Riding Skill Isn’t Enough

There are many spectacular riders who can dazzle us with their abilities in the saddle. These individuals are a marvel to behold and they obviously understand a great deal about horses and how to work with them.

Those skills, however, don’t communicate anything about their ability to teach others. Teaching is a unique skill, just as riding is. You can’t assume they go hand-in-hand. Horse instruction is like any other teaching field. An ability to do something doesn’t prove an ability to teach it.

Ted Williams was one of baseball’s all-time greatest hitters. As a manager, he could never field a winning team.

Many genius engineers and mathematicians, people responsible for some great scientific advances, were despised as classroom teachers.

Meanwhile, some of the world’s greatest writers and painters were taught and inspired by nameless academics who had the ability to teach but may not have had the special gifts necessary to produce their own masterpieces.

So it is with riding instructors.

A teacher may have a championship rodeo riding buckle around her waist or an Olympic gold medal on his chest. That’s proof they know how to handle themselves in the saddle. It is not, however, evidence that they can teach you how to work with your horse.

That may be because the instructor has never taken teaching as seriously as he or she has developing his or her own skills.

It may be that the teacher just doesn’t have the knack for imparting information to others. There are hundreds of possible reasons why a skilled rider might not be a great teacher.

It is true that you want your instructor to evidence skills on the back of the horse. You wouldn’t want to take lessons from someone who was afraid to mount a pony.

You won’t have to worry about that, though. Any instructor you encounter will probably have all the skills necessary-the question will be whether he or she has the teaching skills that can lead to a great experience.