RITTER DRESSAGE — NEW PROGRAMME WITH CATHERINE MCCRUM
Your hands can communicate the essentials your horse needs to carry you - and himself - with balance, harmony and ease ...
A 16-week introductory course using the Feldenkrais Method with your horse. Deepen your understanding of how your horse moves, and learn to use your hands to listen, redirect, and improve that movement from the ground up.
HOW IT BEGAN!
The FeldenHorse story . . . from our very own Catherine McCrum
FeldenHorse started to come to life in the moment I realised...
“When Thomas is talking about the aids of his legs, sitting bones, and the intelligent use of his hands on the reins, he is really describing a hands-on Feldenkrais Functional Integration lesson - except he is using his whole body rather than just his hands.”
Catherine McCrum, Feldenkrais Practitioner
The moment Thomas’s words clicked, I wasn't in the saddle. I was standing beside my horse, QQ, with my hands on him, experimenting with what I'd just heard Thomas Ritter describe.
As I listened to him explain where he applied his aids and what response he was feeling for, I started to trace out the same thing with my hands.
Although I was on the ground not in the saddle, QQ responded exactly as Thomas had suggested he would. He softened his ribs under my hands, shifted his weight in exactly the way I was aiming for and a beautiful lateral curve appeared through his whole spine.
Before that moment, it had never occurred to me that the skills I'd spent years developing as a Feldenkrais practitioner could become a way in to teaching my horse the co-ordination that forms the foundation of classical dressage movements (and Thomas’s ridden exercises).
Yet suddenly, on that day, Thomas’s framework for training wasn't theory anymore - I could feel it emerging under my hands.
Let me back up a little though and tell you a bit more about how I got to this point...
and how hands on work enabled me to bridge the gap between knowing and doing
I'd returned to horses after many years away and quickly found myself in trouble after taking on my horse, QQ, who was unbalanced, did not particularly enjoy being ridden and was utterly adept at blocking any attempt I made to change this.
As a skier and keen sportswoman, I had improved my athletic skills through the Feldenkrais Method far beyond what I had imagined was possible - I was running faster, jumping higher, skiing better than ever, and my chronic injuries magically disappeared. And all with a feeling of less effort.
My dream with QQ was to repeat this experience and reach our full movement potential together.
Although I sought out help from various instructors, after a series of frustrating experiences, I realised that much of what I was being taught constrained and constricted us both and only served to increase QQ's unhappiness in the school. I was at a loss. Then I came across Thomas and Shana Ritter and their intelligent and sympathetic approach to training horses. Ritter Dressage sounded philosophically and practically very much like the Feldenkrais Method - but for horses. As I researched their teaching further, I recognised they could help me train in the way I had dreamt of and I felt sure I could help their students to improve their movement skills in the saddle. I offered my services and luckily they loved the idea of us working together.
I started to support their students with Feldenkrais based lessons for their seat and through The Aware Rider programme. Meanwhile, the Ritter's teaching and generous support led to me making huge gains in my understanding of the What, Why, and How of training my horse.
But I still felt that I struggled to ride well enough to help QQ enjoy carrying his rider.
Feeling disheartened, I started to think laterally.
What did I already know how to do?
What could I bring to this that wasn't about becoming a better rider in the conventional sense?
I knew I could teach riders to improve their balance, posture and co-ordination in the saddle through Awareness Through Movement lessons.
But... I also had another area of expertise: my hands-on Feldenkrais work (Functional Integration).
In these sessions, through my hands, I explore a person's habitual movement patterns - specifically the ways they unconsciously tighten and brace - and guide them out of stiffness and discomfort towards more pleasurable and functional ways of moving.
What if QQ could learn from my hands just as easily as my students?
That was the moment I realised
“When Thomas is talking about the aids of his legs, sitting bones, and the intelligent use of his hands on the reins, he is really describing a hands-on Feldenkrais Functional Integration lesson - except he is using his whole body rather than just his hands.”
THE CENTRAL PREMISE...
feldenhorse is Functional Integration for horses
Through FeldenHorse you will learn how to communicate to your horse the pleasure of moving in a balanced, harmonious way - free from unwanted limitations.
What is Functional Integration?
Functional Integration is a two-way conversation through touch about how you move. In a session, I aim to discover with you the ways in which you might be obstructing your innate ability to move with comfort and ease.
Ultimately, the goal of a session is to give you an experience of what it’s like to move as well as you humanly can - co-ordinated, balanced and free from physical restrictions and emotional tension.
The way we move in the present is intricately tied up with our past experiences, so although I find out much about your particular patterns of movement through touch and observation, I also want to find out about your movement history - whether that's an old injury, or a defensive posture formed in a vulnerable moment.
My aim with you, is to uncover how you could move if life hadn't got in the way.
Functional Integration skills translate into FeldenHorse
Just as our history shapes how we move in the present, so our horses gather a lifetime of faulty movement patterns related to their previous experiences. Through the dialogue of hands-on Functional Integration, you can guide your horse out of unhealthy patterns and towards reaching their full movement potential.
Developing an intelligent quality of touch and the ability to converse with your hands is not simple! It takes attention, awareness and sensitivity.
FeldenHorse is a complete programme designed to introduce you to working with the principles of hands on Feldenkrais - but with your horse.
A quality of touch that transforms
My first teacher, Scott Clark, describes the quality of touch we're looking for in hands on work as akin to martial arts:
"We often think that the forces of pain and discomfort in our bodies require equally strong forces to oppose them. But Feldenkrais, like Aikido, sidesteps the negative forces, blends with them, redirects them. The way I touch you starts by agreeing with you rather than opposing, then redirects your own power into directions that can be useful and effective."
When this kind of touch works, and it can work in a moment, people report feeling looser yet powerfully balanced, with more space for breathing. They feel taller, more expanded. They feel well...and this feeling of well-being is reflected not only physically, but mentally and emotionally too.
Imagine if we could apply this quality of touch to our horses!
Applying feldenkrais to Horses - what could possibly go wrong?
I thought I would be able to take all these skills and apply them straight away.
I was wrong.
After my initial success, QQ quickly decided that one or two sessions was quite enough, and made his feelings known.
There was a lot of walking off. Quite a few warning nips. Plenty of shifting and turning away from me.
His tolerance for touch was much less than most of my human students. He was very clear about what he liked and what he didn't, which was valuable but somewhat disconcerting information.
Unlike people, who can appreciate that something might benefit them in the future, QQ was far more interested in doing his own thing than hanging around while I experimented.
I started with the idea of consent, while I attempted to place my hands on him.
After some trial and many errors, I worked out that if I did very short sessions and carefully watched his movement communication, he was actually quite happy to join the conversation.
What QQ Taught Me...
After ditching my lofty ideas about deep spiritual connection and meaningful communication, I learned something more useful: there were places QQ was happy for me to touch, places that were no-go zones, and places where he was ambivalent.
What helped was not having an idea about right or wrong, but being guided by the responses I observed on any given day. If I stuck to using my senses for feedback - rather than giving in to my desire to get him to do something - I was able to add more and more movement possibilities.
Some felt like, "Oh, so that's what I've been missing." Others felt wrong. By making distinctions about the sensory feedback I was getting, I discovered clearer and more fluid movement pathways for him.
Gradually his problem stiff right side lengthened and freed up and he started to move as a connected whole.
I had started to unconsciously develop a methodology, one that had changed everything for QQ and me.
How we had transformed together felt like something worth sharing.
Working alongside my fellow Feldenkrais Practitioner, mindfulness teacher, and riding instructor Charlotte Zetterberg, we started to offer FeldenHorse sessions to students in the Ritter courses.
The FeldenHorse Effect
Bringing this experience to other horse owners made a real difference to :
- Their understanding of how their horses move
- What was getting in their way when riding
- The quality of their communication with their horses
- The health and happiness of their horses and their willingness to train and be ridden.
The feedback was overwhelmingly positive.
People loved these short movement sessions. They felt able to do something their horses enjoyed, something that made a visible difference to balance, posture, and quality of movement.
The sessions improved their understanding of the relationship between different parts of their horse in movement.
- Working with the vertebrae of the spine to move in all possible directions improved the capacity to weight-shift around all four legs.
- A pelvic clock organised from the sitting bones helped the diagonal connections between hind leg and opposite front leg become more symmetrical.
- The hands-on work revealed previously hidden gateways into their horse's body - which translated into greater precision with their seat and legs in the saddle.
Charlotte and I were genuinely surprised and delighted at how effective students found it.
INTRODUCING...
An 8 Module, 16 week Online fully supported programme
with Catherine McCrum and Charlotte Zetterberg
This programme includes contributions and support from Thomas Ritter, Shana Ritter and Yvonne Lübcke.
This is a brand new programme about learning to hold a conversation about movement with your horse - through touch, through observation, through the quality of your attention.
Learning to do this hands-on Feldenkrais work is as much a developmental process for you as it is for your horse.
- Developing your capacity for relational dialogue so that you can be present and attentive to yourself and your horse.
- Developing the co-ordination behind good quality touch that allows you to converse with your hands.
- Developing in your horse the key movements for beautiful balance and harmony in their ridden work.
- Developing confidence, relaxation and a feeling of well-being in your horse.
Because of the nature of this process the programme comes with a high degree of support and supervision from Catherine McCrum, Charlotte Zetterberg and their special guest Yvonne Lübcke.
What's Included?
We have structured the course so that the content simultaneously develops you as a FeldenHorse practictioner but also develops your horses movement potential.
In each module , we work with one of the horse's six essential dressage movements while integrating the six foundational movements for you.
You'll learn:
- Hands-on sequences that trace out each essential movement in your horses body
- How to read your horse's responses and adjust accordingly
- How your own organisation, your groundedness, your co-ordination, the quality of your contact shapes what your horse receives
- The connection between what you discover with your hands and what becomes available in the saddle
It's going to be experimental, enlightening, amazing, hopefully fun and maybe a little bit confronting at times.
The course will be fully supported with live Q&A and Supervision Sessions, and a private members community.
You will receive full, lifetime access to all recordings, course materials, and the Facebook Group beyond the 16 weeks of the Programme.
Programme Price = €497
*Other Currencies and Payment Plans Available.
What's Included
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Meet Your Instructors
Course lead and feldenhorse creator
Catherine McCrum
And her horse, QQ
ACCREDITED FELDENKRAIS PRACTIONER, GESTALT PYSCHOTHERAPIST, DRESSAGE RIDER
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. 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 assists in most of the Artistic Dressage Program courses by providing riders with Feldenkrais-based lessons to improve their body awareness, coordination, balance, and suppleness.
CO-INSTRUCTOR
Charlotte Zetterberg
Charlotte is an accredited Feldenkrais Practitioner, riding instructor, and certified mindfulness teacher based in Sweden. She co presents The Aware Rider Series with Catherine and teaches Feldenkrais on many of the Ritter courses. She has been an assistant on the Ritter Team since 2018 and is also the author of FeldenRide. Charlotte has been a collaborator on FeldenHorse since its earliest sessions with Ritter students.
SPECIAL GUEST AND CONTRIBUTING INSTRUCTOR
Yvonne Lübcke
Yvonne has been part of the Artistic Dressage online courses since 2018, and now teaches within the program as an assistant teacher. In her work, she focuses on health, communication, and mutual respect so both horse and human can feel more confident, comfortable, and connected. Over the years, she has studied energy work, Traditional Chinese Medicine, biomechanics, EMMETT (a fascia release technique) and equine communication, especially how horses express stress, discomfort, or pain. Understanding these signals helps her to look for the cause behind a behavior instead of simply correcting the horse, always trying to understand what the horse is trying to communicate.
ALSO JOINING US
Thomas and Shana Ritter
We are Thomas and Shana Ritter. Thomas is German and Shana is American, now based in Portugal on our farm of mostly Lusitanos (also a few Lipizzans) by the ocean.
Together we run a program of online courses and programs which educate riders how to train their horses themselves, in accordance with classical principles and biomechanics.
Thomas is an International Clinician and author of two books and countless articles in many publications. Shana is a USDF Bronze and Silver Medalist. We have studied with Karl Mikolka, Egon von Neidorff, Arthur Kottas, Charles de Kunffy, Hubert Rohrer, Dorothee Baumann-Pellny, and Thomas Faltejsek.
Through the Artistic Dressage programmes we help riders all over the world to have better, happier relationships with their horses through correct, gymnastics and a thoughtful, heart-centered approach.
"For the last few days I have been doing the FeldenHorse exercise that you demonstrated. I have done something similar that my horse osteo showed me, for a couple of years not, BUT, FeldenHorse is so much more effective and acceptable to my horse. He is really relaxing into it. Yesterday he even came to me and presented himself so I could move in and start. I notice since I have been doing this work that he seems to be more aware of his feet/ proprioception. I see this as huge progress. He also seems more acitve in the ridden work. Of course I do my Ritter exercises to bring awareness but sometimes the days feel like we are going back to square 1.
I wanted to share that the FeldenHorse exercise is effective and valuable. I do it like you recommended, small movements. The osteo moves I did were more pushing, and large, and I didn't get any feedback from my horse like I have with your exercise. Having the hand lightly on the breast bone you can really feel the ripple effect of the movement going into and out of the horse. Patiently and now more sensitively doing this has allowed finally a two way communication. Thank you! Looking forward to learning more."
Bella collins, GERMAny
"I had a very strange looking reaction from my horse and wished I had a picture of it. I was doing a simple wither rock towards the hollow side. We had already done it on his stiff side, which is normally his favourite side. I stopped the rocking after some softening and blinking and stepped away. All of a sudden my horse raised his head, pulled it all the way to his chest and continued raising it until the crest of his neck was almost vertical 😳 (so was his nose). As he slowly stretched up, I heard one crack pop after another starting from his lower neck going up all the way towards his poll! One of the boarders came right by after. She looked at my horse and asked if I had tranquilized him. I guess he had such an endorphin release, he sure was in a different world! I love the FeldenHorse work. My horse loves it when I put one hand on the ribs behind the shoulder and the other in the vicinity of the last 3 ribs. Especially on his still side. It normally only takes a few seconds before he starts to release. AND now he has finally started breathing in the trot and canter! Thank you Catherine for introducing us to this!
BIRGIT MACKENZIE, USA
"Who Loves Feldenhorse?
I and the horses absolutely love it. I was trimming Diesel's feet and he has an old stifle injury. He didn't feel comfortable to bring his hindleg forward so I could finish the trim.
I rocked his hip and withers and the ripple effect went all the way down his hind leg. I can hear popping. I've never seen rippling effect like that before. I was at this for a while. I didn't want to stop. I wanted to keep watching the rippling flowing down to his foot, but Diesel told me, I was done.
And then he was free to bring his leg forward and I was able to finish.
I haven't given him a body workout all winter. I'm so amazed by how simple this was and it freed up his hip and whole leg. Where ever it was blocked it was no longer blocked.
Thank you Catherine McCrum and Diesel really thanks you today!"
