Dressage - How many roads lead to Rome (Part 2)

You are riding in the clinic and the clinician is able to correct problems that you and your instructor have been working on for months. Everything he/she suggests seems to work like magic and you are riding a changed horse by the time the session is done. Before you quit your present instructor and start up with the clinican, stop and look at the map. If you hadn't been working with your present instructor all this time, would you have been at the point where the clinician could have corrected the problems? How long will it be before your horse figures out this "new stuff" and finds other evasions to replace the present ones?

A good clinician is good because he/she can quickly assess a horse and rider and knows a variety of methods for dealing with their problems. But that same person as an instructor is going to stress a methodical, repetitive system of training, probably similar to the one you have now. And there wouldn't be an endless supply of easy fixes.

If you really do prefer the clinician as a potential instructor, attend three or four clinics as a rider first. Try to stay for other participants' rides to see if he/she is as successful with others. If you still feel strongly after that, switch.

If one road leads to Rome, does that mean the opposite one does not? Not necessarily. I recently attended a clinic featuring an internationally respected clinician. During the two days that I audited the clinic, almost every rider was relieved of their whip shortly after starting their lesson. It was this clinician's belief that the whip was unnecessary unless schooling the piaffe or passage. If you watch instructors and trainers in the US today, you can see that this is clearly a minority opinion. In fact, later I jokingly asked an instructor friend who had ridden in the clinic if he was going to hold a whip-burning party for all his students. You can guess what his answer was.

It was also this clinician's belief that the rider's elbows should be held very close to the body with the use of the hand limited to only fingers and occasionally, the wrist. After attending the clinic, I tried out this method at home, following the specific sequence of exercises he used and found it successful. On the other hand, several instructors that I have ridden with (both classically trained) have suggested that I flex (NOT SAW) my horse's poll and neck from side to side as part of my warm up to release tension in those areas, which has been very effective with my horse.

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