My mother rode about 15 years ago and now after all the time that I got to ride she wants to start again. Since my gelding is quite good with beginners (not so good when he knows that someone who can ride is on him...[
]) I will be teaching her on him.
Anyways I offered her to give her lessons on him and she accepted. She barely started cantering when she rode so much time ago and we both ride english.... Now I'm starting with teaching her a bit of theory like grooming supplies, tack, the purpose of aids and she's got a good grip on it!
Since she was already able to start cantering off the lunge line, she asked me to not longe her and I'm perfectly fine with it, since I know she'd rather give up the reins than pull on them a bit harder. So now after the theory lessons when it gets a bit warmer she'll be climbing into the saddle again!
So my current rough lesson plan looks like that:
- get on the barn and go over the tack and stuff
- let her catch my horse, put on halter correctly and so on
- teach her a bit about behavior
- if he has a blanket on then, explain putting it on and off
- extensive grooming
- tacking up with my assistance of course
- mounting (my horse is tall (18+hh) so off our mounting wall [8D])
- teach her basic position and do some streching exercises
- walk-halt transitions with explanation of aids and correction of position
- doing some circles and introducing the letters (MBFAKEHC and X)
- posting at walk and two point at walk
- starting to trot, let her sit the trot first, then start with correct posting and diagonals
- changing the diagonal and doing circles again
- doing w-t, t-w and w-h-w transitions at letters
- doing exercises to feel diagonal like down-down-up or up-down-down and maybe two point
- back to walk and teach her about flection and maybe introduce leg yield
- working on sitting trot
- if she's feeling okay with it than maybe a bit of canter (on lunge line could be)
- out of stirrups and a bit of trot, and walk without stirrups until the horse is cooled down
- dismount, untack, groom and put back on pasture
- cleaning of tack
- I'll let her write a riding-journal or blog or something to see what stuck with her and what she wants to do next
Now here come my questions:
1) Is the lesson plan okay? Too much? Did I forget something?
2) What would you do? What do I have to remember?
3) How should I expect her to dress? (she has breeches and helmet and half chaps) Should she wear gloves?
4) To get to my barn we have a long-ish driveway that leads to the road and often I just walk it up and back to the barn with my horse to cool him down, should I let her do it? (he can be quite bitchy to go away from the barn)
5) What do I have to teach her? What can I leave away?
6) Do you have any experience with teaching your parents or someone in a similar situation?
7) Any other thoughts, suggestions?
Thanks and praise to everybody who actually read through the whole thread [
]