NOVEMBER 2013 YRS TV - Can Part Time Riders Get to Grand Prix? From the horse’s mouth - Abe’s Perspective We share our success stories from Breakthrough to Your Riding Success! Natasha talks about Making Mistakes in Your Riding Book of the Month And so much more!
Ebony Park Friesian Magazine www.yourridingsuccess.com
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Create 2014 to be Your Best Riding Year Yet! Hello riding superstars!!!! Are you excited?!?! I am excited!!!! I was thinking as it’s coming up to the end of the year – how are you guys going with your goals?!?! Are those yearly goals achieved? I know a lot of people find it difficult to goal set. Perhaps they aren’t sure how to do it, or how to set achievable goals, or how to create a plan to make sure their goal happens. Whatever it is – I want to help! I love to set goals and achieve success, and more importantly I love to show and help others do it in their lives as well. So I have an easy weekly challenge for you guys if you are up to it!?!?!? We are having a goal-setting week this week!!! I will explain in 5 easy videos how to goal set, make a plan, action steps and then actually achieve the goal within that week… All you have to do is register for the video series. So go to this link and get hooked up! We have already started the Goalsetting week, but if you missed it, make sure you join anyway, and we will make sure you catch up! We will also give you the opportunity to be part of our goal-setting Facebook community which will be a private group set up just for you and this week, to help you stay accountable to your goal and ensure success!!! Looking forward to getting to know you all through the week and helping you achieve your goals!!!!! To Your Success,
Natasha
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Welcome!! :) Hey fabulous riders! How are you this month? We have been busy bees this week with our “Create 2014 to be your best riding year yet” goalsetting week!! Very excited to have over 200 people joining us in the goalsetting journey! It’s getting towards the end of the year... hasn’t it come up so fast! If you think your goals aren’t quite going the way you would like them to - make sure you sign up for the goalsetting week - you haven’t missed out, we can catch you up on everything! This month Natasha talks about Seat, as well as getting to Grand Prix as a part time rider (and Abe of course puts in his two cents worth!). We share with you some of our success stories from the Breakthrough to Your Riding Success workshop... To Your Dreams Becoming Reality,
Kate Langdon
INSIDE THIS ISSUE
3
Welcome!
4
From the Horse’s Mouth
6
Seat
7
Quote of the Month
9
Tash’s Thoughts
10
12
Your Riding Success
17
Brag Board
TV
18
Book of the Month
19
Contact Us
Making Mistakes in Your Riding
14
Member of the Month
16
Your Gifts are Waiting!
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FROM THE HORSES MOUTH | ABE’S Hey super riders! My name is Abe and I am Natasha’s superstar Friesian stallion and her one and only horse she likes to ride. I told her I thought it was very unfair that she was the only one to share how to ride - as lets’ face it... I’m the one that really makes it all happen - so this is my chance to teach you how to really ride a horse... with advice straight from the horses mouth!
Hey Friesian Lovers!! How are you all doing?!?!?! I am a bit grumpy as Tash is still riding me, and I am in SERIOUS weight training ... someone should tell her to lose some weight!!!! Not that I’m game to tell her!!!! This month I wanted to talk about how many rides does it take to get to Grand Prix. Everyone wants to know how I turned into this amazing 95% scoring Grand Prix horse, so I thought I would share with you how I did it. ;) Tash got me as a 4.5yo in 2005. She rode on average 4 rides a week times for on average 48 weeks per year.
She did this for 5.5 years as my first Grand Prix start was in April 2011. This means for all your maths geniuses: X=1056 With X being Grand Prix. Tash is very fond of saying if you want my results, do my work. It’s not rocket science.
8600 hours. Malcom Gladwell suggests genius is 10,000 hours. That any success, whether it is music genius like Mozart, or wealth creation like Warren Buffet or sport success like Michael Jordon, it is all 10,000 hours before genius is realised. We know this.
She has ridden a couple of horses before me to Elementary and then rode another up to Inter 2 level. She has also ridden a few horses after me. All up we estimate she has ridden approximately
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FROM THE HORSES MOUTH | ABE’S PERSPECTIVE Michael Jordon was cut from his high school basketball team for not being good enough, so he practiced double the amount of the other players and in 6 months made it back onto the high school team and onto the best player of all time. So one of the biggest things you can control is the amount of times you ride.
The more you ride, the more you figure out and the more progress you make. Think back to the rider you were last year, I’m sure you appreciate how far you have come and the learnings you have gained. Multiply that over years and that’s how you get to Grand Prix.
This is the same for the horse. I had so much to learn, but even more than that, I needed the rides and the time to get strong. I have the biggest muscles in the stable and I have worked hard for those muscles. The only way I can build my muscles is be worked in the right way, consistently, and that’s what takes the time. I find piaffe and passage so much easier now than I did even 2 years ago. This is because Tash invested the time to ride me those 4 days a week so I could keep building on my strength. Until next time enjoy your riding and give your horse a carrot for me! :)
To Your Success,
Abe
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FROM THE EXPERTS | NATASHA ALTHOFF
SEAT Hello brilliant riders! How are you this month!??!?! This month I would like to look at the seat and how important it is to make sure you are relaxed and confident, to assist in your perfect seat. Just close your eyes for a moment and I want you to imagine your perfect seat. What does it look like to you? I want you to picture yourself as if you are looking at yourself. So how do you look? Are you still, poised and elegant? What are you ankles doing? Your thighs? Your stomach? Then I want you to step into your body and feel how it feels to have a perfect seat. How it feels to move with your horse in motion and go with the movement. What do you hear, what do you see and what do you feel?
bridle and stay steady on the contact. Still hands are vital for a horses head to be still. The hands can only be still if the seat is sufficiently developed to keep the balance and not rely on the hands for balance. The seat is also the core to effective dressage riding. You know when you watch the top riders and you are staring really hard … and you still can’t see them doing anything!!! And the horse is dancing underneath them. Well that’s riding with seat. Where you can go with the horse and influence the horse with your body. It’s almost like your thoughts become his and your back becomes his back.
Ok so “how????” I can hear you screaming at me! Well good question but lets first look at why? To me seat is the single most important tool when riding a horse. When I am working with a client seat is at the fore front of my mind all the time. Lets say I have a client coming to me saying “my horse doesn’t keep his head still or stay to the contact”, I could talk about driving to the bit and engaging behind and riding the hind leg and I do … but I am also thinking are the hands still enough for the horse to comfortably and easily go into the
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FROM THE EXPERTS | NATASHA ALTHOFF
SEAT So there are three keys to a perfect seat: 1. Balance – you must have balance
first. You must be able to sit in the center of the saddle and not have to rely on anything to grip or get tight to stay in the centre of the movement. 2. Relaxation – to have a supple back
that can swing with the horse you must be relaxed and not tight. The biggest mistakes trainers make is when they say shoulders back, or heels down, the rider if they are very eager will force their heels down or shoulders back using all the muscles they have to achieve this. This results in tight tired muscles and is not the point of a
supple seat - the rider will never have the ability to go with the horse. Muscles must always be supple. Now that doesn’t mean soft and not engaged as the muscles do need to work. But with relaxation! I know it’s a paradox! Aren’t most things in riding?!?!?! When I am assisting clients with this I ask them to think of holding a glass of water, now hold it too tight with all the muscle strength you have in your hand and the glass will break, completely relax your hand and the glass will drop and break. There is a muscle tension in the middle ground that is enough to hold the glass. It’s the same for riding. Enough tension to keep you in the movement but not too much that you will become tight, rigid and blocked. 3.Going with the horse’s
movement – you must be able to go with the horse and not be left behind. It’s about being the leader, always knowing what will happen next and being ready for it. This means you must have a braced back and an engaged core.
Once you have developed
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your perfect seat you can then use your seat to influence the horse, slow and quicken it only with seat and turn and perform lateral movements with your seat in conjunction with your legs and reins. So remember relaxation is so important. It’s a must. If you are worried about falling, you will be gripping and be tight and your seat can’t go with the horse. If you are not balanced you will grip to stay on and your seat can’t go with the horse. So work on your balance in the saddle, make sure you stay relaxed and supple with positive muscle tension and then allow your body to go with the horse. This is where riding in your mind can help. You can only do so many hours in the saddle practicing but you can do many more hours in your head. The best thing is in your head you never make a mistake and your unconscious mind can’t tell the difference between real and imagined, so all those neural connections are strengthened even if your not on the horse! For more information go to your www.yourridingsuccess and get my free guide to riding success, in there you will be provided with more advice and videos to assist you in your riding journey.
QUOTE OF THE MONTH
DISCIPLINE IS THE BRIDGE BETWEEN GOALS AND ACCOMPLISHMENT.
To Your Success,
Natasha
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JIM ROHN
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DIARY DATES We are busy bees this month planning for the first Your Best Year Yet workshop on November 23rd-24th
TASH’S THOUGHTS Hey riding rockstars!!!! :):):) Trust you are having the most amazing November! As you can see from the front page I am pretty big and still enjoying the riding!!! :) Only a month or so to go so it’s all very exciting here!!!! :) I can't wait to reveal to you next month all my plans for 2014 when it comes to you guys!!!! I have lots of ideas to help you get to the next level with your riding and can't wait to get going with it!!! :) Email me at natasha@yourridingsuccess.com if you have any suggestions of how I can help and what you would like to see, I love the feedback! :) I am having super fun this week playing with all my goal-setting superstars!! :) They totally rock and have been learning how to set goals and achieve them all week and it’s all gearing up for Friday where we celebrate! It’s not too late to join us - if you go to page 2 and register we will send you the first three videos that have gone out :) I trust everything is going well for you and your riding! Please let me know how I can help! Otherwise until next month! To Your Success,
Natasha YOUR RIDING SUCCESS MONTHLY | October 2013 | 9
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YOUR RIDING SUCCESS TV THIS MONTH’S QUESTION IS FROM JULIE, WHO ASKS “HOW DO YOU BECOME A GRAND PRIX RIDER IF YOU CAN’T COMMIT TO RIDING FULL TIME? CAN YOU BE A PART TIME RIDER AND GET TO THAT TOP LEVEL IN DRESSAGE?”
Hi Superstars!! I wanted to answer a question this month about becoming a Grand Prix dressage rider is it possible when you perhaps work full time and have kids that have to go to school etc. and you are unable to be a full time dressage rider? The short answer - it absolutely is!
It took me 5 years to get Abe to Grand Prix, and he was ridden around 4 times per week (sometimes 3-5 times per week). He’s a Friesian... so he doesn’t like to be worked for too long - 20-30 minutes is his max. When I was younger I always wanted to be an eventer, but you have to ride longer and all the time... you have to put the hours in! With dressage, it is more like an intense session at the gym - you build that muscle
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YOUR RIDING SUCCESS TV hours under your belt and you can keep Grand Prix in your sights!! Have fun - good luck to you guys, and make sure you have a super week! If you have any other questions, make sure you contact me - info@yourridingsuccess.com To Your Success,
Natasha To make sure you stay in the loop, like us on Facebook (click here) and subscribe to our mailing list to make sure you are on our mailing list and get the weekly blog and monthly magazine (click here to do that now)
and make them strong. In my case with Abe I have been able to do that with 4 rides per week. There are 168 hours in your week... so you can find the time to have that in your riding! I think that you need around about 1,000 hours of riding to get to Grand Prix, just as a rough estimate - so make sure you have a whiteboard, start writing down the hours that you are riding, and keeping a record so that you can have your goal of getting those 1,000
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NEED TO KNOW | NATASHA ALTHOFF MAKING MISTAKES IN YOUR RIDING Do you make mistakes? … Often?
Now I know that is impossible – Mistakes are how I learn. Mistakes are how I learn…
Check out all the Success Stories and Feedback we have received this month at YRS HQ!!
Natasha.... you are amazing.
I do!!!! Mistakes are awesome!!!! Heaps!!!!!
I guess I’m talking about the mistakes you make when you don’t know any better.
But I am ok with that! I didn’t use to be!!! I used to despise that I would make mistakes! I thought it was inexcusable. I wanted to learn how to ride without stuffing up, without confusing me or my horse, without making any kind of mistake.
You've changed my life by giving me encouragement just when I needed it. Thank you just doesn't cover it. -- Caro
What about the mistakes you make when you do know better? The mistake to not ride even though you have a competition coming up, and you know you should… The mistake to rush your transition and not really prepare, because you just want to get the ride done with…
“Thank you. Your tip on cantering with 'one,two,three -canter!' has changed everything for me and my horse. I used to ask without enough preparation on my part and He would ignore or not react to my aid. Now He sees it coming and when on three I ask, we just move forward in canter together. It's great.”
The mistake to not worry about accuracy or high standards… They are harder to reconcile, because you should have known better, you have learned to do better, and you were failing yourself by not following through.
--Beth
“Thanks for all your advice! My riding is moving along great and I am achieving much greater riding skills which I will have for life thankyou :)” --Skye
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NEED TO KNOW | NATASHA ALTHOFF MAKING MISTAKES IN YOUR RIDING
“Hi Natasha, I'm doing great! Thankyou for your outstanding videos and tips. They really do help, it's a never ending process. I really like your reminders to have fun with it, I can get very serious and hard on myself at times... Which is just silly. It's riding, it's all good!” -- Melissa
Those mistakes hurt a bit more. But I use that feeling to vow to never make the mistake again. Because mistakes are awesome … unless you don’t learn anything from them. Then they are … MISTAKES!!!
To Your Success!!!
Natasha
“I stumbled across Natasha's YouTube videos... Which I found really beneficial. I downloaded the free e books and I will be using these as a guide line! So I want to thank you guys for the excellent information I will be using it like a bible haha.
So I urge all of you to make a million mistakes today! Go nuts!!! But also be a learning machine!!!! Learn all you can, and enjoy those mistakes as stepping stones to success!!!!
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Thanks :-)” -- Hayleigh
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MEMBER OF THE MONTH
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Break!r"gh to Y"r Ri#ng Success
Hey Guys!! This month we thought we would do something a bit different... and celebrate our fabulous October 2013 Breakthrough to Your Riding Success superstars!!! They have been sending us through their successes 30 days after coming to the workshop, and their results are fantastic we are so proud!!! :) Firstly I would like to congratulate Kathy!!
class!! She then did the most amazing work out in the champion the best canter walk canter transition we have ever done, lovely extensions and a copy book hand gallop! Most importantly she warmed up amongst horses going in all directions and held it together Now I am so excited and can’t wait to take her to Barastoc and the Royal.
This is the story she shared with us:
I am so fortunate to have such a wonderful horse
“Hi Natasha
Thank you so much for all your support and help.
Well you’re right, I f*%king rock!
I can’t wait for our other weekends.”
I have achieved my goals and then some.
-- Kathy
Had 2 great lessons, which helped me set goals for both horses. I have clear pictures in my head before I ride of what I want to achieve and we are getting them. Poet worked beautifully yesterday, his jaw relaxed and showed some real lengthen strides in trot and CANTER! Such a different picture from his lesson. We have entered some shows in November which is going to be our month of many Champions. Charm my golden girl got us off to a really great start yesterday (she is horse shy). We went to our first show under saddle and she did really well, and we won the
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MEMBER OF THE MONTH
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Break!r"gh to Y"r Ri#ng Success
And because we can only fit one more in... congratulations to LeeAnne!! Here is her story:
“Jess my mare is currently plaited and shiney for our first outing tomorrow. We are starting with in hand show class to settle in and then doing a ridden class. I have my inner showie costume hanging up ready to rock the ring. I even caught the attention of my 14 year old daughter while trying on my gear and getting into character earlier today!
It is an amazing feeling to look self doubt square in the eye and shove 2 fingers at it. I also have the excitement of coming to have a lesson with Kate on Sunday. Very much looking forward to it! Thank you� -- Leeann Well done to both of these lovely ladies and their achievements over the last month, as well as to the rest of the superstars that joined us for Breakthrough to Your Riding Success!!
It's been a fantastic 3 weeks of riding. Jess pulled a shoe and my farrier was booked out so we missed a week of riding together. However the new me took the chance to borrow a friends horse, work on different things and read and watch Tash TV. Friends have actually commented on the fact that I am riding with a new determination and they can see a change. Our canter has improved dramatically in only 3 weeks. I have gone from dreading the canter to loving it so much we have been caught hooning on the buckle. No sucking back and bouncing in sight since the new me stepped up either! You have indeed given me back my passion for riding. It's amazing how you get caught up in your own self doubt without realising it if you let yourself.
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Your Gifts Are Waiting For You Now! Are you enjoying this months issue of the Your Riding Success Monthly? We also send out weekly blogs and we have even more Riding resources for you! Click on the picture below to go to our website and fill out your name and email to subscribe now and receive your FREE Ultimate Success Pack, which we guarantee, if you implement it, your riding will considerably change for the better!!
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We want to celebrate your successes with you, so please send in your pictures of the jumps you have conquered, ribbons you have won, dressage tests you have aced, and anything and everything else that we can celebrate and share with you! To submit your photo for next month, post it on our Facebook wall, or email your photo to info@yourridingsuccess.com
MEMBER GALLERY | BRAG BOARD
Right: Jess my mare is currently plaited and shiney for our first
outing tomorrow. I have my inner
showie costume hanging up ready to rock the ring. I even caught the attention of my 14 year old
daughter while trying on my gear
and getting into character earlier today!
It's been a fantastic 3 weeks of riding. Friends have actually
commented on the fact that I am
riding with a new determination and they can see a change. You have
indeed given me back my passion
for riding. It's amazing how you get caught up in your own self doubt without realising it if you let yourself.
Thank you Leeann
Right: Congratulations to Julie and BB on their first place in a Prelim Dressage test!! :)
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BOOK OF THE MONTH
DEBBIE McDONALD - RIDING THROUGH I don’t know about you, but I love to read. So I thought it would be really cool if we put together a Your Riding Success Book Club. This means every month we can read a book, and I will review if the following month on our website (click here for the book club page) and in the magazine, and we can have a discussion on Facebook, and I am happy to answer any questions you have from reading the book As I know some people don’t like to read, I won’t be flooding the Your Riding Success Facebook group with talking about books, if not everyone is into it. So Super Kate has created a page on Facebook. So click here now to head over to the Facebook page now and join the group - I have already posted the book for this month - “Debbie McDonald - Riding Through” by Debbie McDonald with Nancy Jaffer If you would like to get yourself a copy, click here to purchase through Amazon now! :) Since it is taking so long to order the books... we thought make it happen we would give plenty of notice - this one won’t be reviewed for a few months, so you have plenty of time to order it and read it so that you can share your thoughts! Can’t wait to hear your thoughts and share a book with you every few months! To Your Reading Success,
Natasha Althoff
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www.y"r%#ngsuccess.com
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