Alison Jones Level 2 Course Rocked!

A POST FOUND LOST IN ARCHIVES - THIS MUST HAVE BEEN OCTOBER 2009.

So we just had Alison Jones up for our L2 course and it was AMAZING! The weather was just perfect and warm and sunny, Alison really worked us and we packed masses in whilst having a good giggle!

The first morning we had a chat about leadership and horse psychology, followed by some simulations that helped us feel how training through pressure and release feels to the horse. Although I had done this before it was great to recap and go over it again as some of it I had forgotten and some of it I had never learnt in the first place! It has made me think that I will probably go and spectate at courses of a lower level just to keep re-affirming the program and its teachings.

In the afternoon we did a lot of the obstacles and tasks that Sarah and I had done when we did L2 with Alison at Easterton in June. Although some students had never done a course before they were all very capable horsewomen and picked it up easily and I was using a different horse this time having finally settled on using Hannah as my levels horse. These exercises helped us diagnose whether or not we were ready to progress our play sessions to be more precise (principle before purpose) and we learnt how to adapt the length of the phases, and the relationship of phases to blocks in order to achieve this.

Saturday saw a few more familiar faces come along to spectate and to partake and again the weather was just amazing. We had a quick cuppa and a chat about what each of us wanted to achieve during the day before going straight into the school for a full day of L2 online and freestyle. It was so much fun, and I can’t even begin to list how much we learnt. Several of us had our confidence improved by trying new things and several finally made some head way on tasks that had previously appeared impossible to do.

 

I would like to thank Alison for such a great couple of days – she really is fantastic and has the answer to EVRYTHING! I would also like to thank all of the students and spectators who came from far and wide to join in – not least Shelly from Savvy Scotland who took lots of pictures that I can’t wait to see once they are up on the Savvy Scotland website (I’ll post a link to it here once they are up), and Rachel who had quite lot to tackle with Big Ron, but did an admirable job. It was great to see how much Elaine and Felix and Sarah and Sandy have come on since March, and Ella finally got some lateral flexion out Shadow (Yay!) whilst Claire and Breeze looked beautiful together in the Freestyle riding. I was also delighted that this course put us in touch with Tamara Innes and her lovely horse Clive who has done exceedingly well teaching herself and her horse from the Success Series, and we look forward to some play days with her up North next year.

 

We have already booked dates for late April next year with Alison. We will do a Level 1 -2 day again on the Friday 23rd, but this will most likely be the only one that we organise next year so if you are keen to give it a go then please let me know as soon as possible and send a £60 deposit. There are only six places available on this day. You do not have to be a savvy club member, but it is highly recommended as Savvy Club gives you the DVD’s to help you get started as well as 25% off the equipment. At less than £15 a month for the family it is the best investment you will ever make in your horse.

The other two days are going to be Level 2 Freestyle riding patterns on the Saturday and then Level 3 Online and Liberty on the Sunday – can’t wait!!

This entry was posted on 26/08/2011 at 11:10 am and is filed under Horses. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response or trackback from your own site.