Favourite Training Articles or Videos?

[FireMeetsFire]

Do you have any thought-provoking or enlightening articles that you’ve read or videos that you’ve watched?

I, like most riders, spend a disproportionate amount of my time online looking at horses, reading about horses, watching videos of horses and so on. there’s such a wealth of information though, that it can be time-consuming to sift through.

I thought some of us might have articles or videos that we have particularly enjoyed, and would like to share them. It can be on absolutely anything!

I found this the other day which I thought was an interesting way of explaining the idea of a hand which is forward but not loose:
https://aspireequestrian.wordpress.com/2015/01/02/the-forward-thinking-hand-quick-visual-suggestion-to-try-if-you-just-cant-get-it/

I would love to read and watch more!

[doctordarling]

I have taken on board some fun carrot stretch exercises, and schooling basics from ‘evention TV’ because Dom and Jimmy (Dom is Australian in the US) show viewers horses that are not GP or PSG, (in fact they’re eventers), often young and its more useful and encouraging to see example horses like this sometimes than fully educated ones. They use humor well too, and while funny, their basics are excellent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sx6rfJYVQ64

Mary Wanless, who as some of you will know gives little away for free, has posted some position critique articles she did years ago for Horse & Rider mag. These are fascinating, and provide a wealth of info. You can find articles 1-42 on this link. http://www.mary-wanless.com/Article1.html

LOVE love love Jean Bemelmans, just watching him teach or ride is a pleasure. Charles de Kunffy has some great stuff up too. google on youtube to find. Ingrid Klimke has some training vids up too that burst with interest. Just some of my favourites.

Ps - loved the shopping trolley concept blog you posted. ddx

[Edre]

Agreeing with the above post - the Schramms are quite inviting to work with and all of their information is the same way: I enjoy how accessible and user friendly their explanations are.

I’ll link to the article below, but there’s an old Hubertus Schmidt one that’s close to fifteen years old at this point. That said, it’s probably the most formative thing I’ve ever read as far as riding philosophy and approach goes. I really like the emphasis on relaxation and the idea that you should always be able to stretch your horse at any point of the ride: if your horse isn’t capable or willing to reach down and out when invited to do so, you need to find where you missed a step. Really, really eye opening.

https://dressagetoday.com/instruction/building_power_in_relaxation_091709

[Dr_Doolittle]

Mary Wanless is a genius it comes to rider biomechanics, awareness, correcting position faults and asymmetries, etc. I bought her book (Riding with your Mind) 25 years ago, skimmed through it and found it helpful, but very “dense” with information - it’s in some back room and I haven’t read it for a long time, but I recently reconnected with her concepts and joined the online dressage training she offers. It’s been a game changer for me! Many of the concepts are simple but the difference they make is profound, and I have shared them with several of my LL students IMO it’s definitely worth the money to “invest” in her online training - and of the books!

I also invested in Wendy Murdoch’s course, many similar concepts and great information on biomechanics – both horse and rider – I highly recommend this kind of training; it Is labor-intensive and detailed, but for people committed to improving their riding it pretty much blows the “demos by dressage riders while teaching” out of the water.

Oh, and (um) stay FAR away from Nicky P :lol: :lol:

[Training_Cupid]

I’ve been enjoying the videos posted by Charles de Kunffy on his facebook. They are classroom lecture style (no actual riding demo), but his advice is quite straight forward and practical, and he is surprisingly funny.
https://www.facebook.com/pg/CharlesDeKunffy/videos/?ref=page_internal

[FireMeetsFire]

Thanks everyone - definitely going to check these out. Keep those suggestions coming!

[Feathered_Feet]

Janet Foy & Steffen Peters video series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvWZ8n3vWfk

Starts with training level, and goes up to PSG.

[Feathered_Feet]

@Dr. Doolittle

I recently reconnected with her concepts and joined the online dressage training she offers. It’s been a game changer for me! M

Can you link to this? I can’t seem to find it on her website.

Also I’ll be in Oxford for a few days in the spring - maybe I’ll try to catch some rides at her barn while I’m there!

[ladyrider2]

This article where George Morris gives a dressage lesson on tempi changes was one of the most useful I’ve ever read. It really helped me. http://www.horsemagazine.com/thm/2015/09/george-morris-gives-a-dressage-lesson-to-ilse-schwarz/

[netg]

@Feathered_Feet

Janet Foy & Steffen Peters video series:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gvWZ8n3vWfk

Starts with training level, and goes up to PSG.

You beat me to it! To me that is THE video series to watch for a real-life idea of where you’re trying to go. Hopefully I have the time to watch it again over the holidays.

I love articles by Jeremy Steinberg - he shares them on his facebook page.

[Dr_Doolittle]

@Feathered_Feet - sorry for the delayed response! (Hard to cut and paste from my phone so I had to be on my computer…)

Here’s the link to the website: https://dressagetraining.tv/

I promise it’s worth every penny

[Feathered_Feet]

@Dr. Doolittle

@Feathered_Feet - sorry for the delayed response! (Hard to cut and paste from my phone so I had to be on my computer…)

Here’s the link to the website: https://dressagetraining.tv/

I promise it’s worth every penny

Awesome, thank you! I will look into this

[Dr_Doolittle]

@Feathered_Feet

Awesome, thank you! I will look into this

Most welcome

Mary is a treasure trove of useful information - she provides detailed descriptions of anatomy and biomechanics, things that “ring true” when put into practice - and which make a huge difference in awareness and effectiveness in the saddle.

I’ve heard some stories on COTH about her personality :eek:, not sure whether I would want to work with her one-on-one based on her reputation (and the clinics are WAY pricey!!), but she is engaging and clear in the videos, and the tutorials make sense.

Her “colleague” Peter Dove, OTOH…? He is (ahem) NOT as engaging, to say the least. Lots of “so”, and “um”, and “ah”, and he tends to drone on. And on. Makes me ITCH to fast forward every time he begins to “intone.”

His daughter Millie rides in a lot of the demos, and she’s a lovely young rider; has two mares she rides: a cute chestnut and a spectacular young bay WB with movement to DIE for - who shares the same name as my homebred 5 year old.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the website, and (if you sign up) get some good tips out of it! I’ve actually been wanting to start a thread about this for awhile in hopes of finding other posters who have studied her methods (I know there have been threads on her in the past, but search and Google were not helpful; I guess it’s been awhile), and I may still do that.

[doctordarling]

@Dr. Doolittle

I’ve heard some stories on COTH about her personality :eek:, not sure whether I would want to work with her one-on-one based on her reputation (and the clinics are WAY pricey!!), but she is engaging and clear in the videos, and the tutorials make sense.

For what its worth (a chuckle?) a lovely friend of mine who I used to share a house with (and continue to ride with) just got back to Oz from a trip to the UK. Since she’s an academic, working in horse/human cultural anthropology she did a bit of tax deductible riding when she was there, namely at Mary Wanless’s barn. She booked for a simulated horse lesson, then one on a real horse. Didn’t get the maestro herself, but her 2IC - but MW did pop her head out of a stable to correct my friend’s pronunciation of the teacher’s name, the horse’s name, and that of the nearest village. My pal took some new info away, got yelled at for slightly opening her inside rein, and while she tells it better than I do (humorously) spent the entire time feeling really tense. Still, she’s glad she did it. ddx

[Dr_Doolittle]

@doctordarling

For what its worth (a chuckle?) a lovely friend of mine who I used to share a house with (and continue to ride with) just got back to Oz from a trip to the UK. Since she’s an academic, working in horse/human cultural anthropology she did a bit of tax deductible riding when she was there, namely at Mary Wanless’s barn. She booked for a simulated horse lesson, then one on a real horse. Didn’t get the maestro herself, but her 2IC - but MW did pop her head out of a stable to correct my friend’s pronunciation of the teacher’s name, the horse’s name, and that of the nearest village. My pal took some new info away, got yelled at for slightly opening her inside rein, and while she tells it better than I do (humorously) spent the entire time feeling really tense. Still, she’s glad she did it. ddx

:lol:

Thanks for sharing that story, Ha! Not surprising considering Mary’s reputation. I would personally be askeert to ride with her…