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.
Mary Wanless - Ride With Your Mind
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 follows function’, and how this relates to the challenges inherent in riding well, and also to the ‘chicken and egg’ nature of the ways that riders and horses affect each other. A lot of answers are to be found in the geometry (whether sacred or not) that we have delineated and expounded on through our various exercises. They can have such a good effect our combined fascial net. Please practice them!
The issue of social license has recently come more to the fore, and I talk about the truism that "where skill ends, violence begins" by considering the hierarchy of: environment, behaviour, skills and capabilities, beliefs and values, identity, purpose and spirituality. If we fail to acknowledge the layers that lie between behaviour and identity, we will not find answers to the evolving ethics of keeping, breeding, and riding horses. We need those answers not just for the instances that hit the press, but also for smaller transgressions, that can be individual and/or cultural, and that we and the wider world are now questioning.