Mary Wanless Workshop: The Structure

This last weekend, I participated in a Mary Wanless Workshop. I'm pretty much expecting this whole week to be related to that, so if you're not a fan, check back later for regular programming! I figured  I wouldn't break it down day by day, because each day really built on the last. And that, plus the fact that I barely slept at all during it due to a sudden onset of insomnia meant that everything kind of ran together. To start everything off, I wanted to talk about what exactly this clinic was and how it was structured, because I think it's really interesting. Mary is the only clinician I know that does this.

In the past, this workshop was a Teacher Training, though for this year, the organizer allowed amateurs to attend and they switched a few things. Rather than it being limited to a few people, all of whom would be riding at some point and teaching at some point, they used demo riders and there was less hands-on participation. This was a really great way to be introduced, since I got to focus completely on learning and not on being intimidated that I would have to teach people with brand new concepts. Instead, the people who typically taught were people who had been doing these teacher trainings for years and years.

Kate and Mox walking down to meet Mary

Friday morning was set to start at 9am but I was there bright and early to meet Kate at 8:20 or so. I didn't want to miss anything and had basically woken myself up WAY earlier than necessary (start of insomnia) so might as well go.

We all set up in the covered arena (though we would be outside for the rest!) and Mary began talking to us, giving us a theoretical framework for what she'd be talking to us about the whole weekend. What I felt like was a massive wave of information coming after me was probably Mary spraying me once with a small mister and, if I had let on, being confused at why I was completely drenched and ready to cry. The whole weekend was an onslaught of emotions as I was taken completely out of my comfortable place and had my self image questioned. I've always felt like I was a Good Dressage Rider, and she was piling on the evidence that I was at most, a very lucky person. Learning does not happen in your comfort zone, and Mary didn't give us much chance to really reflect during her lectures, so onward.

We took a short break to go up to the upper arena while our first set of demo riders came in. We had three sets of three riders with varying position issues. Everyone walked, trotted, and cantered, and had to stay sitting in the same problem position while Mary talked about each one of them (and the crowd, filled with FEI trainers, chimed in). The idea of the first day was to just figure out what our riders were doing that wasn't correct, and then use the next two days to fix it. The riders had to hold their position problems while we all talked about it, which was SUPER hard.

Mary about to come kick me because she found
out how bad I am at riding horses :( 

Right about the time when the first demo riders came in, I felt like I had absolutely nothing to add, I was not nearly knowledgeable enough. I could see things that I wanted to change and knew the words I would use to change them, but I was determined to not let my words fill my brain as they tend to do watching other people teach. Instead, I tried to keep my brain empty for the whole weekend, only taking in what Mary was saying about them.

We had two more sets of three demo riders. The second group being on iberian types and the third group being three Grand Prix dressage trainers on upper level horses. That was pretty cool because I think people tend to get a bit star struck with them (since they're not just GP riders like myself, two of them have ridden extensively internationally) and think that whatever they're doing is fine. Not Mary, Mary ripped into them like she ripped into the lower level riders. It was funny because they were the ones that were more likely to make excuses.

Friday evening we spoke a bit more about theory and then headed home. I felt completely overwhelmed at this point and I'm actually thinking I should probably write a post about this weekend dedicated to the emotional side of it. Being taken out of your comfort zone for an hour long lesson is really hard, it sometimes feels like you've been kicked for an hour. Being taken out of your comfort zone for three full 9+ hour days feels like you've been kicked for three days. But it was so worth it and I'm so happy at this point. Not sure how much that happiness is that it's over. But I will tell you that I'm SUPER excited to ride this morning.

Super early morning rides right after sunrise

Saturday morning because I couldn't sleep, I went to the barn and rode TC. He hadn't been ridden much all week so I decided to focus on a couple of key things. It was amazing the difference in him. There will certainly be a post about these effects.

I got to the clinic and we began again with a theoretical session. Following that we had two demo riders come back in and we worked on them front to back at first. Looking at their shoulder-hip-heel alignment, looking at the way they snugged (or didn't snug) their thigh, looking at their bear down... using non-Mary terms: looking at the way they were in balance or out of balance with their horse, and looking at the stability of their position. It's so much more than that, but I find it helpful to connect her words with my previous words. Mary took one person and two of the more experienced trainers took the other and we watched them do a "realignment" which I have NEVER had done to me and now I'm pissed. How can you be sure that the rider is doing exactly what you're asking them to do if you don't have your hands on them?

From there we let our demo riders out and had them hold it. It was really amazing. First, all the riders thought they were sitting incorrectly when they were sitting correctly, so Mary emphasized us using video and pictures as proof. She says that it's a "hard sell" when making changes like this. Second, Mary had a ton of great visuals that were actually connected to something that they had done in the realignment. So instead of saying "pull your leg back" she said "remember when my hand was on your heel and you pushed back against it?" because pull your leg back may create a ton of other weird shit going on, while imagining something you've already done correctly is less likely to.

We did this with each set of two demo riders and it was really quite impressive how Mary was able to change the riders and how the horses changed! Mary never really talked about how the riders could improve the horses, we stayed completely on rider biomechanics (which makes sense) the whole time. But some horses who were behind the leg were now moving better than ever, even from just getting the rider sitting properly.

Mary doing a realignment

At the end of Saturday, Mary and one of the participants went over the basics of ground work that Andrew McLean wrote about in his book, Academic Horse Training. Kate and I know that book well, so we sort of relaxed (lol relaxed, we mostly sat there curled up in a ball wondering why we did this to ourselves). We headed out to get dinner after that, because the organizer had invited all of the trainers to her place to have a little round table discussion.

I'm just starting my teaching business up again, and really it was all winding down for the last several years, so it was really fascinating to hear all of these full time trainers, most of whom have been trainers for a very long time, speak about various experiences.

Discussion points included: difficult clients; horses going lame; mean trainers having a robust business (I chimed in there); owning your own barn or being at a boarding barn; lesson horses; how people find new clients; balancing riding/teaching/clinicing; why dressage trainers are such bitches to each other at shows; and so on. It was fascinating and Mary was there to chime in too! Everyone came from such different backgrounds and I left feeling really excited to start up my training business, but also feeling like... there are so many of these amazing trainers, why would anyone want to ride with me?? But I stuffed the impostor syndrome back down.

Hilarious things all day every day

Sunday morning I rode TC and then headed over. We started with another theory session on asymmetries and I discovered that I need an MRI stat because my SI joint injury is WAY WORSE than I actually thought. We did a lot of hilarious exercises on mats and on our chairs before we took a break (and I went down to the organizer's PT office to use the Bemer machine to get my SI to calm itself down) and our first set of demo riders came in.

We had a set of demo riders come in and we worked on them as a group. Though I still wanted to just listen and learn, I began a conversation with one of the long time trainers who came often and had a really nice discussion with her, kind of a one-on-one training. She had fixed a rider and I immediately engaged her and asked her a few questions. From then on, she let me tell her what I was seeing and then corrected my use of vocabulary, and that was really great. I feel like vocabulary is going to be the trickiest thing for me. My eye isn't the worst, but the words I use to explain things has to shift.

The next set of demo riders were the "lower level" riders on upper level horses, and then they all switched to allow the GP riders get on them. This whole thing was about watching how the horses went when being ridden by lower level riders (and NONE of them were bad riders, one had her Silver) versus when they put an upper level rider on them. It was really fascinating to see the difference, though I feel like in that session I didn't learn as much. Except I learned more about this one trainer.

I'm going to call her future trainer because I want to ride with her so bad it hurts. Future trainer had told us a bit about this stallion being very tricky for her, explosive and emotional. Then at the dinner she casually mentioned working with Friesian x Warmblood crosses quite a bit. Then I watched her ride this horse on Sunday. Holy. Shit. She can RIDE. The other GP rider may have had a bit more presence, but this horse offered future trainer so many moments of panic and she just stayed totally calm and redirected him and they had a lovely ride. I haven't ridden with a ton of people on TC when he's been kind of emotional/spooky, but Jeremy just let me deal with it myself (which is actually the best), Tracey had me really dig into him about it, and the trainer from last year seemed terrified of him. Um... none of those are particularly helpful to me.

Future trainer even educates her dog

Tracey's big thing about TC is that he needs a tactful rider with some balls to ride at this point. He's a good boy in the middle of summer on a hot day or in the round pen, but he's still got a panic button. It's getting better and better, but he still can't be ridden by someone who gets nervous and he certainly will never handle someone who gets rough. A lot of people with balls get rough and a lot of people who are tactful don't have balls. Future trainer is very tactful, but she's got some major balls. I love it.

The whole day ended with a question and answer session with Mary where we learned even more. I can't wait to write all this down. All of my attempts to write posts this weekend were all super dramatic because I was stressed out and sleep deprived, so I'm starting from scratch tonight and trying to get all these words out.