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We Are Flying Solo

January 8, 2012

A Free Lesson For You -- On Your Couch

That's right, it's YOUR turn to giggle in sadistic glee while someone else has to do two-point sans stirrups.

This week was the annual George Morris Horsemastership Training Session down in Florida.  Sans George Morris due to illness, from which he is now on the mend, fortunately.  I confess, I don't usually watch it because George Morris is so fond of, well, George Morris.  But I tuned in this year because his shoes were filled by renowned jumpers Anne Kursinski, Beezie Madden, Kent Farrington, and Mclain Ward and it was generating a lot of chatter over on COTH.  And if Chronicle folks have their knickers in a twist, I just HAVE to check it out.

Go watch it now, particularly the first day.

Anne Kursinski gave a masterclass on flatwork.  Each and every horse in there went better at the end of the session and each and every rider became more effective and more connected to their horse.  In essence, she told them, don't pose up there like a phony equitation zombie, be inside the horse, not just on top of him, breathe with the horse and improve him. 

She got on a horse who was giving his rider quite a bit of trouble, resisting the contact and rearing. I'm a very visual learner, so watching her work through that and seeing the quiet, patient way she taught him to accept the aids with incredible steadiness and fairness to the horse was like an epiphany for me. None of it was terribly new information but for some reason, it brought everything together for me.

The next morning, I got on Encore, I translated what I had seen into the feel of my body and we crashed through our dressage roadblock like a runaway transfer truck.

I guarantee there is information in there for you too. Anne does two groups (I only watched the first, about 1.5 hours) then Beezie does a demo ride with a new horse of hers (the last hour of the 3 hour session of day 1). Beezie explains that the horse has been showing 1.5 m (4.9') jumpers but is very green to flatwork, which baffled my mind, but ok, I'm not Beezie Madden.

There are still two more days to watch; I've checked out the farrier session, picked up a few handy tips, finessed my gymnastic work with Kent, and introduced a horse to the big water with Mclain.  All for $0, exactly in my price range.  I've included the link to the channel on USEF Network above, but in case you missed it: click here.

11 comments:

  1. Nice link, was very pleased to see that I could stream this in Canada! Thanks :)

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  2. I will check this out..hopefully it's up till next weekend. I have Annes book and it is brilliance.

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  3. Hey, we have to share some love with Canada too. Bebe, I think they leave them up for quite a while, so you should be good to go.

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  4. Ok I don't know if it just me but I cannot find where there is a list if days or sessions. I find one video that pops up and it is from day five. Am I missing something. I really wanted to watch these today and I cannot figure it out and don't really want to start in on day five. HELP!

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  5. Amy, when I follow the link, it takes me to a player that has a scrolling menu on the right side where it has the choices of the different days. Now, if you are on a Mac, I can't help you -- the player is in Flash. Try exploring the USEF Network site a bit and see if you can get to it that way.

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  6. Windows and when I click on the link it takes me straight to the USEF network site and that is where I cannot find any other videos?

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  7. If you go to the right side of the screen there is a list of videos. When you move your cursor to the top or bottom of the list, it will move and show more videos to choose from. Hope this helps!

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  8. I was attempting to watch them on my android tablet and for some odd reason that drop list does not show up but I tried it on my desktop and lo and behold there it is. Thanks for the help.

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  9. It even works way over here in Japan! Yay! You'll have to excuse me I'm a little giddy today b/c I actually found a barn where I can ride while I am here!!!! Not only that but the trainer is an eventer who is just here for the year so I'm even learning something! Double yay! On a small island where the vast majority of the population has only ever seen a horse at the local zoo (seriously!) this feels like a small miracle. :D

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  10. That is so exciting, Amanda! If I were you, I'd be jumping up and down -- I know what it's like to be living where it feels like all access to horses is cut off and how liberating it is to rediscover them! And now you even have free riding lessons to get you started!

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