Tuff Love Coaching in Tears When is too far to far?

[Rachel]

Hi I was wondering on Coaches and Riders thoughts on the old school "Hard love Tuff Love Coaching" gosh its still alive and active, i thought those days had passed as i grew up but no they are alive. My question is when is it crossing the line? Has it gone too far in making the rider crack in silent tears because the Old school coach just patronized the crappers out of ya???Or seemed to be loudly mean?? is it done deliberately because the Coach has got the shits cause your just "not getting it" ?? or are they doing it to make you angry and fight for correctness and dig your heals in and "get it" . Should the rider just grow some grit and try harder? Do some Coaches burst the bubble deliberately in the rider as there teaching tool to bring submission? "Hard Tuff Coaching" is it still acceptable or has that gone with the "Fear Campaign of training", Do we just sit back and take this or do we approach the coach with our concerns or just grin and bear it and it will make you tougher. Cheers Rachel

[slc2]

It depends on what 'touchy feely' means. I think much of what is taught in riding, especially in dressage, is nonsense. I think it's an effort to make it more appealing to more people who normally would find it too demanding physically and mentally. I think American instructors are inventing a 'Dressage Lite' that involves very little of the original, classical principles of riding, lots of bitting, lots of draw reins, lots and lots of very clever sounding talk that SOUNDS like 'classical art', and not a whole lot of correct work. Anyone can teach dressage in America. Qualifications are often made up. Folks aren't always getting quite the quality of instruction one imagines one is, but usually they have too little experience to realize that.

I dislike instructors who are insulting and pick on a person individually, make jokes about them to other students, laugh at them, call them names, tell them they're fat and stupid, talk behind their back. I was with an instructor like that for a very long time so I know very well what they're like. Further, the insults are almost always paired with 'sharp dealings', horses that don't get worked a whole lot when they're paid to be worked, and a whole lot of laziness and big talk. Surprisingly, this 'strict' instructor was only really able to teach the basics. He had quite a bit of knowledge from working with great people like Georg Theodorescu, but he was too lazy to continue taking lessons, he rode like a slob, and his communication skills were nill. He had some experience, but most of it was exaggerated - he was very good at impressing people with teaching horses piaffe and passage as tricks, but not at getting a competition-ready horse that scored well. He didn't gymnasticize his horses.

But what I DO tolerate very, very well, is instructors who are demanding, exacting, and are teaching you REAL dressage.

It's not what most people think it is. "It should be easy' isn't really true, and people don't learn it quickly or easily by riding infrequently. It's not really something one progresses at by riding occasionally, or by not working very, very hard. Half halts don't work because one meditates on the blinding white light and focuses on one's breathing, position doesn't come from sitting on a ball or looking in a mirror, 'forward' isn't something for people who dislike passion and excitement, and 'strength' isn't a joke or a misnomer. The Spanish Riding School is not a place of serenity, rather, it is one where young, healthy, athletic people struggle, most quit, and the ones who stay like to compare how much blood is on their pants after a lesson.

Learning dressage is hard work - mentally and physically, and an instructor shouldn't be someone who you feel like giving a big hug after. An instructor, if his students are to excel, will yes indeed, push them, demand of them.

What will he demand? That they be really effective, and get a reation to their aids. A BIG reaction. That they ride with meticulous accuracy. That they NEVER waste a single step in 'do overs'. That they 'get it right the first time', or wind up teaching the horse the wrong thing is the right thing. That they feel what's going on under them, which they do not gain by being more spiritual than the next student, but by working meticulously and mercilessly on very simple basics of sitting correctly. AND that they never, ever blame their horse for their own wrong.

Dressage is a humbing sport and art. It is not something to be taken up lightly. And instructors do their student NO service when they pretend it is otherwise.

[jacqueline dravetz]

Hi slc2, I read the reply's to coaching styles for dressage riding and my sentiment is with yours.

I have come home from my dressage lessons on a couple of occassions in tears.
You wipe them dry and tell yourself you will be better next time!
Dressage is both an art form and a sport, with two athletes working together.
It is not for the faint of heart.

As an adult rider I will not be going to the olympics, however my passion is dressage and to become the best rider I can be, not only for myself but in all fairness, for the horse that I ride.

I have such a strong desire to understand dressage and to ride as well as I can . It is a slow process requiring both intellectual and physical ability.

I would rather work therefore with a coach who is demanding , exacting and is putting her/his heart and soul into teaching me real dressage even if it means I am being yelled at sometimes
.Dressage is very hard work and I want to be pushed to be better..
If my coach just kept telling me how wonderful I look up there, how much would I be learning?

I am a professional realist oil painter..learning old master painting traditions.. same thing here, I know the teachers who have the passion for their work to push me to reach greater limits with my work.
Let them push you , don't take it personally and you will learn .

[Rachel]

i was only thinking before reading your reply here Geoff, that you still work your students hard and your not a touchy feely type. But NOW reading your response i can see how true that is....Yes your so right riding is touchy feely, its all about that and horses emotional reactions to what we invoke in them. What of the fear factor? in preventing that in your horse is something that i have learned from you and it just changes the whole perception and undertaking of training and handling horses. It Works!!!
It makes me look at the bigger picture and of past methods learned. I wonder now whether the tough hardline coach would also be the fear invoking task master with there horses!!! eg full on with the whip from go! Growling loudly and reving the engine just to get the forward response. The electric seat even. Brumby action round the lunge faster and faster.
what u think?

[Barbara F.]

Along these lines, check out William Micklem's blog this week "the young will judge the old".

http://www.barnmice.com/profiles/blog/list?user=3oc3j3a5h05tx

[slc2]

Permanently injuring someone so they are in pain 40 years later is NOT the kind of 'demanding' I have in mind. That sort of thing, making a child ride a strong pony all day without stirrups so he still feels pain 40 years later, is obviously an absurd exaggeration of the idea I present, and that was abuse, and was done to that child purely out of stupidity. It doesn't mean that every time someone pushes you a little bit that it is bad.

And I STILL think one does not learn to do dressage properly by being lazy, undisciplined or blaming his horse.

Instructors can be demanding and push riders without injuring them so they're in pain 40 years later.

[Rachel]

being touchy and feely what do you mean by that? touchy and feely is not lazy or undisciplined infact its just being more intune with your horse and your riding so you learn more.

You dont want to be pushed into something you know you will fail and isnt working, you need to be confidant at what your learning and have nailed that before attempting something your scared of or that is at a higher level. Instructors that push there student into unready territory are asking for trouble.
If the student is learning two slowly then the instructor isnt teaching, new things are learnt at every lesson and if there not well there something not working with that instructor. Being pushed out of a comfort zone is a backward step in learning with riding. Comfort Zones are a safe Zone
and they grow they dont have to stagnate. Pushing a rider out of there comfort zone can invoke fear in the rider and then that feeds through to the horse, how can that be a good thing?

[slc2]

I think people have been raised in a very, very different environment the last generation gets very angry and resentful if anyone pushes them out of their comfort zone. It is decried as "Authoritarianism" or "militarism".

The horse is the one that suffers. The rider goes around and around, learning in tiny increments for years, repeating things over and over, drilling the poor animal to death, doing something wrong 1000 times and right one time, so the horse has no idea which is right, not doing things differently enough, just in tiny increments, and not sufficiently to progress. Too, they never learn to respond quickly enough to feel natural riding a test in a competition, they tense up in competitions and finally quit saying they 'don't like competition'. If they never learn to react quicker and respond quicker they also can't ride upper levels, it requires quicker responses.

The WORST part of being with the 'ok, it's all right, try it again' instructor is the horse is left totally not having any idea about what's the right response and what he's being rewarded for. He just gets more confused and numb and tunes out more and more. It becomes a drudge where he just does things over and over, with no clear idea of what's wanted.

Horses learn in threes. It means you do something three times, no more, with clear preparation, clear aid, clear reward. The "demanding" instructor is basically "demanding" that the rider be clear to the horse.

I left a rude, nasty demeaning instructor after putting up with him for many years - I don't condone that sort of thing; that isn't what I am talking about.

THE best person I ever worked with was quite demanding and wanted things done crisply, quickly and definitely, she wanted the rider to respond and react and feel what was going on quickly and efficiently - and I left those 'demanding' lessons feeling on top of the world, because she broke things down in to simple, do-able steps, showed me how to position myself for success, and then said DO IT! "I can do this! All I have to do is work hard! I can do this!" It was the most exciting, positive, life changing experience I ever had.

[Anni]

Slc2 - I don't think that any of us would disagree with most of the points you've made, but I do think we interpreted the question differently. The coaches I was thinking of when I answered are not the ones who put safety and proper riding first, but rather the ones who express themselves negatively - i.e., yelling at the student every single lesson, pushing a student who would rather ride for their own personal enjoyment to show, and demeaning those who do not show.

To me, there is a huge difference between honesty or bluntness and rudeness or inappropriate behavior. Much of what you described sounds to me like a honest coach. While some people may not like hearing such truths, I don't think that their feelings should be spared at the expense of the horse or another person. Many of the "soft" trainers I have had have still been sticklers for the rules, and will get firm if they need to, but I think that is entirely different from an instructor who is unnecessarily harsh.

Political correctness is such an ambiguous term. If someone explains something in gentler terms, does that make him/her "too politically correct?" For example, I had a trainer who I remember fondly as a great horseman who I'm sure had a lot to teach. But I was never able to learn it because he was too busy expecting immediate results out of us. In an intermediate/advanced group lesson, he got frustrated with some of the problems people were having and yelled out a drill team formation for us to try. He kept yelling "You are intermediate/advanced riders, PROVE IT!" We sure snapped to, and figured things out for ourselves, but I think I missed out on learning a lot that he could have taught had he taken the time to explain it.

[slc2]

That is just a person with a bad temper who doesn't have the ability to explain things properly. That is not 'demanding', that's incompetent!

There will ALWAYS be 'stern taskmasters' in riding because the people who want to excell will seek them out. It's just that the average person will find someone who gives them an easy ride.

[Spartacus]

I've been teaching swordsmanship for 30 years and have observed many "teachers" along the way.
The problem is that very few "teachers" are ever taught how to teach; they just pass on what was done with (or "to" ) them, monkey see, monkey do (my apologies to monkeys everywhere).

And very few students thrive on abuse.
Encouragement is a whole lot better.
How can your students believe in you, if you don't believe in them?

That doesn't mean I don't have VERY strict rules and standards -- especially in regards to safety.
But it's NEVER personal.There's a ream or two more to write about this, but that "old school" drill-instructor machismo is not something I have great respect for.

sj