There were honestly so many gems from the clinic with Kristi Wysocki. I’m going to do my best to share some of the ones that really stood out to me and hopefully do justice to the sliver of knowledge we got to experience from Kristi (really, just the tiniest tip of the huge iceberg of knowledge this lady possesses).
Day one began with a short demonstration of gait quality and then focused on the changes to the tests. Day two was a cold but intimate affair where we had a chance to see Kristi work with riders one on one. So, without further ado, here are a few of the many great quotes and training moments from the clinic.
When deciding which test to ride, she had this great but simple advice. She attributes this knowledge to someone else, but I wasn’t quick enough to catch the name.
After seeing many horses carry out the collected portion of the test, Kristi emphasized that even though the gait is collected, it should still have the engine going strong.
She spoke about many riders missing out on really great scores because they were too focused on what was coming up in the test, or a problem they just had. She said to focus on keeping the horse balanced and correct first, and then a good score will be the result.
Working on the flying changes was a pretty regular occurrence on Sunday. Kristi emphasized looking up at the ceiling above your destination. She also told many to keep a medium canter through the changes to help keep them big.
Kristi worked a little bit with almost everyone on their seat. She spoke about learning to ride and how we learn to move with the horse, to follow their movement. But when we want to get more from the gaits then we need to use our seat in a new and more effective way. For sitting trot she gave an exercise to imagine bouncing on a yoga ball. You don’t bounce down, you use your body to bounce the ball up. So, if you want more from your trot, ride with that motion in mind. Not pushing down into the horses back, but riding it up instead. I actually had to go home and close my eyes and bounce on a ball to really know what she was talking about, but it really was quite different. Her last nugget on this topic was that it was better to ride for 2 1/2 minutes in a really great sitting trot and have to rest more often than to ride longer in a gait that doesn’t have the same quality.
When doing pirouette work a lot of riders were blocking a really clean pirouette with their own bodies, especially their hips. She stressed not looking at a fixed point in the arena but instead looking at the tail so that the whole body will open up to the direction of travel.
