Welcome to The Art of Riding with Karen Musson
Home Introduction Philosophy Articles Coaching & Clinics Gallery Links Site Map

Coaching Information

Private Coaching
Workshops & Clinics

CLINIC SCHEDULE & SIGN-UP

NEW: DESIGN YOUR OWN
           Clinic or Workshop!
NEW: ON-LINE COACHING
           Sessions

NEW: wider area &
           young horse handling

Karen's coaching style

What to expect from Karen's clinics

Feedback from Students

Contact Karen

Resources for Sponsors

The Art of Riding
Horsemanship Through Feel and Release

NEW: DESIGN YOUR OWN Clinic or Workshop!

See below for Karen's most popular Focus Sessions (FS). Contact Karen about the sessions that interest you the most and plan a coaching session, workshop or clinic in your area, to best suit needs and budget. You can also just sign up for a clinic or coaching.

Many other topics available!
If you do not see a topic you hoped to cover, request it :)
(Click on arrows for more detailed descriptions)

FS0: Riding Through Feel: what is "feel and release"?

FS1: Riding Through Feel: get with your horse!

FS2: Riding Through Feel: left, right, STRAIGHT -
        direction through feel, not micromanagement!

FS3: Riding Through Feel: accessing all four quarters of
        your horse through feel. Now we're talking!

FS4: Riding Through Feel: the best kept secret of a
        fabulous ride... freeing up your horse's shoulders.

Focus: The best kept secret in horsemanship is in your horse's shoulders; find out how to make use of this for a fabulous ride, and how not to sabotage your ride unwittingly!

Simple things that inadvertently build trouble under saddle. Just about everyone inadvertently contributes to some of the most common problems under saddle. Here we have fun exploring how absurd some of those things we do really are, in terms of how the horse experiences them and how it affects his way of going...
What not to do and what to do instead! Find out straight forward ways to avoid sabotaging your ride, when you are with your horse on the ground. 
Shape, liven up and release your horse forwards. The perils of leg aids and why. Learn how to ask for more speed under saddle, without squeezing, kicking or bumping your horse's rib cage. Explore how and why this solves many  trouble spots such as slowing down or stalling out in turns, bucking, not moving forwards freely, picking up "wrong" canter leads...
Is it the chicken or the egg? Which  comes first, hind quarter engagement or elevated shoulders? The engagement of the hind quarters is commonly thought to elevate the front-end, but... if the front-end is heavy the hind quarters are blocked and have nowhere to travel. The horse is in his own way! Learn to free the shoulders, so the hind quarters can engage freely. A balanced horse is so much easier to ride! It is good for his long term soundness too.

"With force in there, why he won't learn what you're hoping he will, but he'd be learning a lot about resisting a person" Bill Dorrance, in "True Horsemanship Through Feel", page 83.

“If a horse hasn’t been around people who brought the life he has inside of him right up to the surface, some people might call a horse like that a dull one, even if he wasn’t” Bill Dorrance, in "True Horsemanship Through Feel", page 337.

FS5: Riding Through Feel: build in a great stop and
        backup on a float

FS6: Riding Through Feel: trouble-shooting

 

Details of session content are customized to the particular rider/horse combinations in any given coaching session.

Many other topics available!
If you do not see a topic you hoped to cover, request it :)

 

The Art of Riding © Karen Musson 2007- 2010, All rights reserved.

Site layout, page design including color combinations, The Art of Riding, TheArtOfRiding  and Hector's Hill Farm are marks of Karen Musson.
Site layout and design are proprietary to Karen Musson. Web site content is provided for information not for instruction.