Raise Your Level of Awareness While Riding Your Horse

Dana Hokana

The first and most important principal to remember, while riding your horse, is to “pay attention.” Pay attention to what your horse is doing underneath you. Learn to read your horse, to diagnose what he’s doing, and what you’re doing while you’re riding him.

Too many people ride “mindlessly,” that is, they don’t pay attention to their hands or hand movement, or what their horse is doing underneath them. I’ve told my amateur and youth riders, for years, that the best riders don’t ride along bumping their horse’s face and talking to their friends, unless they can talk and really pay attention to their hands and horse. The best riders are so in tune with their horses that they know what their horse is doing at all times. If, while they’re talking, they need to pick up or correct their horse, they do it “mindfully” not “mindlessly.”

They focus, get the job done, and it shows through their results. So, start improving your feel and timing by paying attention while riding. You can only fix something if you become aware that there is a problem, so raise your level of awareness and develop better feel and timing. You will develop a much happier and more willing horse, and you will start to sharpen your skills of feel and timing as you pay attention to what signals you’re receiving from your horse.

Dana’s training information is demonstrated in great detail on Dana’s Winning Strides Training DVD’s, streaming videos and online lessons. They include more ideas and exercises to help improve your riding skills. These items are currently 25% OFF for a limited time at http://hokana.com/store/

Be your best and ride like a champion!