Ride from the ground? Allow the student to assess their ride and comment? At the start of my Friday lesson my coach Belinda Trussell asked me what was the teaching method that worked best for me. We both agreed that as a visual learner I benefit from watching videos of my lessons and Belinda had done 7 short videos during my last lesson so I came into the Friday lesson with a good idea of what I needed to improve on. Did I want Belinda to ride from the ground?She is very good at doing this. She is quick enough to spot a problem before it becomes one and will tell me what to do. But, and it is a big but, if Belinda rides from the ground it absolves me of any responsibility in my riding. So at my stage of riding I have to take responsibility and recognize when Biasini is doing what he should be doing and if he is not then knowing what I need to do to correct him .
I warmed up and then we started into our working phase of the lesson. Belinda told me the trot was “nice but that is a Second Level horse.”
Yipes! I’m supposed to be at the FEI level! So I had to do better. The next comment was I had made it up to Third Level. More work. More times around the arena working, working, working. Here is a video of what we achieved. Listen to what Belinda says at the start of this video
By now I think I had been riding for about 25 to 30 minutes. Belinda gave me some advice about how I was using the curb rein. I followed her advice and it made a big difference. Here is another video from the end of our lesson. It took me 45 minutes to achieve what was required to have Biasini looking like an FEI level horse. HaHa! Well, lots of room for improvement in that time frame! Biasini has a spook in the video but keep watching it all ends well.
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