Riders in a Program: What Does "a good lesson" Mean Where You Ride?

[Trendline]

In my neck of the woods, you can figure it’s a good lesson if:

1. The trainer isn’t drunk.

2. The trainer is only 30 minutes late to the arena.

3. The trainer doesn’t arrive in shorts, t-shirt and flip-flops.

4. The trainer doesn’t stop the lesson to negotiate with a horse buyer on their cellphone.

5. The trainer doesn’t assign an exercise, then drift over to the rail to have a chat with someone in the aisle.

Gold star if:

1. The trainer doesn’t engage in any TWO of the above mentioned behaviors. (Asking for more is unrealistic.)

2. The trainer seems to recall what a horse -rider team had trouble with last time.

3. The trainer actually sets up an exercise designed to help improve that skill.

The Forget-About-It Never-Happen Department:

1. Avoidance of all behaviors in Item #1

2. Any training plan based on a step-by-step skill-building curriculum.

3. Any organized training plan at all.

4. Pursuit of continuing education on the part of the trainer so he/she can become a better rider and more effective teacher.

There’s been a lot of agreement on this forum about the need for professionalism among trainers, but most of it has centered around business/ management skills. What about trainers actually training?

I hope training is better where you live and ride. Is it? If so, how?

[LaurieB]

@Trendline, it sounds as though you need a new trainer.

[ThreeWishes]

Ummmmm that’s nuts. I take 2 lessons a week on my horse and ride on my own 4 days a week. My trainer is always early, sets the jumps up while I warm up, sober, kind, encouraging, and is always building on our last session with an explained thought out goal. He instructs the entire ride often walking almost alongside as we go. And we discuss any and all concerns, strengths, weaknesses, etc as we do each exercise.

[Mander]

Oh boy. I can’t say I’ve dealt with anything quite so crazy, and right now I’m truly #blessed to be working with the best trainer I’ve ever worked with before. She’s amazing.

I’m usually not too worried about trainers showing up a few minutes late, so long as I still get my full lesson time. That said, I can’t say I’ve ever had a trainer be more than 15 minutes late, and usually even then they’ve given me heads up that they’re dealing with [insert one of the bazillion things trainers are dealing with on the daily]. I think the one time my trainer really did show up something like 30 minutes late, she told me she was still dealing with whatever crisis it was, told me I could just hack around and have fun and we’d do a make-up lesson later that week, so I got a free ride out of it.

A good coach for me is:

• Trainer spends time focusing on an issue we have, and providing some new ways to deal with it.
• An openness to trying something different. Sometimes what worked last time isn’t working this time, and that’s okay - I want a trainer to recognize that and try to tackle it from a different direction and not just insist that I must not be doing it right.
• Doesn’t yell when you mess up or are struggling with something. They leave their emotions at home, so to speak.
• If you’re not getting it, they take a step back to make sure they’re explaining properly and that I’m understanding properly.
• Finds the good even if it’s not perfect. Maybe our plan was to accomplish A, but things turned south and so we ended up needing to focus on B - it’s OK that the plan changed and we had to adapt. There is still good to be had, even when things don’t go according to the initial plan.

A great coach:

• There is some mutual trust between trainer/rider. Sometimes (most of the time) the trainer knows best, but sometimes the rider sees or feels something the trainer doesn’t. I appreciate a coach that trusts my intuition from time to time and says “OK, let’s try it your way and see how it goes” (and not in a snarky way!). Sometimes it goes great and it’s a huge boost of confidence for me! Sometimes it doesn’t work out and I end up learning something in the process. But it’s nice to have the opportunity to try things out, make mistakes, and not be utterly micromanaged and told “my way or the highway!”.
• Keeps track of what we’ve been working on, in addition to what my own goals are down the line, and sets up exercises accordingly. Ex. My current trainer is H/J, but I’d love to do eventing down the line. My trainer actively finds ways to help me develop skills that will help me with that goal down the road (she has evented before so it’s not just blind leading the blind ) .
• Works to understand how YOU learn best. I, for example, like to work through things at a halt, to figure out the muscle memory and how I need to move, and then try it in “real time”.

A bad coach (and someone I will choose to not work with):

• Coaches that claim you’re getting an hour lesson, but are only in the ring with you for 30 mins, etc. Or they’re there for the hour, but spend most of it doing other things (on the phone, talking to other clients, etc).
• Coaches who use you (or anyone else) as a verbal punching bag, take their frustrations out on you, etc.
• Coaches who regularly talk badly about their students behind their back.
• Coaches who advocate for, and encourage what I consider to be “bully” training. (Ex. Horse refuses at a fence, so instead of assessing why that’s happening, they tell you to angrily ride them up to the base of the fence and repeatedly hit them with a stick). There’s a difference between correction (or better yet, setting up the situation differently to help the horse succeed), and punishment. I find that very very rarely do I have any reason to punish a horse. The vast majority of the time, it’s due to rider error, the horse not understanding yet and needing some patience and consistency from me, OR there’s an unresolved physical issue with the horse.
• Coaches who use you for their own benefit, without any mutual benefit to yourself. For example, having you ride the old beginner w/t school horse just because they haven’t been ridden this week, when you’re regularly jumping 3’+. I have had coaches have me hop on those types of horses after a lesson, which I’m fine with. I just don’t want to pay money for a lesson that isn’t broadening my skillset.

[ThreeWishes]

@Mander wish I could like your post another time ! Well thought out and written.

[oreo_mom]

Do you pay this person? Why do you support someone like this?
I hope you don’t leave the care of your horse to this person

Good luck in your new ventures!

[SuzieQNutter]

I have been having lessons my whole life. I am an instructor.

I was sold on this instructor when he told me something I was doing that I did not know I was doing AND I do not think I would have picked it up if I was the one teaching me.

10 years later I still learn something new every lesson and that is the truth. I need to start taking them again. Winter is not working with us at the moment and we don’t get snow like you guys.

[four2farm]

There is some of that in my area.My coach was chosen because she is extremely professional and personable. If I had any complaint it is that lessons tend to run late. The reason I would never complain is that she has a lesson plan and will work with you until you find improvement or understanding. With 8 lessons before you, she can be running behind 30-40 minutes on a tough day. I have needed that extra few minutes to conquer a fear or get a line of fences right. She always wants to end on a good note.

If a trainer did any of the crap listed in section one, it would be my last lesson…

[trubandloki]

Why is it a bad thing if the trainer is wearing shorts and a T-shirt?
Are they scheduled to ride?

[Trendline]

Shouldn’t a trainer be prepared to hop on and work with a student’s horse if necessary? And sometimes, in a lesson, it’s valuable to have the trainer ride the horse a little first in order to set horse and rider up for success in the day’s exercises.

[trubandloki]

@Trendline

Shouldn’t a trainer be prepared to hop on and work with a student’s horse if necessary? And sometimes, in a lesson, it’s valuable to have the trainer ride the horse a little first in order to set horse and rider up for success in the day’s exercises.

Um. Not all trainers ride. Even less pop on during a lesson.
I know some very good trainers who do not ride (anymore).

[Trendline]

This is an excellent, comprehensive list of qualities. Thank you.

[Trendline]

Okay, that’s true. I’ve been lucky enough to work with a couple of excellent non-riding trainers when I visited other parts of the country. But…I don’t know, I’m old-school, I guess…but it just seems unprofessional (and just a bit unsafe) to be teaching thus attired. And being around large animals in flip-flops??

[B-burg_Dressage]

My trainer used to show up in riding attire, but doesn’t wear boots anymore and I wouldn’t care if she showed up in shorts. She’s never felt the need to get on my guy in our lessons over the last few years so I guess she just assumes that will continue. She probably does have boots in her truck if something truly crazy happened.

I agree on the flip flops at the barn though. That’s a no-go for me.

I certainly wouldn’t put up with most of the other s**t on your list though! Barring being late occasionally as we all know horses will do silly things at inopportune times.

[trubandloki]

@Trendline

And being around large animals in flip-flops??

You might note that in my question I did not bring up the flip-flops.

I know some very competent horse people who wear flip-flops all the time around horses and I cringe every time I see it.

[Impractical_Horsewoman]

I absolutely hated it when the instructor would get on the lesson horse when I was riding to “fix him” rather than giving me the skills to manage the issue myself. An instructor should be dressed appropriately only in the sense if a student does have a genuine issue (like falling off, or having to catch a loose horse), the instructor should be able to intervene. Flip-flops are hard to run in to help someone who is hurt, or to hold a horse for the vet. Shorts and a t-shirt, who cares?

I have to be honest, regarding the issue of instructor burnout discussed elsewhere, I’ve been often frustrated by instructors who are on their phone for most of the lesson and who CAN teach but don’t really bother to give much guidance. I think many instructors, after so many years with a student, or even so many lessons, DO lose interest. Learning is often a very incremental, small process, and it’s a rare teacher who can take delight in watching it, especially in a human (since most horse people are in teaching because of the horses).

On the other hand, micromanaging the ride, screaming and insulting the student (as was once fashionable) isn’t my favorite either. I agree that finding a truly sympathetic and helpful instructor who isn’t a babysitter or a drill sergeant can be challenging.

I had one which was truly perfect for me–she always noted progress and was positive, and when I screwed up, she could find the humor in the situation but never laughed at me. She had a plan for the lesson, but always watched and listened to the horse on that day.

[trubandloki]

@Impractical_Horsewoman

I absolutely hated it when the instructor would get on the lesson horse when I was riding to “fix him” rather than giving me the skills to manage the issue myself.

I agree.
In my world, fixing of a lesson horse (not a privately owned horse) should take place at some time other than when someone is paying for a lesson. When I am paying for a lesson it is not for Dobbin to get a training ride. If the trainer can not instruct me thru whatever Dobbin is doing then we were either trying something above what I should be doing or they picked the wrong lesson horse for my ride that day.

[touchstone]

A good lesson is one in which I learn something.

[SuzieQNutter]

Also one where you don’t fall off!

[trubandloki]

@touchstone I would like your post more than once if I could.

A good lesson is so one which I learn something. Even when that something is not something I knew I needed to, or wanted to learn. Even more so when that something came out because things were not going as planned.