Jive Pony Vaulting Group

We did our second vaulting session yesterday, and once again it was a huge success! The first one was a few weeks ago, but what with all the snow we had to cancel a couple of Saturdays unfortunately - but now we're back in business!

We're running the group at a local riding school, Durham's Farm, and have had a group of about nine/ten girls come along, all of whom are really lovely and enthusiastic - and all seem to have boundless energy! We generally split them into two groups, with Rebecca taking one group to work on Ronan, whilst I teach the other group on the barrel. Barrel work is really important as a starting point in order to give a feel for how to move you body around in the space you will have available on the horse. It means I can teach the girls where their bodies should be in relation to the roller, how to use techniques to stay light and soft, and how to move about without getting off balance. I can then send them over to Rebecca so they can put all they've learnt into practise on Ronan! It's obviously completely different on a moving horse, so they take what they've learnt on the barrel and Rebecca builds on the techniques and helps them understand what they should be aiming for.

Ronan has been his usual wonderful self with all the girls, really looking after them. However, all the canter work has been a bit of a shock to his system - he was a hot sweaty thing even after having all his belly fluff clipped off! However, he wasn't nearly as hot or sweaty as Becca, who was cantering around next to him with each of the girls - she did have a huge amount of clothes on to keep warm but after all the running she definitely didn't need them and looked like she was going to have a heart attack! It's good to remind the horses what work is though (and us - I nearly died after leading a warm up for the girls!), as the show season will be upon us in no time so if we're vaulting regularly hopefully we'll remember what to do when we get to the first one! We're going to take Tinker to do the group next week, so the girls can try a different horse and also so Tinker can remind himself about vaulting!

Becca and I are also going to be embarking on a training course in order to become Level Two Vaulting Coaches. This will hopefully give us more ideas about how to structure the lessons and also improve our teaching skills. The course is one day a week for six weeks, starting next Wednesday in Northampton - it'll be a bit like going back to school! I must dig out my pencil case...

We did manage to get some photos of the group this time, just click here to have I look at them, and I'll let you know how we both get on the training course next week!

Lots of love

Rosie xx