50 5 Minute Fixes To Improve Your Riding

5 minutes a day is all the time you need to achieve: • Better balance in the saddle • Improved body control from head to toe • Increased influence with your seat • Flawless leg position and subtle aiding • Quieter, softer hands and contact your horse can trust • Less physical stiffness, tension, and riding-related pain • Confidence in your ability to communicate with your horse! PLUS, in just 5 minutes you can improve a horse that's: • Unwilling to go forward or "dead" to the leg • Hollow-backed, high-headed, or above the bit • Heavy on the forehand and unbalanced • A chronic "puller," "leaner," or "head-tosser"! Start or end your riding sessions with Wendy Murdoch's 5-Minute Fixes, and you'll be amazed how quickly you can replace old habits with new ones, get out of your "riding rut," and transform what you can't do into what you can do…naturally, capably, comfortably, and consistently alongside a happy riding partner—your horse.

Better balance in the saddle, improved body control from head to toe, and increased influence with your seat are just a handful of the simple fixes offered in this straightforward training manual for jumping. Most of the suggestions provided require only a few minutes to learn and offer solutions for making jumping more enjoyable for both riders and their horses. By starting and ending each ride with these simple, easy, and effective fixes, equestrians will happily and efficiently replace old habits with new ones and get out of the riding rut we all find ourselves in at some point in our riding career.

In this book Wendy Murdoch shows riders of all skill levels how to eliminate unconscious restrictions and use their bodies to achieve a higher level of performance with their horses. Featuring over 200 step-by-step colour photographs, the book breaks down the components of balance in the saddle, timing of your aids, riding with a deep seat, and moving in concert with your horse into easy-to-grasp building blocks for improvement. Murdoch presents these concepts in a series of illustrated lessons that allow riders of all disciplines to bring her expertise and guidance right into their own riding ring.

Many if not most women have been locked in a battle with their bodies for as long as they can remember. And when it comes to riding horses, they drag their arsenal of self-doubt with them every time they step into the saddle. Some quit riding completely. Others ride, but are frustrated by their lack of progress as riders or what they see as poor performance. They succumb to silent self-torment as they wonder how they look, what others think, and whether they have any business on the back of a horse if their jeans feel a little too tight. Regardless of seat size, riding discipline, or the degree — or even truth — of the body issues with which they struggle, the scars on female self-image in our society run deep and wide. So with the humor and big-sisterly swagger that readers and reviewers have come to love, Melinda Folse, author of bestseller The Smart Woman’s Guide to Midlife Horses, has decided to step in with a delightful, insightful, fulfilling new book. Riding Through Thick and Thin delves to the bottom of the issues that have long held women hostage, bringing together experts, research, resources, and stories to encourage, inspire, and empower. Readers will find some answers that may surprise them: Believe it or not, this is not about losing weight or getting fit (although if that’s a point of interest, there’s a section packed with helpful tools and ideas). This book is more about what’s going on in every woman’s mind — and it taps new findings in neuroscience to reveal that permanent change to deeply ingrained body image issues is not only possible, but it may be much easier than we think.

Horses are athletes, and as with all athletes, it takes them years of training every day to become strong, supple, and focused enough to climb to the top. In Hints for Hopeful Dressage Riders, author Jane Richards presents a toolbox of exercises to help both horse and rider train and improve through basic dressage. With more than fifty years of experience teaching and training with horses, Richards helps horse lovers succeed in their riding goals. Hints for Hopeful Dressage Riders provides a host of tips to help both novices and the more experienced riders to: - purchase a suitable horse; - find the correct position and effective aids; - learn training techniques; - recognize signs of discomfort; - solve common riding problems; - practice useful exercises; - understand the importance of the lunge line; and - discover clinics and showing. Hints for Hopeful Dressage Riders addresses the everyday problems riders may encounter at the lower levels of dressage. Richards offers solutions that contribute to enhance the performance and enjoyment of all horses and riders.

Find new possibilities of movement to enhance your riding.

German rider and equine veterinarian Dr. Gerd Heuschmann is well-known in dressage circles—admired for his plain speaking regarding what he deems the incorrect and damaging training methods commonly employed by riders and trainers involved in competition today. Here, he presents an intelligent and thought-provoking exploration of both classical and "modern" training methods, including "hyperflexion" (also known as Rollkur), against a practical backdrop of the horse's basic anatomy and physiology. In a detailed yet comprehensible fashion, Dr. Heuschmann describes parts of the horse's body that need to be correctly developed by the dressage rider. He then examines how they function both individually and within an anatomical system, and how various schooling techniques affect these parts for the good, or for the bad. Using vivid color illustrations of the horse's skeletal system, ligaments, and musculature, in addition to comparative photos depicting "correct" versus "incorrect" movement—and most importantly, photos of damaging schooling methods—Dr. Heuschmann convincingly argues that the horse's body tells us whether our riding is truly gymnasticizing and "building the horse up," or simply wearing it down and tearing it apart. He then outlines his ideal "physiological education" of the horse. Training should mirror the mental and physical development of the horse, fulfilling "classical" requirements—such as regularity of the three basic gaits, suppleness, and acceptance of the bit—rather than disregarding time-tested values for quick fixes that could lead to the degradation of the horse's well-being. Dr. Heuschmann's assertion that the true objectives of dressage schooling must never be eclipsed by simple "mechanical perfection" is certain to inspire riders at all levels to examine their riding, their riding goals, and the techniques they employ while pursuing them.