it goes away POOF and it’s gone.
That has made me a great speller- I can’t repeat a new word (or name) back very well- and it won’t stick at all- unless I have a mental picture of its spelling.
I know what would work well for me- it would be a combination of PNWJumper’s cell phone pics, andComeShine’s suggestion about the course designer. In eventing, each jump is supposed to be a ‘question’ that you and your horse can ‘answer’ (by jumping it well as presented). At a lower level, the question might be 'can your horse jump going away from the barn with the impulsion needed for a solid table type jump? In a jumper class, the course designer might be asking, 'can the rider go from a forward canter and turn away from the in gate and maintain the forward to go over a big, spooky oxer? Or, can you slow the horse’s rhythm and shorten the stride, since the horse on course is now excited and galloping toward the barn, to get a smooth in-and-out at the combination?
So I’d take cell phone pics, and get the best ‘story’ about each jump, that I could, and then put the ‘chapters’ together, and then go over it until I can picture each jump in my head, in the proper order, by telling the whole story.
My first jumper show with my new horse is quickly approaching and it is great to have all these different ideas! This has been a great opportunity to sit back and realize that even though memorizing things is a lot harder for me than maybe some, I have all of these great options. It’s nice to know that I have options :] thank you, each and every one of you, very much!
Bigger shows always allow time for course walks. I would think smaller shows would make time course walks as well if your trainer spoke with the organizer before any of the jumper classes began.
I’ve always learned my courses by walking courses in order and focusing on what I should be looking at instead of just memorizing jumps- so if I forget which jump, I’m looking in the right direction to see the numbers. You can do the same thing for the jump offs. Remember even if you stay in the ring to do a jump off right after a 1st trip, you still have 30 seconds to catch your breath and rehearse the jump off course before you have to start.
Good luck!
OP, good luck with your show! Relax and have fun!
I’m a visual learner. It works for me to write the course down. Then I go over and over it looking at my paper and looking at the jumps (at the shows I have been in they don’t let you walk the course). I try to observe the jumps from the direction I will be approaching them though. So I walk around the outside of the course with my trusty paper- trying and trying to get that course in my head. And trying to use any memory tricks I can think of (like part of one course was two yellow fences on a bending line and then around the arena to a gate so I made some connection between yellow and Watergate (good old Nixon!). There was also one I remembered with “one, two, turn to the blue” It seems like it takes me some time but when I get it I get it. I also try to watch some people riding the course as that is also helpful. The tricky part is then deleting course 1 from memory to learn course 2. Yesterday I had four different courses (and a jump off to memorize). Good luck it seems it is a challenge for many of us!
I event and don’t have any sense of direction at all and can get lost in my own driveway. Between the xc and showjumping I’m always super stressed, and have gotten ‘lost’ on several occasions in all 3 phases.
What I do, in addition to visualizing over and over, is memorize each jump as a combination in one sentence. Like, “log turn left and to gate” and “gate to the roll top”, “roll top gallop across field stay right”. Stadium is the same… “yellow oxer turn left to blue vetical”, “blue vertical bend line to red oxer”, etc. Combine this as you visualize and it helps a lot. At least for me.
Good luck
