Riding lessons are your chance to practice your skills, to make mistakes, and to learn. The better you can use the time in your lessons, the better a rider you can become. With lessons being expensive and limited in frequency, these six tips can help you to make the most of your riding lessons.
Stay Engaged
One of the best ways to get the most out of your riding lessons is to truly stay engaged during your lessons. Think about how you learn best, and work with your instructor to ensure that you’re getting the most out of your lesson time.
During your lesson, be sure to ask questions so that you fully understand what your trainer is telling you. If you don’t understand something, ask your trainer to explain it differently.
Stay Open to Trying New Things
Keeping an open mind during your lessons can help you to make discoveries and advancements that you wouldn’t have otherwise made. Stay open to your trainer’s suggestions, even if you don’t initially agree with them. Trying something new or different is a great way that we can discover more about both ourselves and our horses.
Watch Other Riders in Lessons
Taking the time to watch other riders who are at or above your riding level is an excellent way to get more out of your lessons. By watching other riders in their lessons, you can often see the same skills that you are trying to master demonstrated. Seeing riders learning and hearing riding methods and ideas explained gives you more knowledge to apply toward your own riding.
Develop a Regular Routine
Schedules can get plenty hectic, but do your best to schedule lessons regularly so that you stay in the groove and the learnings stay fresh from week to week. Taking long breaks in between lessons can make it difficult to fall back into rhythm, and if you only take lessons every once in a while, you’re likely to spend a large part of your lesson time revisiting and working on things that you had covered previously.
Record Your Lessons
If at all possible, enlist a friend or family member to record your riding lessons. Being able to review the footage after your lesson can help to keep things fresh in your mind, and gives you a chance to refresh your memory of the advice and instruction that your trainer provided.
There’s another important benefit to recording your lessons, though: Reviewing a video allows you to see what your trainer was seeing and talking about. You can visually see the changes in yourself and your horse, which can help you to more thoroughly understand and implement the training techniques.
Get a Plan to Work On After Each Lesson
Make sure that you leave each lesson with a concrete plan. Ask your trainer for exercises and instructions so that you can work with your horse on your own in preparation for your next lesson.
By making the most of your riding lessons, you can increase your progress and maximize your investment in your training. What are some of your favorite techniques for making the most of riding lessons?