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 March 2025: Transitions 

This month in Ritterize we are exploring the ins and outs of Transitions (pun intended!).

On this topic, we invite you to join us for an in-depth Masterclass with Thomas where he will guide you with some different ways of looking at transitions. Transitions happen, of course, between gaits such as walk to trot, trot to canter, etc. and also within gaits such as from collected trot to extended trot. But they also happen in less obvious places: the transition from straight line to curved line, the transition from bending right to bending left, the transition stretching forward-downward and normal position and contact, as well as transitions between the warm-up and the main work, as well as transitions between the phases of the horse’s training journey. We could even approach this topic as transitions in our own learning, as riders! There is a lot to explore and we hope you are as invigorated and interested in this topic as we are!

Something poignant on my own mind this month is the topic of starting over. Starting over doesn’t just happen when we have failed or made a mistake, although that is an important time to start over. It also happens periodically as part of the riding journey. But sometimes, we as riders can become resistant to being willing to start over. There is something called the “Sunk Cost Fallacy” when you have invested so much in a certain path or idea that you stick with it, even when it isn’t working for you, rather than start fresh. But starting over, in all its expressions, is important, and healthy.

This month we want to explore these ideas in our Wine with Friends Discussion, and help you learn to give yourself permission to Start Over.

To accompany this month’s themes, Catherine has selected a Feldenkrais lesson called “The Seat Tension Cure”. This is a lesson in which you discover how to move your pelvis from your buttocks, your trunk flexors (abs) and finally discovering how little effort you need in either of these big muscle groups to make the refined movements of your pelvis you need for riding.

The featured riding exercise for March is called “Starting Over”. It is a way of exploring a theme of transitions. In this exercise we explore two different expressions of the Shoulder-in on the centerline. This is a brilliant exercise for gaining better awareness and control over the outside hind leg in the shoulder-in. You can ride this exercise in all three gaits: walk, trot, and canter. I hope you enoy exploring and riding this exercise as much as we do.

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 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 and let’s explore the concepts of Transitions and Starting Over this month… together.

March 2025 Schedule:

🐴 EOTM: “Starting Over“ - released March 1, 2025

🐴 Feldenkrais Lesson - “The Seat Tension Cure” - released March 1, 2025

🐴 Masterclass on Transitions - Monday, March 10, 2025 at 6:00pm GMT

🐴 Wine with Friends: “Permission to Start Over” - Friday, March 14, 2025 at 6:00pm GMT

🐴 Hot Seats Meeting “Starting Over” - Wednesday, March 26, 2025 at 6:00pm GMT