Unfortunately the bolded part is not really sarcastic but rather true…
The OP was asking for something which does exist (at least in Germany) and nobody was even try to help him/her. he was called a troll, he was personally attacked and made fun of. I still think thats very sad…Why not simply giving him some video sources?
And yes Pferdia TV is a very good source, you will get a short version for free but if you want the complete video you have to pay for it. I have considered for years to subscribe to it because they have amazing videos. If you know German, thats money well spend
I got a great deal of my riding education for free and/or in exchange for helping out at the barn with everything from water buckets to the more glamorous tasks of helping the trainers get their list done. In my experience there are trainers who will trach you for free or at a steep steep discount if you are pleasant, help them with stuff, and follow instruction well enough that they feel comfortable putting you on their horses. I have certainly met some major @$$holes along the way, but also some wonderful people. The trick is to keep trying to OFFER people what you can and see if you can find someone where it works out.
I’m certainly not the most charismatic and beloved person that ever existed but, from someone who cobbled together an excellent riding education for pennies on the dollar, I’m going to go out on a limb here and say your attitude is your main problem.
I already don’t want to get up at 4:30am to pack the trailer with you. Maybe that’s why not a single working student gig worked out?
It is a good source for sure and you were right mentioning it!! and there are many great short sequences of their videos for free. I watch them all the time!!
Manni, never a good idea to speak in absolutes. Bolding is mine. Your statement is simply not true. Not everybody treated the OP in the manner you suggest. Just read please and thank you and comment on those aspects that are meaningful to you or where you can provide value.
If there were videos out there that would do what the OP wants, they would have been posted…but there aren’t, so they weren’t. So people gave advice.
Just because one disagrees with an approach doesn’t make it wrong. There are some well intentioned statements, so it is not really as sad or as one-sided as your post implies.
Okay, so lets say you found the exact video tutorials you are looking for. And let’s say you studied them for hours upon hours, weeks upon weeks while sitting in front of your TV. And let’s say you learned – by watching – all the verbage and the movements and the aids, etc. etc. etc. by name, and whatever else it is you wanted to know.
Let’s say you learned it ALL and graduated yourself to 4th level dressge teacher. Now you’re ready to go out and teach! So you wander into the dressage riding ‘club’ of your choice and tell the owner you’re a 4th level dressage teacher of horse and man and want a job…
The first question you will be asked is your name. And it won’t ring a bell. No one in the barn will have ‘heard’ of you.
Second question: Who have you taught? And where? And your answer will be no one, nowhere.
Third question will be WHO taught you? And your answer will be, “I learned by watching videos on TV”.
Fourth question – if it even gets that far: What horses have you trained to forth level and where did you compete? And your answer will be none/nowhere.
And let’s say by some insane miracle the barn owner thinks that’s just fine and hires you to train one of their stallions and they lead him out to the ring for you to ride – and he’s a gigantic, 6 year old warmblood – huge mover – full of himself, and is 'having trouble with flying lead changes and quarter pirouettes’. What in the world will you do? Get on and sort this horse right out because you saw how to address these problems in lesson 35 of your video tutorial?
I don’t think anyone here is trying to dash your dreams. But there is a reality when it comes to training horses. And I can’t believe I even wrote this whole thing because I can’t believe you are real.
But what I’m most curious about is that you can pay in cereal. What kind of cereal, exactly? It makes a difference.
Ok I apologize “Everybody” was the wrong word some post were supportive! Sometimes I post too fast. That’s not what I wanted to say… but on the other hand read the post behind yours… why is it saying the OP can’t be real. How does he know???
I think this is a fake post. I mean come on, the OP has 7 posts on COTH and has written a long paragraph that’s a hodge-podge of common rants on this board. I think somebody made this up as a joke or to get people riled up.
I don’t say that that is not possible, but if he/she wanted to rile up people he was successful. Why not give him what he/she wants and go from there??
Did you miss the part where OP described the manner in which every other rider on the planet has learned about dressage (paying or working for training and horses) as a scam?
Where OP demanded free videos that would provide enough training to get an otherwise uneducated rank beginner rider to 4th level (which I still do not believe exists, even in German)?
Where OP responded to some very reasonable and well-meaning advice from TDD by threatening to beat the horses she rides if not provided the thing she was demanding?
Even if we overlook the many other signs that this poster is not acting in good faith, these are simply not the sort of assertions, requests, or ultimatums that people should be expected to accommodate with a smile. I further think that one might be doing a disservice to the poster (assuming she’s real) and the horses she might ride by offering links to a bounty of dressage videos without pointing out just how wrong-headed the notion of going from zero to 4th level via free internet tutorial is.
I generally try not to interact with you, Manni, because I so often see you inserting yourself into threads only to whinge about a false dichotomy between meanies (which seems to include anyone with a sense of humor) and good posters (who must be at least as credulous as they are kind, it seems). But in this thread there’s really no way to paint either side as a virtuous victim – the original post contains at least as much spite and malice as any of the responses. I really don’t understand the attempts to volunteer-police this forum into a safe space for every demonstrably hostile character who shows up. The real world is a whole lot harsher than CoTH, and I for one think it’s o.k. (healthy, even) to reject the premise of a post, to call out flawed arguments or bad attitudes, or to enjoy a little sarcasm now and then.
Ok at this point I usually bring K. Balkenhol who started his career without money and without even a dressagehorse. He was a mounted police officer and trained his police horse to a very successful dressagehorse by mainly reading books. But he would probably use videos today I assume… yes he did have a trainer once in a while but we don’t know how much this trainer really trained him.
So it is theoretically possible to ride upper level dressage without taking a lot of lessons. And I have to agree with the OP about Working student positions… it really depends who you work for how much you get out of it. And somehow I believe that without knowledge of riding and without connections it might be difficult to learn how to ride as a working student. So I think the OP was a bit frustrated and therefore harsh…
So why not give him some videos to look at and wait… but I guess now he is gone anyhow…
Manni I hear what you are saying however, I was and still am that rider who scrimps and saves for my horse. I have been the working student and the stall cleaner. A good attitude is everything. I would not let this person near my horse. 1, because they think 1.5 years and they are a horseman and 2, my horse needs training. If I can’t do it I will pay for training rides on top of lessons. No, I will not let some beginner on my mare because if someone is going to be/act like a beginner on my mare it’s gonna be me:lol:. They haven’t done anything we all haven’t done except demand free rides and training and thinking horses get you out of poverty. I’m in poverty because of my horse!:D.
It wasn’t the asking for videos that everyome got up in arms about. It was their attitude. Saying the knowledge should be free to them so they can charge people??? Ya no.
There are also a number of us on this very board who will never reach Balkenhol status but have also started with zero (or negative, if you count student loans) money, no dressage horse (or horse at all, in some cases), who’ve avidly devoured books and videos, but like Balkenhol have required at least some input from trainers and a willingness to work in order to make progress.That is exactly the sort of trajectory that some of us have pointed to as a more realistic approach, but OP has explicitly rejected that model.
You’ll notice that several of the responses on this post are from people who’ve been in OP’s position w.r.t. finances and access to horses. Unlike Balkenhol, most of us broke CoTHers didn’t grow up on farms that bred horses and haven’t been in a position to take jobs that provide both salaries and access to horses simultaneously. What unites us (and ol’ KB, if you still want to insist that his background is parallel) is that in lieu of cold hard cash by the handfuls we’ve had to work hard and be thankful when we are given opportunities like riding time, or permission to take a police horse to a dressage event, or the chance to be a fly on the wall in a barn where good training is happening. I think these perspectives – perspectives from people who are doing or have done what OP ostensibly wants to do (move up the levels without money in the contemporary equestrian world and economy) – are potentially more valuable than videos in the hands of the OP. But the OP doesn’t want to hear about that, or about Balkenhol, unless he has an intro to 4th level video series on YouTube.
Even if this is an innocent situation of someone who ‘just asked for videos’, as Manni insists, without any more specific interest in a realistic training goal it is a bit of a Let Me Google That For You situation. Why should anyone indulge a stranger with a terrible attitude in that?
I bet Balkenhol never called anyone a ‘cheap bastard’ for not paying him for the dressage schooling he put on his police mount.
well this discussion doesn’t lead anywhere except into a new train wreck… I recommended my video links, the OP now has the choice to look at them, if he is still coming back to the board which I doubt and thats it for me…
Yup. That tends to happen when the Troll Defense League turns up to Wile E. Coyote a thread into the nearest brick wall of pearl-clutching indignation.
There are 9,970 results if you use Google to search for videos just on the CoTH dressage forum. I don’t think anyone’s actual dressage education is going to suffer from a lack of YouTube tutorial links on this one DOA thread.
