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Teaching in a busy indoor arena

What are some exercises to use for beginner riders that can be done in a busy indoor arena?

It’s a challenge teaching my beginner walk/trot riders while multiple lessons are going with other trainers. Kids have a hard time paying attention, and adults tend to get overwhelmed with the traffic. Think of a “lesson factory” type of barn.

Ideas and thoughts appreciated!!

Whenever I had to share an indoor it seemed to work best just keeping things separated. Littles and anyone with limited steering skills on one end of the ring, everyone else on the other.

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Simon says can be fun! Helps you maintain a little control (Simon says STOP! lol), and can still be engaging, even at a walk. Put your hand on your head, stand up, touch your toe, etc.

I like obstacles like cones and barrels, both for visual aids to designate space as well as fun games/exercises. Each trainer can have “their” color to avoid collisions! image

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How busy is busy, how big is the arena, and how many beginner lessons in a row do you do.

When it was winter I capped total number of riders in the indoor arena (just slightly bigger then 20x40m) with the very very beginners- I closed the arena to others but was very clear on posted times when that arena occurred and was very strict on beginning and ending on time for the ones I shut arena down for. I did post my lessons and approximate ability- that let others know what lessons should be easier to ride around. I also posted if they were jumping- if we jumped I asked people to hack in the first 30min when we were flatting or doing basic rail/cavaletti work.

Eventually I got sick of having to manage not only my riders, but everyone else. It’s intimidating and unsafe for the beginners (who you are responsible for) and I know I hated if I had to try to ride around other beginner lessons. When I knew the other instructor had beginner lessons I avoided the arena like the plague.

Got burnt out doing factory lessons and left the barn- it didn’t want to work with me to organize times, and it was so booked in evening/weekends, none of the boarders could hack. This was causing a lot of grief on all ends.

I’ve since worked in much bigger sized arenas, with smaller groups, that I I’ve shared with hacking riders. It’s clearly posted lessons take priority, and the barn manager ensures that there are spaces where no lessons are booked to allow people to hack. That greatly reduces the amount of people in the arena for lessons… because really it’s no fun riding around one.

It can be done in small busy barns, but I can’t say it’s fun for anyone.

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Realistically, for walk-trot, and especially starting-to-canter, you need to be able to “claim” an end of the ring. In a small arena this may be half the space, but hopefully it’s big enough you can take the far third. Drag a set of standards or poles and cavaletti down there to use, and communicate with the people hacking so they can easily work around you. Talk to anyone running another lesson about your plan, if they’re trying to use the full ring for coursework you may need to get creative with timing and even put kids on the lunge for some control (and no stirrup/rein games!).

I do hope these beginner lessons are private or at most two riders at a time. Any more than that and I’m afraid you may have to enforce a limit on the number of horses or lessons at a time.

I used to board at a place that somehow managed to run a beginner up down lesson concurrently with advanced jumping lessons, as well as multiple people hacking in a small indoor. It was controlled chaos, but mostly your hacking people learned how to stay on the dang rail and park it when someone was actively jumping. Warm up ring chaos never stressed these horses out! A good handful of us boarders rode LATE in an effort to avoid the after school crowd though.

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For a WT lesson the other riders in the arena need to have their own responsibility to keep their heads up and a designated area for the WT riders?

How big is this arena that multiple, as in more than 2, entire lesson groups are happening?

I agree with everyone that the answer to your question depends on a variety of factors–the number of students, the ages (you mentioned kids and adults), the relative ability and confidence of the walk-trotters, and the size of the arena.

I’ve been at barns where lessons were literally stuffed with as many people as could pay, on horses that were so unresponsive they stopped all of the time, and has major sections that were unusable because of flooding and icing during the winter and sprinkler systems being put up to water during the summer.

So I agree, you have to ask if what you’re being asked to do is realistic at all! Ideally, you’ll have a portion of the arena at least. Regardless, make sure everyone gets a chance to ride independently (if capable of doing so) for short safe distances, even if you have to line up the riders in the middle of the arena so the students can try a few steps of canter when ready (or trot).

Advanced riders (regardless of age) should be the ones “watching out for” and riding around beginners. However, IMO, beginners still learning to steer should never be in an arena with other traffic, they should be in an arena or round pen or blocked off area alone until they can confidently steer. When steering well at walk and trot, I’ll let them ride with one or two advanced riders to start to learn how to navigate traffic. But when they get to start cantering, they go back by themselves to canter until they can steer at the canter.

Multiple lessons going on at once is also more difficult than one lesson with others hacking in the ring. Multiple trainers yelling out instructions to multiple riders is confusing and not something I would put a beginner through.

I can’t think of any exercises to keep a beginner kid’s attention that are safe to do in a busy arena if they are not able to adequately steer and halt.

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Timely - we had three instructors teaching and two trainers lunging in the indoor today. Total of 8 horses.

We have dressage letters, but have also put masking tape shapes on the wall at last barn. Have them “walk to A, then straight line to E.” Or put them on the lunge one at a time and work on position or cues. I think riders taught in a busy environment learn to adapt to one.