When you were young did your riding instructor encourage you to watch the lessons of older, more experienced riders? Watching experienced riders is a popular way to learn about desirable riding techniques. But have you ever considered that you can learn from younger, less experienced riders too? If you haven’t spent some time recently watching younger riders in their lessons, you might want to do just that.

New Teaching and Instruction Techniques

As you watch young riders in their lessons, you will be exposed to different teaching and instruction techniques. Perhaps something that an instructor says to a younger rider may resonate with you or cause you to consider an aspect of riding or training differently.

In watching the instructor interact with riders, you’ll also learn about different instruction approaches and methods. One instructor’s style may be completely different from your trainer’s style, but there may be pieces of that style that you decide to apply, yourself. You may find yourself noting what methods work well for you personally and which ones don’t, which can develop your understanding of your individual style of learning.

Refresher on the Foundations of Riding

As we move into the upper levels of training and riding, it’s easy to forget the basic principles that we learned so many years ago. The foundations of riding, whether you are teaching at a beginner or advanced level, are the same, so you may gain some insight from a basic lesson that you can apply to your own riding. Regardless of whether you learn anything new, a refresher of the basic horsemanship and riding foundations is never wasted.

Riding Position Evaluation

As you watch a lesson, try to evaluate each rider in your head and plan out the suggestions you would make for improvement. Do these suggestions match the instructor’s? Watching young riders can help you to develop your evaluation of riding position, a strength that you can then apply to evaluating and improving your own position in the saddle.

Insight About Different Disciplines

Have you always wanted to learn more about a different discipline than the one you ride? Watching some lessons in that discipline can help familiarize you with the training approaches, riding position, and style associated with the discipline. As you develop a deeper understanding of the different disciplines you will become a more comprehensive and versatile horse person.

Reminder of Why You Ride

Go watch a beginner lesson and observe the way that the students stand by their mounts, tentative but also enamored with the massive animal before them. Watch the adoration and delight as they pat and speak with the horse, and the way that their determination to learn to ride can overpower their fear.

We were all beginners once, and the young riders of today can continue to teach us.

Image Source: flickr.com/photos/stefanschmitz/4581189796

Original Source: What You Can Learn from Watching Young Riders