Amara Green’s Blogs “Finding the right coach for you”

Finding the Right Coach for You

Finding a coach is easy right? You just get them recommended to you by other people or come across them online, see they’ve won this that and the rest of it, organise a lesson and then ride off into the sunset and keep that coach for your entire riding career, right? WRONG! Most of the time people settle for the wrong trainer because they’ve got experience and wins under their belt, which is still a very good thing… but are they the right person for you to excel in your riding?

Like I mentioned, quite often riders settle for a coach just because they’ve got experience, but everyone has their own style of riding and learning, so even if that coach is great for Karen across the road and your best mate Jimmy, that doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re the best trainer for you.

Personally, what I look for in an instructor is 1. Their ability to explain information to you 2. How well you get along with them 3. If their methods are working for you and your horse and 4. How easy it is to utilize your coach.

Their ability to explain information to you is how well you understand what they’re trying to teach you and describe what you have to do to achieve what they’re asking. If you’re in a lesson and the instructor is blabbering on about something that sounds like complete gibberish you should get them to explain what they’re asking you to do, if they fail to do so (in multiple occasions), maybe they’re not the right instructor for you.

How well you get along with your coach is pretty self-explanatory, if you ever feel demotivated by something your instructor says make them aware but if this is a continuous issue, you probably need to find yourself a new coach. Personally, I believe feeling comfortable enough at a show to ask your coach for advice or help comes under how well you get along with them since this has helped me immensely in multiple situations.

Yet again this one is reasonably self-explanatory which is whether or not their methods are working for you and your horse. I’m not saying you should expect to go from jumping cross-bars to Grand Prix’s in a matter of one lesson, but it is setting yourself realistic short and long term goals for yourself and figuring out if that particular coach is boosting your riding as much as they can be without taking shortcuts.

Lastly is how easy it is to utilize this coach, this is made up of multiple different factors such as; their location, how easy it is to book a lesson, their lesson prices, their consistency (how often you can have lessons) etc. These factors will make it all that much easier to be able to have as frequent amount of lessons as you need, whilst staying in your price bracket and being convenient to your location.

In conclusion I believe that all these points in collaboration are very important when finding the best coach to improve your riding ability short and long term.

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Follow Amara Green and her horses antics in her weekly blogs, Amara is improving her riding every week and she has the drive to get out there and do it!