PHONE: +8593391158
November 16-18, 2024
The secret to successful partnership with your horse is in your seat. Mary will teach you how to get a better well-balaned seat with a happier horse. The way you sit has a profound influence on your horse and each little change you make, the horse changes too.
More than 40 years in development, the Ride With Your Mind coaching techniques are based on an understanding of how people and horses learn. RWYM is inspired by physics, and functional anatomy. Yet it is simple to understand, with interventions that ‘hit the spot’, and build skill step by step.
The ‘Ride With Your Mind’ approach is a tremendous advance in teaching and learning. It shows any rider how to organize her mind and body in the same way as the riders we call ‘talented’. This enables each person to learn the same feels and to achieve the same results.
The coaching techniques are very streamlined. By increasing each rider’s body awareness and using innovative imaging techniques, Mary helps riders understand both what to do and how to do it. The bottom line is that improvements in concentration, body awareness, and core muscle strength create incredible improvements both in the rider’s seat, and in her horse’s response to her body. These can be obtained in a very short time, defying traditional expectations. Learning then becomes satisfying, exciting, and fun!
This system of coaching utilises elements of Neuro-Linguistic Programming (NLP), and the Alexander and Feldenkrais systems of bodywork. It is highly interactive, with rider and coach acting as equals as they combine their perceptions to unravel the puzzle of how the rider affects the horse and the horse affects the rider. Learning always takes place in a calm, safe, supportive, and appropriately challenging environment, with no raised voices, no ‘shouting louder at the natives’, and no impossible demands.
Learning through this method does not take talent, it simply takes learning how to notice. Mary has pioneered coaching methods that ‘get through’ to people, creating those ‘Aha!’ moments where ‘the light bulb goes on’. We then build on those moments as new skills become ingrained.
Mary Wanless is an internationally renowned coach, and is the author of the ‘Ride With Your Mind’ books, which have been translated into many languages. She has also authored 8 DVDs. She coaches riders at all levels, from relative novices to two of the top twelve US dressage riders, and some of the Canadian eventing squad. She has B.Sc. degrees in both Physics and Applied Sports Coaching, and holds the BHSI certificate.
30 years ago, when Mary was frustrated with her limited progress as a pupil, she set out to discover how talented riders do what they do. Her guiding question was ‘What is presupposed by a trainer when she makes a specific statement to a pupil?’ So when a rider is told, for instance, to ‘Get the horse on the bit?’ , what is the trainer presupposing? That the rider already has these skills (but somehow forgot, or just didn’t bother to impliment them?!) Or that she ought to be able to do it because it’s easy?
Any co-ordination that is easy (and therefore a ‘bite size chunk’) for the trainer is not necessarily a ‘bite size chunk’ for the pupil. When the trainer says ‘Do X’ she is assuming that the pupil can do ‘A,B,C,D,’ etc. just as she can! But that may not be the case. The reality is that most trainers teach the pupil as if they were teaching themselves. The skill of coaching lies in the coach’s/trainer’s ability to cross that skill-gap, and show the pupil her own personallised next steps, that will move her on from her current starting point.
Mary’s knowledge has evolved from the early years of this project, which were spent ‘unpacking’ the skills that are really needed to ‘get the horse on the bit’. The intervening years have been the most phenomenal learning journey, spent developing her own riding skills, learning from some of the world’s best riders, and honing her coaching skills by learning about learning. She has also invested many hours in writing books, doing lecture-demonstrations, and training other coaches.
Science has now proved what Mary instinctively knew all those years ago – that the world’s best riders may have implicit knowledge or ‘know-how’, but they cannot put this knowledge into words. This is because physical skills and verbal descriptions come from different parts of the brain. The resulting dislocation between expertise and explanation makes it hard for skilled riders to ‘clone’ themselves – indeed, what they do and what they say they do can be poles apart. But Mary has discovered that their skills have an underlying structure, and knowing this explicitly enables her to communicate it to others. She clarifies the ‘how’ of riding, making its biomechanics explicit and learnable whilst avoiding the ‘oughts’ and ‘shoulds’ that stifle learning.
The result is a phenomenally effective way of helping riders develop both feel and influence. Talent really can be taught!
Contact- Susan Moran
suziehorse@aol.com
317-371-5152
