Inherent in every person is the capacity to learn new ways of doing things. Riding is a learning activity, and if you are straining and forcing while riding, you aren't learning. The less effort you use in your action, the more you notice, and the more you notice, the more you can change your action.
Feldenkrais is mindfulness in action, and this is what it can do for your riding:
• Develop science-based strategies to learn what the talented riders just "Do."
• Change your movement patterns and improve your riding.
• Address your habitual way of moving and open up for the new.
• Learn how to make choices with awareness while riding.
• Begin acting with choice rather than compulsion.
• Experience how the smallest movement in one part of the body changes the whole body, and how doing less can get you more.
• Achieve better coordination, focus, and harmony with yourself and your horse.
When you know what you do, you can do what you want. In the words of Moshe Feldenkrais, Make the impossible possible, the possible easy and the easy elegant.
The 7-Day Challenge
What can you do when you can't ride? Or even if you can ride, but you want to do things OFF of the horse to improve your balance, coordination, stability, and awareness IN the saddle.
This is an entirely FREE 7-Day Challenge produced by Feldenkrais Practitioner, Catherine McCrum, in collaboration with Thomas and Shana Ritter of Ritter Dressage. Come experience first-hand what Feldenkrais lessons can do for you and your riding!
(*Totally free. No credit card required. There will be an invitation at the end of the series to continue with one of our programs, but there is no obligation whatsoever. Please join us and soak up as much as you can. We want to share this with you, regardless of whether you sign up for our complete program or not. That's just how we roll!)
How does the Challenge work?
This is a 7 day challenge. We will do one video lesson per day for 7 consecutive days.
When you sign up for the challenge, we will create an account for you where you will access your challenge materials (as a course). If you have taken other courses or challenges with us, please sign up with which the email address your account is associated. (if you have an account with us and have trouble signing up, login first here - https://courses.artisticdressage.com/login - and then return to this page to sign up).
After entering your info to sign up, you will be taken to a confirmation page which includes the Course URL page and Facebook Group join information. You will also receive this information in an email.
You will gain instant access to all the materials, but we will begin the Challenge together on Friday, May 1. The trainings are all pre-recorded so you can do them any time of day on your time schedule. EASY!
Each day there will be a post in the Facebook Group with the link to the lesson for the day. This is where you will check in each day, let us know that you finished the lesson, and share any observations or questions you have.
At the end of the 7 days we will release a very different, special bonus lesson for those who complete the 7-day Challenge. Stay all 7 days to find out what it is!
The Instructors:
Catherine McCrum
Catherine McCrum is an accredited Feldenkrais practitioner and has been teaching sport, fitness and movement since 1986 as first a ski instructor/coach and then as a Personal Trainer. In 2002 she finished her Feldenkrais training. She is also a rider and is joining us in this course to help you learn how to recognize how the way you use your body can be interfering with your ability to progress in your riding. She is also a Gestalt psychotherapist with a particular interest in working with developing awareness of how her clients embody their emotional and psychological patterns. Catherine participates as an Assistant Teacher in our Artistic Dressage Online Courses Program.
Thomas & Shana Ritter
Thomas is an International Clinician and author of two books (Dressage Principles based on Biomechanics and Long Reining: From the Beginning through the Levade) and countless articles in many publications. Shana is a USDF Bronze and Silver Medalist. Together they create and orchestrate the Artistic Dressage program.
Feldenkrais is about learning to do less, so you can feel what you're doing that isn't helping you. Then you can develop better ways of moving which allow you to do what you want with ease.
How can Feldenkrais help riders?
Inherent in every person is the capacity to learn new ways of doing things. Riding is a learning activity, and if you are straining and forcing while riding, you aren't learning. The less effort you use in your action, the more you notice, and the more you notice, the more you can change your action.
Feldenkrais is mindfulness in action, and this is what it can do for your riding:
• Develop science-based strategies to learn what the talented riders just "Do."
• Change your movement patterns and improve your riding.
• Address your habitual way of moving and open up for the new.
• Learn how to make choices with awareness while riding.
• Begin acting with choice rather than compulsion.
• Experience how the smallest movement in one part of the body changes the whole body, and how doing less can get you more.
• Achieve better coordination, focus, and harmony with yourself and your horse.
When you know what you do, you can do what you want. In the words of Moshe Feldenkrais, Make the impossible possible, the possible easy and the easy elegant.
Become the rider your horse is waiting for.
