Classes with Maria
Maria offers riding, teaching and horsemanship clinics at West Winds Farm and at other locations. She blends horsemanship, biomechanics of balance and principles of dressage with her knowledge of movement and bodies in motion.
She draws from her competition experience, education background, quadrille riding and daily training for creative ways to present material and concepts in the clinics she teaches.
Participants range from pleasure riders to competitive dressage riders, endurance riders to eventers, 4-H riders, pony clubbers and western trail riders.
If you would like to customize a clinic for your students or your friends, please contact Maria. She would be happy to discuss your needs and develop a clinic that meets your specific goals.
Riding Intensives
Sometimes the best way to get the most out of training is to immerse yourself into the world of the horse.
An Intensive session may entail bringing your horse for a couple of days of lessons to spending a week at the farm riding and broadening your learning about horses and yourself.
An intensive may also include other educational opportunities related to horse care and horsemanship.
Participants can chose to explore groundwork, working your horse at liberty, bodywork or rehabilitation work for the horse among many choices.
You can customize your learning.
Or you might like to focus on your body and movement habits to increase your awareness. Increased awareness leads to having more ability to change, to be flexible and balanced while riding, to have flow and spontaneity.....and fun!
Since this is an individual process, Intensives are tailored to fit specific needs and desires of each rider and each horse.
The Teaching Seminar - “Learning to Teach and Teaching to Learn”
There are many extraordinary riders and trainers.
Yet, there are few who know how to impart their knowledge in a way that speaks simply to the horse and to the rider with kindness, clarity and understanding.
Pedagogy is the method and practice of teaching.
The Teaching Seminar is a course in pedagogy for instructors.
Everyone, not just instructors, is welcome to participate because when one learns to teach, teaching becomes a great vehicle for learning.
The Teaching Seminar
The Art of Seeing and Saying:
In this seminar, participants will learn what balanced movement looks like and how to give objective verbal feedback to riders to improve their balance, understanding and communication with their horse.
This sounds simple enough but, breaking the big picture down into small bits that make sense to the rider and to the horse is a complex process.
Maria draws from her background of developmental education to present the art of instruction in a positive and incremental fashion.
If you are interested in learning more about the curriculum and format of this unique seminar, please contact Maria.
