What is Ride With Your Mind (RWYM)

Ride With Your Mind Coaching: Transforming Your Riding Through Skill Development.

Riding in general is a delicate blend of physical skill, communication and harmony with your horse. For many riders, the physical aspect tends to dominate, with a huge focus on the horse, you'll often hear words like 'more round, more engagement, lift is his back' with little focus on the 'how' or the riders part in leading this dance. Ride With Your Mind coaching emphasises the human to horse interaction aspects of riding, often referred to as 'riding in the language horse'. Founded by the renowned coach and author Mary Wanless, this coaching method reshapes how riders think about their connection with their horses, focusing on biomechanics, awareness, and the mental processes behind effective riding. I attended regular training with Mary and always come away with something new and pivotal to help progress my riding and my horses way of going.

What is Ride With Your Mind Coaching?

The Ride With Your Mind approach is based on the idea that successful riding isn’t just about what your body does but also how you think and process the act of riding and how this impacts the horse. It integrates a deep understanding of biomechanics—how the rider’s body moves with the horse—into practical, more importantly can do, coaching strategies. Bite size learning in meaningful useful 'chunks' of information. Mary Wanless’ methods are rooted in the concept that riders can improve their skill and communication with their horse by improving the way they think about movement, position, and awareness.

Ride With Your Mind teaches you to mentally engage with your body and your horse in a way that transforms both the rider’s and the horse’s experience. It’s about breaking down the riding process into understandable, manageable parts and enhancing the rider’s self-awareness, promoting change.

At the heart of this coaching approach are several key concepts:

Biomechanics

Biomechanics plays a huge role in this method. Understanding how the rider’s body works in relation to the horse’s movement is fundamental. Riders often unintentionally create tension or imbalances that interfere with the horse’s natural movement. It applies the physics of movement and keenly focuses on force transmission, making eth re rider a 'good load to carry for the horse'

This includes understanding how the pelvis, torso, and legs should align with the horse’s movement to create a more fluid and efficient partnership.

Body Awareness and Position

Linked strongly to biomechanics, most riders believe they know how they are sitting, but in reality, our body awareness can be inaccurate. Unlearning what your body feels as right can be as hard as learning something new 'feelings lie'. Ride With Your Mind asks riders to pay close attention to their body position and ride in with a noticing mindset our very best game to play is 'got it, lost it' the ever ongoing game of progress.

Through exercises, careful coaching and progressive development, riders learn to make small, subtle adjustments that can lead to big improvements in their riding.

Mental Clarity and Focus

A key part of Ride With Your Mind coaching is training the rider to maintain mental clarity. are you truly present when you ride? The mental state of a rider can significantly affect their connection with their horse, and the outcomes. Distracted, tense, or unfocused riders often send mixed signals to their horses, leading to confusion or resistance.

Feedback Loops

In traditional riding lessons, instructors often tell riders what to do—such as “heels down” or “sit up tall”—but Ride With Your Mind focuses learning through feeling, as mentioned above noticing, what you get when you get it, and what you lose when you lose it. Riders focus on how it feels when they ride correctly, creating internal feedback loops that help them self-correct ( or with their coach to help them build on the corrections and develop progressively) .

So what are the benefits of Ride With Your Mind Coaching? ..

I am biased as an Accredited Coach in this work at level 1 Mastery level. However, my journey to this was through lots of self discovery and learning, or should I say unlearning what I thought I knew. But the following key points are key.

Improved Rider Awareness

Riders often report a much deeper awareness of their body and how it moves. This heightened awareness leads to better balance, posture, and the ability to make fine-tuned adjustments, which can have a profound effect on the horse’s performance. Ultimately riders feel safer and more confident.

Clearer Communication with Your Horse

Personally one of the most significant benefits of Ride With Your Mind coaching is improved communication with your horse. Horses, as prey animals, are incredibly sensitive to the subtlest of movements and energy changes. By focusing on body awareness and reducing unnecessary background noise, riders can communicate more clearly, leading to a more harmonious horse centred partnership.

Skill Progression

Because Ride With Your Mind teaches riders to be more in tune with their own bodies and their horses, many find that they make faster progress than they would with other instruction alone. The mental focus and body awareness developed through Ride With Your Mind allow riders to refine their skills more efficiently.

Increased Confidence and Relaxation

When riders understand what their bodies are doing and how it affects their horse, they often experience increased confidence. Riding becomes less about guessing or feeling unsure and more about conscious and considered actions. This newfound confidence allows riders to enjoy their time in the saddle, creating a more positive experience for both rider and horse.

So, is Ride With Your Mind Coaching Right for You?

Whether you’re a beginner looking to develop better riding habits or an experienced rider aiming to refine your technique, Ride With Your Mind offers valuable insights. If you've been doing the same thing over and over, hearing the same old instructions of 'sit up, shorten reins, grow tall, heels down' and progress is stalled then this may just be the change you need to move things forwards.

Because RWYM is centered on awareness, is can be transformative for riders of all levels and disciplines.

Ride With Your Mind coaching is not just about improving riding techniques; it’s about understanding the deeper connection between the rider and horse.

If you’ve ever felt that something was missing in your riding or wondered how to take your skills to the next level, a Ride With Your Mind coaching session might hold the key. With a greater understanding of how to, you can unlock a new level of partnership with your horse, transforming both your riding experience and your relationship with your horse.

If you're West Midlands based and interested in Ride With Your Mind coaching then please do reach out to me, I'd be happy to have a relaxed phone conversation to see if we are a good coaching match contact me on - derryvm.equestrian@gmail.com or 07971599909. I am based in Stourbridge, west of Birmingham but I am happy to travel UK wide for clinics subject to special arrangements.

There is a global network of Ride With Your Mind Accredited Coaches to find your closest coach follow this links Uk Coaches , EU Coaches , USA & Canada Coaches , Rest of the world Coaches .

Ride With Your Mind also has a fabulous online resource library / membership site to support your in person coaching sessions too.. dressagetraining.tv

Rider Riding under RWYM instruction

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