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Resources for Finding a Dog Trainer
Resources for Finding a Dog Trainer
In last week’s post, I described some things to consider when choosing a dog trainer for your puppy or adult dog. Here, I’ll provide a few resources to help you locate a suitable trainer.
Professional organization listings
Two professional dog training organizations that I have been involved with have directories of positive trainers. These are a great place to start your search — or…
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What Trainers Do You Like?
What Trainers Do You Like?
I often get asked what I think of other trainers. Sometimes I have no idea who the trainer is, any more than they know who I am. You do know we all work weekends, right? And that we’re not as cool as jazz musicians who jam together at after-hours clubs?
Then, the obvious thing. The horse world is huge. Most riding or breed disciplines don’t intermingle. We tend to date within our species, so it…
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Hello! I'm thinking about putting my horse into dressage training and also hopefully taking dressage lessons myself (I have never done dressage). What are some things I should look for in a dressage trainer? Obviously one that doesn't use rollkur but are there other general rules?
man i am feeling so lovedwith all these questions lately!
I’m going to focus on theinstructor part, since whattheblood has a very good post on finding a horsetrainer already, though I might add a few points. Mainly, that you should see what the trainer’s lessons are like anyway, because that will tell you how they will ride your horse and what their priorities are.
firstly, what you would look for is verydependent on your level. i was able to recognise that my old instructor was nolonger good for me for several of the reasons i’ll give you… however when ifirst started going to her she exactly what I needed. she put me on a tonne ofdifferent horses so i got the stage where i could reasonably ride everything.she pushed me to do a lot of movements i realistically wasn’t ready for (andonce i understood all the theory behind everything, i could understand that)but it raised my confidence and my desire to learn to do them correctly.
Biggest thing: don’t bescared to try a few instructors. have one lesson with ten, if you want. youmight like the first instructor you go to, but ypou might only like thembecause you don’t really know what’s good yet, you know? so you might bechoosing a ‘good ‘ instructor when you could be choosing a greeaaatinstructor.
Also, I am a person who has 3instructors right now - Kathy, Graham, and Justin, though Kathy is my maintrainer. I am very aware that there is a lot of common ground and a lot ofthings from all that i don’t agree on - so it’s taught me that no instructor isgod. your instructor won’t be 100% correct, 100% ethical. you have to find theone that is as ethical and correct as possible, and ignore the bits that youknow to be a load of crap.
General qualities i would sayyou want to look for:-an instructor that listens to you. for example, with my old trainer iasked her if i could have some lunge lessons to improve my position. she said ididn’t need it. i very very very very definitely did.-an instructor who recognises what problem you’re having that day,rather than being overly focussed on a longer term goal. for example, if yourhorse is firing out of that skins that day, they should work on exercises tobring them back to you, rather than running through the dressage test you’resupposed to be doing the week after and then getting shitty when the lengthenedcanters are out of control (cough cough my old instructor)-an instructor who ‘doesn’t just sit there’! there’s nothing moreannoying than paying a shitload of money for literally three comments duringyour lesson. I couldn’t get any of my instructors to shut up, you know, theytalk the whole time and it’s great. I’m always getting advice on everythingthat they see. The instructor becomes literally eyes on the ground, not just anoccasional comment that any old chum could give you.-you want an instructor that believes in less is more; is always focussingon responsiveness of the horse. Maximum effort from the horse with minimumeffort from the rider. Someone who strives that you put that leg on and theyrespond, you touch that rein and they respond. Someone who does not encouragenagging with your leg.-you want someone who talks about working from back to front. Be wary ofan over focus of ‘on the bit’. I don’t think I can think of a time I’ve heardKathy say ‘on the bit’! And there is a large difference between saying contactand focussing on the bit. You want someone who focusses on the forward motion,as that is the solution to a LOT of problems in riding. Activity in the hind topush into the mouth. You also don’t want someone who focusses on ‘bend’ to theexclusion of ‘straightness’. I literally never heard the word straightnessuttered with my old trainer. And it’s one of the most important components ofdressage and one of the end goals; to even out the weight distribution on thefore/hind, and to correct the natural asymmetry of the horse.-you want someone who will comment on your seat and a focus on yourbiomechanics, your tension or your other issues. If someone says you don’tneed a position lesson, then you’re either a god, or they’re ignorant. A lot ofGP riders still have position flaws – if they think you’re done and they keeppushing you to do things you’re incapable of due to your body issues, then they’renot right for you.-exercises. They should be giving you a tonne of exercises in your lessons. Obviouslythis and a lot of these other things won’t necessarily happen in your firstlesson, but if you notice these kind of flaws a few lessons in, then you mightwant to consider changing. Anyway, exercises to help you with things. Not justrunning through things because that’s what’s in a dressage test. The exercisesare done to help with whatever is happening. E.g. the horse falls to theoutside and your instructor says do work off of the wall, the horse tries tooverbend to the inside and they say to do some counter bend, the horse won’twrap around your leg and move laterally off of it, so they make you do someturns on the forehands etc. not just doing them because ‘that’s what dressagepeople do’ you know? But because they’re a solution, they’re training.
How to look for one:-The number one biggest piece of advice I can give is goto a show and watch people’s warm-ups. Check a copy of the draw andwatch the arena so you can tell who’s who, if you don’t already know. What theypresent in the arena may be very different from the way they train, hence why Irecommend stay at the warm up arenas. Obviously keep in mind that the horsewill be probably more fired up so the rider may go to more extreme measures,but there is a large difference between ‘I am going to momentarily hyperflexyou to the inside so you can’t look at that thing over there which you wouldreally like to shy at right now’ and holding them in rollkur. -The number two thing is see if you have any friends or people you mightonly kinda know and ask if you can go watch one of their lessons. Hell,just ask the trainer themselves if you can come along and watch one of theirlessons. Most probably won’t mind.-Google and ask who these people learn off of themselves. i.e. when I waslooking for someone else to take lessons with besides just Kathy, I stayed awayfrom people who trained with Rachel Downs because I was already getting thatinfluence off of Kathy. I chose Justin because I knew he trained under Miguel,who in turn trained under Nuno Oliveira. Also ask them what clinics etc they goto. All the advice that they got will come from someone else, or often,multiple people. If you don’t agree with the people that they got their adviceoff of, then you can immediately cross them off the list. Though if they’vebeen to a clinic one time with someone you don’t like then certainly don’tcross them off. And also remember that they change. Who they took lessons with2 years ago is not as relevant as who they took lessons with over the lastmonth. I’ve taken lessons with Kathy for 2 years now and seen her changesignificantly over that time.-Ask in forums what people think of particular trainers. Ask for positives andnegatives, because they’ll all have some. And as I said before, take what youneed, reject what you deem is unethical advice from them.-I just can’t stress enough that an instructor might only suit you for one yearof your life. Then you might learn more and decide you want to focus on onemethod or belief system in training or whatever. It’s really hard to choose atrainer knowing little about the discipline, but just ask them honestly if theyfocus more on the hind end and the forward and under activity than they doabout the headset. Personally I would always suggest someone that prefers CarlHester and Charlotte over other alternative riders in the top scene at themoment, because that generally involves a focus that is more correct *in myopinion*. So you could always ask them ‘who is your favourite combination inthe top scene at the moment’ or something! I mean if you don’t have a horseyfriend with similar views who you can ask (luckily I had my mum who told meabout Kathy and Justin, and Kathy went to Graham hence how I found him), thenyeah, follow these steps. At the end of the day there’s always trial and error.You might go to one and decide after 10 lessons ‘naaaah, don’t like that’, andgo to the next one and go ‘yes I like this one, and I can hear some commentsthat the last one said which is all very similar, but somehow this one is justbetter’. And that’s natural. The instructor you don’t like will have things tosay but just might not phrase it or focus on it enough in a way that helps you.
Now concerning the training of the horse – the way that theyteach you to ride a horse is the way that they will ride your horse. Forexample, Kathy would always tell me to take up the reins and drive into thecontact and that ‘the horse doesn’t know to make the contact itself, it can’tdo that’ which I always considered crap and didn’t follow it in our lessons (I’mthe master of picking and choosing advice). And then I put my horse in trainingwith her and was surprised that chanel hadn’t learned to make the contact herselfbecause the person riding was always doing it for her! So if there as somethingas fundamental as that that you disagree with them on, don’t put your horse intraining with them. I mean it sounds obvious but sometimes we want so badly tobelieve that it’ll be alright that we just kind of live in dream land and tellourselves that it will be cool and work out in the end.
And if you do go to the show and watch the warm up, big things Isuggest you look for:
-walk breaks inthe warm-up
-exercises, if possible. Obviouslyit’s hard to do 1000 transitions in a warmup arena with a million people behindyou, for example.
-the stretchy walk and trot.They should be doing one anyway, unless the horse is bonkers. But you should beable to see the horse coming through in that stretchy trot, with it’s nosecoming before the vertical and seeking the contact. Though it might be moreunderstandable if the horse is btv in that stretchy trot out at a competitiondue to the environment, if you were to go to their place and watch that, theyshould be either saying they are working on fixing it, or just not doing it atall lol. It shouldn’t be deliberate.
-just a focus on the hind end.I just can’t emphasise this enough, as someone who spent years with a front toback trainer and kicks herself everyday that she missed 10 years of goodadvice!
So I hope this has helped somewhat. If you feel so inclined, youcould send me a message with your country and state/county/region/whatever it’scalled where you are, and any of my followers could put out advice. Obviously ifyou’re in aus I can help you a lot, but I could always do a google search foryou if you’re an international with English as a first language.. and just relyon google translate if you’re not :P
Let me know if you want any specific advice as well, or justanything you want me to clarify. Good luck with the search!!!
Christmas at the Gym
Well it’s that time of the year where even the best of us accumulate a few extra pounds around our mid riff, Its Christmas and all the festive food and wonderful drinks that appear everywhere you go can be just too much temptation to say no every time.
But don’t worry about it and don’t beat yourself up over it, we all do it every year and then we make our new year’s resolution, the most common one is people planning to get fit and hit the gym.
There is always a significant rise in gym memberships in January due to this cause, but come about March the numbers dwindles significantly.
The major cause for this people not getting the results they want in the sort time they have been working out, partly because they do not know the correct routine, by finding a personal trainer in your area you will soon get the results you want and the dedication and drive to succeed in your goals.
So sign up to an online directory for personal trainers today and get in shape for 2015
Thinking About Figure Competing?
Thinking About Figure Competing?
Disclaimer… I’m no expert and don’t claim to be one. As a blogger, with one competition under my belt, I’m getting lots of questions about how to get started.
When I decided to compete in my first figure competition (FC), I had no idea of how many people would be inspired my journey. Every day I’m asked about FC, so I’ve decided to dedicate a post to those pondering over taking the journey.
How…
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