Mary Wanless - Ride With Your Mind
MARY WANLESS presents crucial information on how the Ride With Your Mind approach to Rider Biomechanics can transform your learning, your riding, and possibly your life.
Out of frustration at her progression as a rider, Mary embarked on a journey to discover the 'how' of skilled riding - why couldn’t she learn to ride as skilfully as “talented” riders? Over more than 40 years she has decoded the hidden laws of rider-horse interaction and now teaches the skills that combine to create “talent”, both in person and through online courses at www.dressagetraining.tv.
In these podcasts, Mary talks about her journey to date, her key discoveries, and some pivotal moments. She illuminates her key points with metaphor and story, and, at times, presents insights derived from sports psychology.
Prepare to be entertained, to learn, to become curious, and to understand a little (or maybe a lot) more about your interaction with your horse. Check out these podcasts, and visit www.dressagetraining.tv for information about their vast library of online courses and webinars, presented by Mary and her Ride With Your Mind colleagues.
Episodes
80 episodes
Ep. 77 Stance, state, sense, signal, see, stop
How do you show up to sessions with your horse? And how do you manage your stance and state when you get there?Explore how to manage yourself and your horse to establish more effective communication between your body-mind and his. <...
Ep. 76 Does your energy flow or leak?
This picture illustrates one of the many images that this podcast refers to. Energy, a vital but abstract concept, is best illustrated through images and metaphors. Dive into this session to explore the world of energy and discover ...
Ep. 75 The contagion of (dis)regulation
Does the regulated rider or handler regulate the disregulated horse, or does the disregulated horse disregulate the regulated rider or handler?Working with horses influences their regulation as well as their body organisation. In a...
Ep. 74 Beyond fight, flight, or freeze
In this episode, I return to the nervous system — and to Stephen Porges’ polyvagal theory, which reshapes our old picture of fight, flight and freeze.Your autonomic nervous system is constantly scanning for safety or threat, and it quiet...
Ep. 73 Deep dive into hollow backs
Back to Rider Biomechanics! I’ll uncover the effective alternatives to growing tall.The majority of women are hollow-backed, with their front longer than their back, and the majority of men are round-backed. There are diffe...
Ep. 72 Mind the gap or embrace the gain?
This episode is about how our perspective shapes our experience.So often, we measure ourselves against where we wish we were, living in the “gap” and feeling the distance between where we are and where we think we should be. This episode...
Ep 71. Bringing out the best in you and your horse!
Do you want to bring out the best in you and your horse? I certainly do. In this episode, we’re diving into what it takes to bring out the best in both of you—and how to navigate the journey ahead.Every journey needs a map, a...
Ep. 70 What does it take to become a skilled rider?
I tell the story of a rider with phenomenal talent in another area of life, and ask, how did this affect her riding, and how would it be if we taught riding as if it were a martial art? I discuss what it means for riding that ‘form...
Ep. 69 C curves, S shapes, and uneven seat bones
The rider with rebars that connect diagonally through her can use these to pattern her horse in shoulder in, suggesting to him how he could transmit force through his body from his inside hind leg to his outside foreleg. This can make riders fe...
Ep. 68 Reinforcing bars!
‘Rebars’ are the dull red metal uprights you see sticking up within the frames used on building sites when pouring concrete pillars. Rebars also have smaller horizontal pieces of metal wrapping around them. Our seated exercise help...
Ep. 67 Top down or bottom up?
Most riders can organize their body much better from the top down, or from the pelvis out, than they can from the bottom up. Thinking of your core like the core of an apple means that it goes from top to toe, (and toe to top). We d...
Ep. 66 How I misdiagnosed two riders, and learnt the folly of my ways from a set of toe separators!
I did the ‘boards as blades’ exercise with a young rider I know well, and discovered that it was difficult for her to get her right board to go down. Later, when the group did a dismounted exercise, she realised that she curled her...
Ep. 65 Breakfast buffets, bananas, flying buttresses and amoebas - an unlikely set of ideas?
I contrast the story of a very unassuming rider, who has been a long term and dedicated learner within the RYWM system, with a more naturally talented rider who does not have to think about so many ‘pieces’.The first rider had not reall...
Ep. 64 Shoring up your structure in all dimensions - clarifying the boards from back to front, and top to bottom.
Most people are, in effect, falling off one side of the horse, whilst pushing their torso towards his midline on the other side. My most dramatic story about this concerns a Grand Prix rider, whose horse’s apparent problem with pia...
Ep. 63 Is your body a soggy distorted bundle, or can you transmit force?
The idea of ‘positive tension’ is very new in the horse world, but I am no longer the lone voice crying in the wilderness! As well as force absorption, we need force transmission, which enables the most important ‘myofascial lines’...
Ep. 62 Geometry - whether sacred or not
One of the biggest over-views of the work I do would be to consider it the re-discovery and re-creation of the ideal shapes our bodies would make. We can think of both human and horse torsos as rectangles that have become distorted...
Ep. 61 I'm back!
I'm back after a long break from podcasts! I'm sharing the stories of three riders who were all very different types of learners, using strategies that worked more or less well for creating change. One of the stories i...
Ep. 60 The last and final one!
We do two more exercises, as I encourage you to realise the immense value of the off-horse exercises that are part of my approach to learning and coaching. We then revisit some more of the common traps in learning, before focussing in on ‘flow’...
Ep. 59 Back to basics - as we begin to wrap this up!
I was right all of those years ago when I thought there was something my teachers weren’t telling me! But this is innate in the human condition, where we pass through conscious competence before we become unconscious of our incompetence, and no...
Ep. 58 - Rotation or shear? And from ‘bus’ to ‘bend’.
We have talked about asymmetry patterns being rotational, but it can be more helpful - and with some riders more accurate - to think of one third of the body being sheared forward, whilst the other is sheared back. This distinction suggests som...
Ep. 57 The story of Sarah
One of my pupils broke her upper arm in a fall, and damaged her wrist and elbow. After surgery and recuperation she returned to riding, and found herself with a total reversal in her asymmetry! This very rarely happens, and the story of how we ...
Ep. 56 ‘One side on/one side off’ is the existential state of humans on horses…
Many riders spend their life stuck in ‘one side on/one side off’. Others ‘ping-pong’ between right on/left off and left on/right off. Few people discover how to get ‘both sides on’ consistently. Once they have this, they can learn how to make a...