Here is what you can look forward to each month…

One New Riding Exercise each month.

Each of our exercises are biomechanically designed to help your horse develop his balance, straightness, suppleness, engagement, and throughness. But it can get boring if you find yourself getting stuck in a rut of only doing the same, old exercises over and over. At some point, you feel the need for some variety and inspiration, so each month we bring you a new exercise to add to your repertoire. We will explain not only what to do and what the exercise accomplishes in the training, but how you can ride it in a way that will be best suited for your horse right now. We teach you how to modify the exercise to make it easier or harder, depending upon what your horse needs, and we teach you how to embellish the exercise to bring other elements in. We also teach you how to trouble-shoot the various problems that you may encounter with the exercise. With these in mind, you set yourself and your horse up for the best possible results. These exercises are sure to become some of your favourite go-to’s! Each exercise comes with instructional video and downloadable PDF with full instructions.

One Group Coaching Hot seat each month.

Feedback is VITAL to making progress. We have seen this time and time again in our courses. The riders who regularly ask questions and get feedback on their riding videos are the ones that excel in their training. So we are now adding this element into EOTM. A Hot Seat session enables us to watch videos that the community has submitted, and we give feedback, tips, and help troubleshoot any problems that came up. This all happens on a Live Zoom webinar, they are always recorded so you can watch later, and you can learn through watching others EVEN if you do not submit your own videos (but we encourage you to, if you can!).

"Wine with Friends"  Meetings each month.

Wine with Friends is like hanging out with your riding buddies in the afternoon with a glass of wine and chatting together about the stuff that is all on our minds. Sometimes we discuss Current events or hot topics. And sometimes we discuss Mindset matters: What gets in your way in making progress in your riding?  Whatever we are discussing, you have a voice here! These are held as meetings so that we can have a conversation together- all of us. Participation is optional, of course - you can attend and just listen. Whatever you feel most comfortable with!

Additional Bonus Trainings added periodically.

These can vary from masterclasses on topics like timing of the aids, shoulder-in, piaffe training, and long-reining. Interspersed throughout these are occasional commentary videos where we watch a recording of a famous rider or trainer and break down what is happening, what we see, and what you can learn by watching them! Variety stimulates learning and ideas! All trainings are always recorded, so you can watch as many times as you need and return to them whenever helpful. All previous trainings are always available in the archives!

Feldenkrais Mini-Lessons.

Each month you get a mini Feldenkrais lesson taught by Professional Feldenkrais Practitioner, Catherine McCrum. These lessons are designed to help you improve your coordination, balance, body awareness, and suppleness OFF of the horse (some are even done ON the horse) so that you can enjoy your riding more.  With these lessons you will develop independent use of your individual body parts so they all work more comprehensively together as a whole! This helps you to sit better, straighter and more relaxed, ride with more suppleness in your joints, and give your aids with better differentiation and finesse. These lessons are very soothing and relaxing to do, as well! Great for doing right before you ride if your busy life sometime impedes your ability to "arrive" mentally with your horse. You will find that not only your riding improves, but also your relationship with your horse.

The Ritterize Community.

The serious pursuit of riding Dressage can sometimes get lonely, particularly if you live in a non-Dressage area or feel like you’re the only rider at your barn who wants to train in a way aligned with Ritter values. But having the support of like-minded people who “get it” makes a world of difference. You may have already experienced (and fallen in love with) our generous and exuberant community in our other courses or challenges. They are a group of riders all over the world, committed to their and their horse’s progress, soundness, and happiness. Now you will be able to keep that awesomeness year-round, regardless of which course is in session, by tapping into our amazing Ritterize community. In this private, members-only community, you’ll have an amazing ecosystem of peers, trainers, assistant trainers, team members, and of course Thomas and Shana to help you make your riding goals a reality.

The Archive.

Every single exercise and training since the membership started in 2017 is stored in the Vault and you will have access to ALL of it. Coming in 2023: We are re-categorizing all of the trainings so that you can find whatever you need based on what you are wanting to do TODAY! There is so much in here - you will never, ever be at a loss of something new and interesting to implement into your training!

Your Ritterize Membership includes:

One Exercise Live Training with Q&A each month

One Group Coaching Hot seat each month

One Mindset Meeting each month

Additional Trainings

The Ritterize Community

The Extensive Archive of Exercises, Mindset Trainings, and Masterclasses

Total Value: €4685

Ritterize January 2026: The Parameters of the Gait

Happy New Year, Ritterizers!

This month in Ritterize, we’re going deep into one of the most transformative - yet often overlooked - frameworks in classical training: the Parameters of the Gait. In this Masterclass, Thomas will break down the core postural and movement elements that make up every step your horse takes. You’ll learn how even small shifts in bend, balance, tempo, stride length, or energy can dramatically change the feel, effectiveness, and purpose of an exercise. Most importantly, you’ll begin to recognize where things subtly slip - when your horse changes more than one parameter at a time, often without the rider noticing, and the exercise loses its intended effect. If you've ever wondered why an exercise should work but doesn’t, or why things fall apart when you transition from one movement to the next, this Masterclass will give you a clearer framework for understanding what you feel and how to respond to it.

This month’s Masterclass on the Parameters of the Gait lays the groundwork for developing greater awareness and intentionality in your riding. It helps you understand not only what you feel, but why you feel it… and how to shape it with more precision. We explore how each movement parameter (like tempo, stride length, or energy level) and each postural parameter (like bend, bascule, or weight distribution) affects the way your horse moves, responds, and develops physically.

The Exercise of the Month, the Caterpillar, is a perfect companion to this topic. It invites you to actively work with many of these parameters in real time: refining them, observing their interaction, and becoming more skillful at riding them intentionally. This exercise contains repeated transitions from voltes to shoulder-in and back again, which offer opportunities to practice maintaining alignment, tempo, and bend through each change. The symmetrical design of the exercise helps you identify and address one-sidedness in both yourself and your horse. And because the exercise is versatile enough for both walk and trot, you can adapt it to your horse’s current level while still building toward more refined work.

Done with attention to detail, this exercise becomes a powerful tool for balancing, straightening, and gymnasticizing your horse while giving you a clear and practical way to apply what you’re learning in the Masterclass.

Alongside the technical and physical work this month, our Wine with Friends Mindset Training explores a theme that underpins it all: “Working With, Not Against.”

This perspective can shift everything: how we relate to our horse, how we respond to challenges, and even how we hold ourselves through the learning process. Whether it’s a crooked seat, a misunderstood aid, or our own inner resistance when something doesn’t click right away, there’s always a choice: push harder, or pause and work with what’s actually happening.

This mindset helps you ride the Parameters of the Gait with more ease and awareness - not just trying to control or correct, but learning to guide with cooperation and clarity. It helps you meet the Caterpillar exercise not as a checklist to perfect, but as an ongoing dialogue between you and your horse. And it brings softness into those moments when your body, your horse, or your circumstances don’t line up perfectly, because instead of fighting reality, you learn how to move with it.

When you ride with a mindset of collaboration - toward your horse, your body and yourself, and even the principles themselves - you unlock a whole new kind of effectiveness that’s not only more sustainable, but also more joyful.

To complement this month’s riding themes, Catherine has selected a Feldenkrais lesson called “The Caterpillar Wave.” At first glance, it’s a fun, playful way to move across your sitting room, but it’s deceptively powerful. To slither and slide with ease, each vertebra in your spine needs to move independently, while your pelvis and shoulder girdle remain both stable and mobile. You also need to engage and organize your center (your entire torso) in a way that supports fluid, coordinated movement.

Sound familiar? That’s exactly what we ask of ourselves in the saddle. Whether you're navigating voltes, shoulder-ins, or balancing the parameters of the gait, this lesson helps you develop the body awareness and spinal differentiation that make supple, balanced, and responsive riding possible. It’s a creative, somatic way to reinforce the same principles we’re practicing in the arena.

As always, we will wrap up the month with a Members-only Hot Seat session for the Exercise of the Month. This is a live session where Thomas will choose several member-submitted videos to provide feedback, tips, and suggestions for improvement. Even if your video is not selected to be featured or you choose not to submit footage, you are sure to come away with tips and pointers from this session which you can put to use in your own riding right away.

Join us for January in Ritterize. It’s a great way to start the New Year. Let’s do it together!

January 2026 Schedule:

🐴 EOTM: “Caterpillar“ - released January 1, 2026

🐴 Feldenkrais Lesson - “Caterpillar Wave” - released January 1, 2026

🐴 Masterclass: “Parameters of the Gait” - Monday, January 5, 2026 at 6:00pm GMT

🐴 Mindset Session: “Working with, not Against” - Monday, January 12, 2026 at 6:00pm GMT

🐴 Hot Seats Meeting “Caterpillar” - Saturday, January 31, 2026 at 6:00pm GMT