steve
Grand Prix Poster
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Post by steve on Dec 31, 2008 12:45:55 GMT 1
Is there a charge to join? I'd like to find a classical instructor in the Surrey area, Jct 8 M25 for my upcoming 4yo youngster who I want to back this spring. I dont want someone who is going to push us too fast too soon as he is a big moving warmblood. I firmly believe in the classical principles of spending the first 2yrs just fine tuning the very basics of ridden work.
I've seen some awful sights of 4 and 5yr olds being pushed to do piaffe and passage because they have the talent, I want a horse for life not broken down mentally/physically by the age of 6!!
Thanks
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Post by arabheaven on Dec 31, 2008 12:51:13 GMT 1
www.classicalriding.co.uk/You have to be a member for all the directories for trainers etc., which starts at £27.50 for the year. My instructor is listed and I didn't even know, has taken me years to find her though so if I had been able to access this it would have been so much easier and saved a lot of heart ache!
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Post by heather on Dec 31, 2008 14:31:12 GMT 1
My friend and ex employee, also exIH RA Jill Shephard, I think covers this area, Steve and is classically trained, also being part of Tanya Larrigan's classical display team, and now trained by Tanya. Tanya is an ex Olympic rider, but is from a classical circus background and rides and trains very sympathetically, totally according to classical principles.
Heather
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Post by heather on Dec 31, 2008 14:40:16 GMT 1
And PS- for the best in classical riding DVD's, watch Anja Beran's 'Elegant Dressage Training'. We played it on a loop on our trade stand at HOYS and OLympia a couple of years ago. People literally stopped in their tracks to ask who it was. If we played a typical competition DVD, people just walked by!
The difference in the way the horses work, and the beautiful lightness of seat and hand, are truly something to aspire to! Anja will be over this coming spring to take the BHS instructors convention- you could have knocked me down with a feather when Patrick Print told me this.
But with Patrick at the helm, things really are changing in the BHS, and he is so much more classical in his approach, as an FBHS himself. We still need the likes of the CRC, but it would be wonderful to see the BHS promoting truly classical riding!
Heather
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steve
Grand Prix Poster
Posts: 1,640
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Post by steve on Dec 31, 2008 14:53:48 GMT 1
Thanks Heather, I'll see if I can look her up.
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Post by heather on Dec 31, 2008 17:11:06 GMT 1
Pm me if you need contact details Steve. Jill trains her own Andalusians and has a good Lusitano schoolmaster too.
Heather
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Post by arabheaven on Dec 31, 2008 17:20:36 GMT 1
Have PMed you heather x
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steve
Grand Prix Poster
Posts: 1,640
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Post by steve on Dec 31, 2008 19:16:27 GMT 1
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steve
Grand Prix Poster
Posts: 1,640
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Post by steve on Dec 31, 2008 19:24:39 GMT 1
Did I say Witch!! Ooops silly me I meant Watch!! :-)
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Post by SarahW on Dec 31, 2008 19:25:15 GMT 1
The Wessex Classical Riding Group is actually a very pleasant group of people who all probably ride in completely different ways! I haven't attended the dressage events but know that they are designed to encourage people at grass roots level right from walk/ trot tests upwards. There is no training by shouting which is fabulous!! It's a very relaxed and non-judgemental group.
The talk and chat evenings are brilliant - I have been to talks by Rebecca Hamilton-Fletcher (who writes in Horse and Hound); Amanda Barton who works with Mark Rashid, Patrick Kempe, The horse healer whose horse features on the front of Margrit Coates' book, Tony Rose who is an equine dentist, a couple of fence judges - oh, and I did a talk on the Moorland Mousie Trust many moons ago.
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steve
Grand Prix Poster
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Post by steve on Dec 31, 2008 19:49:37 GMT 1
There are quite a lot of Nuno Oliveria clips on Youtube (very addictive!) which are amazing to watch - stills in books dont do his lightness justice.
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Post by arabheaven on Dec 31, 2008 20:42:40 GMT 1
Unfortunately Anky was a main feature in my Animal Behaviour essay on Rollkur, so sad that she doesn't think what she is doing is damaging and wrong.
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Post by heather on Dec 31, 2008 21:24:34 GMT 1
And a very good essay it was Toni!!
Steve, you wouldnt believe though, how many riders are criticising Oliveira, and cant see the beauty in his work. This is why for many years, son Joao put an embargo on any of his Father's work being released on video.
So few realise that all of those clips are work in progress, not the finished article. Oliveira did few demonstrations and only ever competed twice, when he was last- due to the judges not knowing what they were seeing!!
Lightness for me, is everything.
My own trainers are both ex Nuno Oliveira students, one of them, his own cousin.
My own Lusitano gelding, is becoming so incredibly light that I have to even be careful what I am thinking! In the wrong hands, he would have been a nightmare- it has taken two and a half years to really get him to trust me and form the bond that we now have. But I want to be able to ride him, on nothing more than the weight of the reins, in all the advanced work too, to show this dressage lot that it is not necessary to have this awful heavy contact.
I bought him from someone who had sent him to a BD trainer for five months, and said trainer told me 'he will never make a dressage horse'. Oh no? We will see about that, but it wont be in the way she was training him!! ;D
The sad thing is that when you view many of the clips on youtube of top riders, the comments all say how beautiful the riding/work is. I want to cry when I see the poor horses, and also the comments, because people are being led to believe that this is what is good.
Thank God for people like Gerd Heuschmann, who is showing the real truth behind modern training. See the thread I put up about the DVD 'If Horses Could Speak', for a lot more info!!
Heather
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Bay Mare
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Olympic Poster
Speak to the hoof
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Post by Bay Mare on Dec 31, 2008 21:27:56 GMT 1
Anyone else find it extremely confusing with all these different methods lol Yes! I used to get terribly confused. Everyone seemed to say something different yet none of them were very comfortable to apply. Thankfully Heather explained not only her method but the other methods to me too and it all makes sense now . The tripod analogy is a good one as it's easy to visualize (although I don't usually like analogies) and it does make a lot of sense.
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steve
Grand Prix Poster
Posts: 1,640
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Post by steve on Jan 2, 2009 16:32:47 GMT 1
I trained for a short while in Germany with a well known dressage rider (many moons ago!), and although they dont always practice what they teach, I found the German system very good. They taught me to ride a horse forwards, forwards, forwards and to leave the mouth alone - and I wasnt allowed stirrups for ages!! They had to beat the english seat out of me, so I learnt to move with the horse rather than just sitting on top!!
But as I say it was a shame that what they taught wasnt what they did themselves - unfortunately many of them are in it for business and have to sell a lot of horses to keep them in designer riding gear and flash horseboxes!!
I'm so excited about starting Max this year - I just hope I can do him justice - he's such a character and has a real air about him - you know when they just know that they look good!! He's about 17.1 or 2hh, black 3.5yr old warmblood (Demonstrator/Grannus lines). But with a temperament to die for - your 90yr old granny could lead him about!! Well he'd probably chew her hair - he's partial to a bit of hair or something to chew!!
I'll keep you posted!
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