How You Can Become a Better Rider in Just 5 Minutes

Instructor and clinician Wendy Murdoch’s book 50 5-MINUTE FIXES TO IMPROVE YOUR RIDING has been an overwhelming hit since Trafalgar Square Books (www.HorseandRiderBooks.com) published it four years ago. Now Wendy’s highly anticipated follow-up 40 5-MINUTE JUMPING FIXES is finally available!

TSB caught up with ever-busy Wendy, following her stint presenting at the 2014 USPC Annual Meeting and Equine Educational Symposium, and we asked her to explain HOW those fabulous 5-Minute Fixes of hers can really work to make us better riders in no time. Wendy breaks it down for us, while giving us a chance to try one of her favorite Fixes for ourselves, on the TSB blog (http://horseandriderbooks.wordpress.com).

You can read part of the interview with Wendy here:

TSB: Your new book 40 5-MINUTE JUMPING FIXES is a follow-up to the bestselling 50 5-MINUTE FIXES TO IMPROVE YOUR RIDING. Is it really possible to improve your riding and jumping skills in only 5 minutes? How are your techniques effective when they require so little time?

WM: Many of the Fixes in 40 5-MINUTE JUMPING FIXES can definitely be done in only 5 minutes! That’s the thing that I think is so important for the reader to understand. It doesn’t have to take months, years or decades to improve your performance over fences. What is necessary is a clear understanding of your own body and how it works.

Take the hip joints, for example. One question I ask at all my clinics is, “Where are your hip joints?” More than 90 percent of people think that their hips are where their belt rests rather than where the joints actually are. I find this misconception of hip location across the USA and Europe, and in riders of all disciplines. (So this isn’t just a problem for people who jump!) But in 5 minutes, you can read the chapter in 40 5-MINUTE JUMPING FIXES on locating your hips from the front, both on the ground and on the horse, and make a tremendous difference in your riding and in your horse’s performance!

I believe my techniques are effective for several reasons:

Accuracy
Accuracy is important because we communicate our desires to the horse through our physical body, which interfaces with the horse through the saddle. With my 5-Minute Fixes I am not telling you to find your hips somewhere in the general area of your pelvis. I show you how to find the joint from four different perspectives so that you know exactly where this most critical joint is in your own body. When the rider is accurate it takes very little to aid the horse because the message to the horse is clear and concise, something that is very important during a jump round. This degree of accuracy is lacking in most riding instruction.

Correct Function
I have spent my lifetime learning, understanding, and teaching good body function for horses and for humans, on and off the horse. When I say “function” I mean the rider’s use of her body in a way that works with how the skeleton is designed. Using our body efficiently minimizes injuries, helps to prevent falls, and significantly decreases fear, as well as improves our horse’s performance.

Simple
It all comes down to taking complex concepts and breaking them down into simple practical lessons. In my books the anatomy and function behind the lessons are separated out into sidebars. The lessons themselves are divided into “On the Ground”—meaning off the horse—and “On the Horse” mounted lessons. This way the busy reader/rider can skip the sidebars one day, and just do the lessons, or alternatively study the anatomy or only do an unmounted portion of the lesson on the days she can’t ride.

Feeling Differences/Asking Questions
I think the reason my techniques can be so effective is because I teach the student to feel, think, and sense differences, and therefore have the knowledge needed to choose what is best for her and her horse. You might say I make the student responsible to her horse rather than to the instructor.

Most riding instruction is based on a military way of teaching, which takes the student’s power away: The instructor tells you what (not how) to do something, and you are to do that no matter what. There is no consideration for the student’s level of understanding, competency, pain, previous injuries, or ability to comprehend the task. This style of teaching makes the student totally dependent on the teacher who determines what is “right” or “wrong.” The rider is at the mercy of the instructor.

I want my students to be knowledgeable, independent, empowered, and able to make decisions for themselves. This style of teaching, where someone is asking you questions rather than telling you what to do, is hard to grow accustomed to, at first. But in the end, the rider who takes responsibility for her learning, experiences, and decisions, while listening to her horse, will achieve the kind of true partnership she is seeking.

Read the entire interview with TSB author Wendy Murdoch, and try a FREE 5-MINUTE FIX, at http://horseandriderbooks.wordpress.com.

40 5-MINUTE JUMPING FIXES is available now from the TSB online bookstore www.HorseandRiderBooks.com where shipping in the US is FREE.

For more information about Wendy Murdoch or her books and DVDs, contact trafalgarsquarebooks@comcast.net.

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