Learning to Ride as an Adult: A New Training Method for First-Time Riders - Tapa dura

ERIKA PROCKL is a teacher in further education and a certified riding instructor.
Not having learned to ride as a child but as an adult, she has personally experienced
the suffering of an adult novice rider, and learned from it.

The majority of riders learn to ride as children or during adolescence, and therefore have never encountered the glass wall of insecurity and fear which can encircle the adult riding student, and which turns a normal person into an awkward, clumsy fool, unable to hear instructions. This book is intended to offer you the opportunity to practice riding movements in your own time and in familiar surroundings, without stress or hindrance.
Fluid, confident riding can only be achieved through practice. But more than that, the adult learner must first unlearn habits of bad posture and gain an insight into balance and coordination of the body. Only after learning not to fight a constant battle against one's own clumsy body - the "clinging monkey" - can the rider learn to understand and work with the horse.
The usual daily stress of modern living means that adults - and very often adolescents - adopt tensed-up and faulty postures, which have a negative effect on the horse when adult beginners are learning how to ride. This modern riding manual offers a completely new training concept specifically designed to counteract the problem.

A perfect loosening-up program, which relaxes the muscles and eases tension.
Complex rider movements are separated into individual movements for easier learning.
This method's "swinging circles" can be practiced in day-to-day situations as well as on the physio-ball-the substitute horse for busy adults who can only ride once a week.

This "swinging" training program was developed by certified riding instructor Erika Prockl in cooperation with Eva Sogl, a high-level German dressage instructor.
This book should be required reading for every riding instructor and adult novice rider.