First Dressage Lesson Wednesday! Any Advice?

[esdressage]

I’m so sorry to hear your second lesson didn’t go well.

I’m curious about your instructor having to “run into town” and not being there. Was it some sort of unexpected emergency? Considering you hauled in for the lesson I would think they’d try to let you know well ahead of time if the instructor wasn’t going to be there.

It is good that you were able to have a lesson with her husband though. I think it’s helpful to work in group lessons sometimes as well and also with different instructors. It wasn’t your fault that your instructor wasn’t there and I don’t think her husband would have offered if he felt like you would be intruding, so no worries there. It just sounds like it all caught you off-guard a bit and you ended up with a lot of nerves messing up your ride

[katarine]

OK, you need to talk to your instructor about responsibilities and expectations. I’d be pissed at being tossed into another’s lesson, and on my best day, would say thanks and no thanks, and maybe watch the lesson since I did come over there, but I’m not a shirt to be put on someone else’s back. I’m a paying customer.

I would be talking to them about expectations, period. The whip is irrelevant and frankly, canter transitions in your first lesson with this guy? Weird to me since you are brand new to the Big D.

[Eddy_s_Mom]

[QUOTE=esdressage;4507759]
I’m so sorry to hear your second lesson didn’t go well.

I’m curious about your instructor having to “run into town” and not being there. Was it some sort of unexpected emergency? Considering you hauled in for the lesson I would think they’d try to let you know well ahead of time if the instructor wasn’t going to be there.

It is good that you were able to have a lesson with her husband though. I think it’s helpful to work in group lessons sometimes as well and also with different instructors. It wasn’t your fault that your instructor wasn’t there and I don’t think her husband would have offered if he felt like you would be intruding, so no worries there. It just sounds like it all caught you off-guard a bit and you ended up with a lot of nerves messing up your ride [/QUOTE]

Um I’m pretty sure I was forgotten. When I left last week I thought we set up another lesson, but there was a lot of stuff going on so I am pretty sure it wasn’t written down. I am going to call this week and make sure I am scheduled for my day/time.

I agree about it being good to work with different instructors and people, but I think for now I need one-on-one at my level, not at someone else’s level. Down the road fine, but for my second week I was in too deep! Maybe we got something out of it that won’t appear until next week?

[Gloria]

Are your lessons supposed to be private, or group, and with this specific instructor? If it is supposed to be private with this particular instructor, and if the same scenario repeats without a good reason, I’d shop for another instructor…

[Eddy_s_Mom]

[QUOTE=katarine;4507783]
OK, you need to talk to your instructor about responsibilities and expectations. I’d be pissed at being tossed into another’s lesson, and on my best day, would say thanks and no thanks, and maybe watch the lesson since I did come over there, but I’m not a shirt to be put on someone else’s back. I’m a paying customer.

I would be talking to them about expectations, period. The whip is irrelevant and frankly, canter transitions in your first lesson with this guy? Weird to me since you are brand new to the Big D.[/QUOTE]

I didn’t want to say I was pissed but I WAS. I am sure the other girl was, too. The thing that makes me the most angry is that we were doing stuff clearly that my horse wasn’t ready for. I thought dressage was a progressive thing? Like, learn the walk and trot before going into canter work? I was even having to leg-yield the long side at a trot, which we have never done before. It wasn’t pretty, but I guess we got it done. I felt embarrassed and frustrated and couldn’t figure out why I couldn’t just work at a trot in a circle out of her way? Maybe that’s how dressage is, but something tells me it’s not.

I am not complaining about the training/quality or qualifications of this barn. It is amazing, maybe I don’t fit in there?

[Eddy_s_Mom]

[QUOTE=Gloria;4507787]
Are your lessons supposed to be private, or group, and with this specific instructor? If it is supposed to be private with this particular instructor, and if the same scenario repeats without a good reason, I’d shop for another instructor…[/QUOTE]

Private with a different instructor…

[katarine]

Meh- no one will take up for you but you. Decide what you want to do and act on it, decisively.

[Gloria]

If I were you, I would be pissed, or at least put off. I show my respect and I expect my instructor to at least return the courtesy.

And you are absolutely right. A good instructor should always work with you on stuff you are ready to work on. They may push you and challenge you but they should prepar you so you can take up that challenge and succeed.

If you/your horse aren’t ready to work on leg yield, he should prepare you in exercises that eventually led to leg yields. Hell at my first dressage clinic, we walked the whole session but that was what I needed to progress.

Now this is only your second lesson so I will give them a benefit of doubt. Maybe she made a honest mistake of forgetting you (new student, new schedule, etc). But if the same scenario repeats, I’ll be out of there and find a greener pasture.

[slc2]

To some extent, it depends on how good a teacher the husband really is. Is he just some random husband, or a trained, experienced rider who is good at teaching?

If he is good, I see no reason why you couldn’t take lessons from either of them, whichever one is available.

I don’t see any reason at all why it would be bad to have you do a leg yield in your second lesson, even if you haven’t done one before. It’s much easier to follow another person in a lesson, and copy what they do. It’s much easier to visualize by watching someone else apply the aids and copy them.

I don’t think it really matters that much how well it goes the first time or two, either. It’s no big deal. If you keep working at it I’m sure it will improve. The best way to learn something is to give it a try.

Dressage is, indeed, progressive. But no, it doesn’t always mean doing everything in the walk, then the trot, then the canter. Many instructors don’t like to teach leg yields in the walk much - horses get too ‘goosey’, ‘wiggly’ and crooked.

I don’t exactly blame you for being pissed, though. No one likes unexpected changes, or to feel someone forgot them or didn’t feel concerned if they took a lesson from hubby without discussing it ahead of time.

Thing is, though, many instructors that are really very good, ,are very busy and their schedule changing all the time. Many good husband wife teams do work out very well.

But not all. You do want to feel hubby is also a good trainer too, and that he and wifey use similar methods, so you don’t get sent off doing things one way by one and another way by the other. And I know…we do like to feel like someone cares just a little bit about us and how we feel, and even though we’re the student, we want to feel like there’s some kindness and concern coming from the teacher too.

It’s up to you as always, but in and of itself, I don’t see anything wrong with you doing leg yields early on, or even not having it go so perfectly. No biggie.

If you have doubts about hubby (I don’t…YET) and feel overlooked or like you were treated unfairly, the hubby and wife arrangement may not be the best for you. If you feel like the other student was really upset about it…that does influence things.

Unless the trainer offers a lower rate for semi private lessons, and you didn’t get it, I’d not be too upset about it.

With some trainers, very good ones, you may arrive and get a lesson from a (very good) hubby or a really great working student. You might arrive to find your trainer riding around on another horse, or fitting in several lessons at once, even while he rides. And that might not really go that badly. Especially if your horse is not conditioned for a long continuous lesson, breaks while the trainer works his horse or another student aren’t so bad. If you’re continuing to improve and learn, and going home with good things to work on…no big.

I am not that much bugged about it, it is just a part of some situations, and some of the best trainers at the top of the sport do this…but…so do some real blowoffs, LOL. If it isn’t for you - it just isn’t.

[egontoast]

I showed up about 15mins before my lesson to warm up, and was told that my instructor had run into town and wouldn’t be there

If that is how the cancellation/substitution was explained to you after you trailered in for a second lesson, it was very unprofessional and just plain rude.

“run into town” sounds like a very casual excuse. If it was an emergency, you’d think they would have said so.

if you want to continue with the first trainer, you need to talk to her about this.

[Gloria]

SLC, the problem is now whether the husband is good or not. He can be the best instructor in the world. It doesn’t matter. If I pay good money to take lesson from a certain instructor, I had better get instruction from “that” instructor, not anybody else. If they want to substitute the instructor I paid for, they should get permission from me before swapping on me.

As to asking OP to trot leg yield, in itself that is not a problem, if the instructor were there to help. To help means to work on exercises so the trot leg yield wouldn’t be overwhelming and frustrating. If he had prepared her, the trot leg yield could have been challenging but not overwhelming. When my instructor asked to do shoulder-in the very first time, I was shocked. I did not know I could. But he was there with me every step away, he had prepared me, and showed me what to do. In 10 minutes, I had it down. It was challenging but fullfilling and FUN. However, that did not sound like the situation she was in. It sounds to me the instructor did not consider her background. He left her swim or sink. That, is not acceptable in my book.

[Eddy_s_Mom]

[QUOTE=slc2;4507960]
To some extent, it depends on how good a teacher the husband really is. Is he just some random husband, or a trained, experienced rider who is good at teaching?

Nope, not some random Joe- he’s a USDF 4th level certified instructor, very, very good, but I thought he only took the more advanced students

If he is good, I see no reason why you couldn’t take lessons from either of them, whichever one is available.

I agree with you, I would have no problem with that, so long as I was aware it might be either/or and I wasn’t intruding on someone else’s lesson

I don’t see any reason at all why it would be bad to have you do a leg yield in your second lesson, even if you haven’t done one before. It’s much easier to follow another person in a lesson, and copy what they do. It’s much easier to visualize by watching someone else apply the aids and copy them.

Again, I agree with you. It’s just that I felt like I wasn’t getting any help on fixing it. You know what I mean? Maybe it would have been different had I been a scheduled client, but I don’t feel like I was getting instruction on how to better it. We worked on leg yielding last time, too, but I was actually getting instructed on how to make it better and how to get my horse to respond better.

I don’t think it really matters that much how well it goes the first time or two, either. It’s no big deal. If you keep working at it I’m sure it will improve. The best way to learn something is to give it a try.

Dressage is, indeed, progressive. But no, it doesn’t always mean doing everything in the walk, then the trot, then the canter. Many instructors don’t like to teach leg yields in the walk much - horses get too ‘goosey’, ‘wiggly’ and crooked.

I don’t exactly blame you for being pissed, though. No one likes unexpected changes, or to feel someone forgot them or didn’t feel concerned if they took a lesson from hubby without discussing it ahead of time.

Thing is, though, many instructors that are really very good, ,are very busy and their schedule changing all the time. Many good husband wife teams do work out very well.

But not all. You do want to feel hubby is also a good trainer too, and that he and wifey use similar methods, so you don’t get sent off doing things one way by one and another way by the other. And I know…we do like to feel like someone cares just a little bit about us and how we feel, and even though we’re the student, we want to feel like there’s some kindness and concern coming from the teacher too.

I know he is an excellent instructor, they do use similar methods and have the same goal in mind. I should have just kept my mouth shut and not tried to be funny because he didn’t appreciate my sense of humor, which I found out after trying to make a joke :eek: I learned my lesson- shut up and ride. I tend to try and break the ice when I’m nervous but I won’t do that again.

It’s up to you as always, but in and of itself, I don’t see anything wrong with you doing leg yields early on, or even not having it go so perfectly. No biggie.

If you have doubts about hubby (I don’t…YET) and feel overlooked or like you were treated unfairly, the hubby and wife arrangement may not be the best for you. If you feel like the other student was really upset about it…that does influence things.

Unless the trainer offers a lower rate for semi private lessons, and you didn’t get it, I’d not be too upset about it.

With some trainers, very good ones, you may arrive and get a lesson from a (very good) hubby or a really great working student. You might arrive to find your trainer riding around on another horse, or fitting in several lessons at once, even while he rides. And that might not really go that badly. Especially if your horse is not conditioned for a long continuous lesson, breaks while the trainer works his horse or another student aren’t so bad. If you’re continuing to improve and learn, and going home with good things to work on…no big.

I am not that much bugged about it, it is just a part of some situations, and some of the best trainers at the top of the sport do this…but…so do some real blowoffs, LOL. If it isn’t for you - it just isn’t.

Thanks for your input, I guess I just need a tougher skin and to roll with the punches. However, like you said, no one likes the feeling that they were forgotten about, especially when you’ve looked forward to your time all week! I sent an e-mail to my instructor, hopefully things will work out because I really liked her. [/QUOTE]

[Eddy_s_Mom]

[QUOTE=Gloria;4507997]
SLC, the problem is now whether the husband is good or not. He can be the best instructor in the world. It doesn’t matter. If I pay good money to take lesson from a certain instructor, I had better get instruction from “that” instructor, not anybody else. If they want to substitute the instructor I paid for, they should get permission from me before swapping on me.

As to asking OP to trot leg yield, in itself that is not a problem, if the instructor were there to help. To help means to work on exercises so the trot leg yield wouldn’t be overwhelming and frustrating. If he had prepared her, the trot leg yield could have been challenging but not overwhelming. When my instructor asked to do shoulder-in the very first time, I was shocked. I did not know I could. But he was there with me every step away, he had prepared me, and showed me what to do. In 10 minutes, I had it down. It was challenging but fullfilling and FUN. However, that did not sound like the situation she was in. It sounds to me the instructor did not consider her background. He left her swim or sink. That, is not acceptable in my book.[/QUOTE]

Gloria- you just hit the nail on the head! I wasn’t able to verbalize how I felt but, after you said that it completely clicked. I feel like I was thrown in to sink or swim. I sank, but will swim next week!

That said, any advice on the leg yielding? My horse is very sensitive, which can be a problem because he is probably doing what I am asking, I just don’t know how to ask for a proper leg yield. We did it at the walk last week, and my trainer verbalized it to where I “got” it and my horse did as well. I was so flustered this week everything from last week vanished. I tend to dig down with one hip, which screws things up, but I cannot remember which one! Help?

[slc2]

I don’t dig down with one hip unless I’ve gotten out of position. I just sit in the middle of the saddle and use my outside rein to keep Precious straight, and my inside leg and rein to get a very slight bend and yield away.

I’m glad you gave more detail. Honestly, if the husband is a good instructor, I wouldn’t worry about working with either one of them. I think one has to guard against getting too upset about changes.

I’m betting that the wife went off to do something that needed to be done (most people would not say, for example, ‘She had to go get legal papers from our lawyer about Grampa’s estate’, they’d just say, ‘she had to run an errand’).

Too, there are couples who, in their business, they simply regard themselves as ‘equivalent’ and do this sort of thing often.

When I set up to go to one trainer, she said, ‘There’s no guarantee I can be at home on the weekend you haul in even if you plan ahead. Things change too fast. Hubby can give you a lesson, or my head rider. If I’m here and I can do it, I will’. She also said she couldn’t guarantee they wouldn’t ALL be gone. He had an FEI horse going and he might qualify it, or not. She was very honest. If you signed up for a lesson weekend, you knew how it might be. Believe it or not, plenty of people were glad to take the chance.

As far as making a joke, especially with the more serious and intense instructors, I don’t. They tend to take it the wrong way. It’s very easy for two people who don’t know each other to get their signals crossed where humor is concerned.

On the other hand, if over time you start to find out the guy is just too gruff and serious for you, that’s ok, but maybe try giving him a chance over a little more time to start with - don’t judge on one incident.

If your horse is ‘sensitive’ (not sure what it means - goes too quickly when you try to leg yield, fusses with his head, or both), learning leg yield along with the horse just is a sort of series of steps ‘toward getting better’. :lol: Just don’t worry about it. It often goes rather well the first time and then the horse sort of ‘figures it out’ and starts putting up objections. ‘But it makes no sense! I’m supposed to go really fast when you put your leg on’, only gradually turns into, ‘OHhhhh…ONE leg, I just step across, oh I guess that’s not so bad’.

Often what keeps a horse from leg yielding well is, well, everything, as one instructor told me, LOL. If you don’t really have a good connection with the horse’s mouth, if they’re a little stiff and off balance, they tend to get really quick when you try to leg yield.

[katarine]

Eddy, your chameleon way of finding a way to sort of agree with everyone and not read the situation for what it was, a clusterflick, won’t serve you well in dressage.

Again, you have to take care of you and I find you flitting like a wee bird bouncing about nervously. I would be too. They casually slapped you into another peeps lesson, with a stranger to you in both fellow student and teacher. That’s BS.

So be still a minute

You need to stop, breathe, and call your instructor. You need to determine what happened. You need to work with that information and go from there. Me, I would not for one second cotton to how that was handled. No one confirmed the lesson and you guessed it was booked butmaybenot? You own some of that, then. You then arrived and they blithely dealt with you, took your money, and failed to meet your needs as a student.

Stop fretting the leg yield. You don’t ever know who your teacher is

[Eddy_s_Mom]

[QUOTE=katarine;4508515]
Eddy, your chameleon way of finding a way to sort of agree with everyone and not read the situation for what it was, a clusterflick, won’t serve you well in dressage.

Again, you have to take care of you and I find you flitting like a wee bird bouncing about nervously. I would be too. They casually slapped you into another peeps lesson, with a stranger to you in both fellow student and teacher. That’s BS.

So be still a minute

You need to stop, breathe, and call your instructor. You need to determine what happened. You need to work with that information and go from there. Me, I would not for one second cotton to how that was handled. No one confirmed the lesson and you guessed it was booked butmaybenot? You own some of that, then. You then arrived and they blithely dealt with you, took your money, and failed to meet your needs as a student.

Stop fretting the leg yield. You don’t ever know who your teacher is :)[/QUOTE]

Wow. Have you ever thought that maybe I do “sort of” agree with everyone?

Yes, I was forgotten. Yes, it was a cluster. I believe in giving people second chances, I honestly believe it was a “new student, new schedule” thing, like someone else said. Yes, I was angry and upset, but I also decided to make the best of it and ride, anyhow. I guess you think I should have loaded back up and gone home?

I have NO IDEA where you got that I “guessed that it was booked buymaybenot?” I left last week with her saying “does this time and day work for you?” and me saying, “yes, I’ll see you next week.”

I DID contact the instructor- I emailed her first this this morning. I got a very apologetic email in response this evening, stating she was extremely sorry, thought she would have been back in time and thanked me for being so flexible to ride with her husband. She also said my next lesson is on her, which I will not accept as I received a lesson yesterday and will pay for it.

And regardless of who my instructor is, I will fret about the leg yield, because that is my nature.

[katarine]

oh, found a nerve and wasn’t hunting one.

You said yourself you didn’t see anyone write it down.

Um I’m pretty sure I was forgotten. When I left last week I thought we set up another lesson, but there was a lot of stuff going on so I am pretty sure it wasn’t written down.

Pardon me for reading for comprehension and I’m not trying to piss you off. You sounded unwilling to be annoyed with them. Glad to hear I’m wrong. I do heartily recommend a thicker skin, though. It would be a good idea.

Carry on

[oharabear]

[QUOTE=Eddy’s Mom;4508535]

I DID contact the instructor- I emailed her first this this morning. I got a very apologetic email in response this evening, stating she was extremely sorry, thought she would have been back in time and thanked me for being so flexible to ride with her husband. She also said my next lesson is on her, which I will not accept as I received a lesson yesterday and will pay for it.

And regardless of who my instructor is, I will fret about the leg yield, because that is my nature.[/QUOTE]

Well, good! It sounds like it’s on the way to being resolved. I would personally give them another chance and if they mess it up again, move on and find another instructor. I also think that if you felt stressed and over-faced in the last lesson, then you should take the freebie, since you didn’t LEARN much and spent the lesson stressed and tense. I think that was a kind and professional gesture that your trainer made towards resolving the situation.

And Katarine, I think that perhaps the OP got a tad defensive because your posts were a tad aggressive. You did not “hit a nerve,” you just came off as rude in how you phrased things. I was somewhat put off and it’s not even about me. She had a crappy lesson, came on here to vent, and was accused of “agreeing with everyone” (oh heaven forbid) :rolleyes:

[oharabear]

Oh yeah, as far as bringing a whip goes, I would bring it along next time, then tell your instructor about your issues with you horse’s “but I don’t WANT to canter today” attitude and see if she has you carry it or not. It’s highly likely that your instructor will want to address that issue at some point and you guys can go from there.

[slc2]

I think it is a REAL mistake to expect a decent dressage instructor to go ‘Oh…OKAY’ when we say, ‘But I don’t want to canter, and I don’t carry a whip, and Precious doesn’t like a noseband, and Precious doesn’t like teacher saying to kick Precious or bend Precious. When Precious puts her ears back, that means the lesson is over, and Precious is being asked to do too much.’

I don’t think most of us realize how close to that we really are. Doing dressage well really isn’t about making compromises like those.

I really honestly think that many people go to a dressage lesson, expecting that improvement will not be about making changes.

It WILL be about making changes. We often hear on this bb that dressage should never involve anyone doing…well…almost EVERYTHING.

We’re our own worst enemies. The first thing we need to change is to remove all the ‘But I CAN’T!’'s from our vocabularies.

Part of getting into lessons with a trainer is finding out that it is all about making changes, and change is not always comfortable, easy or graceful. We ALWAYS think we’re right in what we’re doing, but we go to an instructor…well…to find out what we’re doing WRONG, and to CHANGE it.

Canter your horse in your lesson. Start right away. Don’t baby your ‘sensitive’ horse. Carry a whip. Learn to use it. When Precious says no to the leg, is a time to use it. Be ready to change your position, try things you don’t know, get on the edge a little bit, move your arms, move your legs, be a little bit inelegant now and then.

No matter who you take lessons from, decide who you are and where you are going.

Go in that ring saying, ‘Mommy wants to ride the FEI, Precious’. Or resolve yourself to wasting your money and your time, and be clear in your mind that you want an instructor that tells you how lovely your new pants look, instead of pushing you to succeed and grow.