"The greatest of teachers won't hesitate"

"The greatest of teachers won't hesitate to leave you there by yourself chained to fate" - Live

Depending on who you are, what you want from a riding instructor can differ greatly.  Personally, there is even a difference in terms of teaching style between what I want from my dressage instructor and that I want from my jump instructor.  Lucky for me, I have two very different instructors that fit my very different preferred learning style for each discipline.

My dressage instructor, Deborah Dean-Smith, is well verses in working with sensitive mares.  She was also an upper level event rider before becoming a Grand Prix dressage rider.  She teachers very methodically and works very hard to make sure exercises as well as the attitude of the rider set the horse up for success.  She instructs every step of the way, whether it be to, "flex a little to the outside right...now," or "ask for just a touch more from the inside leg," and so on.  For dressage, I find it much easier to learn via exercises, incredibly direct instruction, and very specific homework.  After years of riding in group lessons for my IHSA team where it was assumed I knew how to ask for shoulder-in because I could get a lesson horse to do something that slightly more resembled the general idea of maybe the horse being on different tracks, the transition to "real dressage" has been a wonderful thing that has transpired through the help of several knowledgable instructors.  Now, I am very happy to work with Deb who somehow manages to always stay right next to me, no matter what I'm doing, and has impeccable timing to help my timing with my aids.  She is also fantastic about providing me with very specific exercises to work on that I can then easily expand upon in between lessons.  The icing on the cake has been the tone she sets for me right before I walk in the dressage ring.  What she said to me, I'll never tell... but, it made me laugh enough to relax both myself and my sensitive little mare.

I have been working with Denny Emerson to hone Suki and my jumping.  He is a vocal advocate of starting young horses off slowly and correctly, so he was the perfect person to go to when I was transitioning Suki from my back burner project horse to my main competition horse.  His enthusiasm for the OTTB and "it takes time" is one of the things that inspired my essay for the Area 1 Scholarship I won this year, the results of which will be the subject of a blog post next month.  However, this is not the only reason I have been jumping with Denny.  The most important reason I jump with Denny is the way he teaches works very well for me.  He teach broad concepts and then expects you to figure out how to apply those concepts to the exercises he has you go through.  The instruction is not usually as direct as "KICK NOW" (though it can be), but tends to be more on the Socratic side of the spectrum, "what did you think of that jump?  Did you feel that?  What could you do better?" with a good mix of, "what on EARTH were you thinking?!" which is what I want when I'm jumping.  I like to think of myself as a reflective person, someone who tends to analyze (and maybe, sometimes, overanalyze) aspects of a ride to improve up what I'm doing for the future.  With the focus being on discussing the physical concepts behind what I am expected to do, I have an easier time doing.  That, and a swift, appropriately timed kick in the ass occasionally never hurt anyone.

Both my instructors, however, approach my horse similarly.  They respect her as a sensitive, athletic horse that, sometimes, requires just sitting, waiting out, and abandoning a little bit of my inner control freak.  Making the effort to understand my horse as an individual is the most important criteria I have for anyone I train with.