Becoming a USDF Certified Instructor: The Workshops

By Crystal Forsell
2011 Recipient of a Continuing Education for Instructors Grant

Photo by Gina Duran

When my local East Bay Chapter of the California Dressage Society decided to host the USDF Instructor Certification Workshops this year, I jumped at the chance to participate.  I have been a professional for eight years under the tutelage and mentorship of a certified instructor, so I have always understood the importance and value of this accreditation.  The process of becoming a certified instructor includes participating in the three, two-day USDF Instructor Certification workshops on riding, lounging, and teaching.  Each participating instructor receives notes from the faculty instructor and a recommendation to move on to pre-certification or attend another workshop on that subject.  After successful completion of the pre-certification testing, the trainer can then be tested by the examiners and after successful completion of all three stages; the trainer is certified at the level that they tested at.  It is a process that takes dedication and a desire to improve.   The workshops proved not only to be great practice for the participating instructors in riding, lounging and teaching skills, bringing them to the next level, but highly educational in theory as well.

The first workshop was on riding.  Each of the participating instructors brought a familiar horse to ride and to share with another instructor, as part of the riding test is on an unfamiliar horse.  Whether the trainer is riding an unfamiliar horse or the horse they ride every day, seventy-five percent of the trainer’s job is assessing the horse and twenty-five percent is using appropriate exercises to improve the horse.  Sometimes assessment becomes tricky on the horse the trainer rides everyday and they become too familiar.   When riding an unfamiliar horse, the trainer needs to assess the horse using the training scale, the horse’s acceptance of the aids, their gaits, and straightness, determining which side of the horse is stiff and hollow.  The assessment phase is not only to physically warm up the horse’s body, but also to begin asking the horse “questions” through the work in order to gather information about him.  From here, one can begin to develop appropriate exercises to improve the horse during the working phase of the ride.

After assessing, the trainer will start putting their ideas to work and put the horse through appropriate exercises.  Movements are most beneficial when you can dovetail them to each other and make one element improve the other.  (Saavedra, 2003)  For example, rather than riding endless shoulder-in down the rail, perhaps ride a lengthening out of a shoulder-in.  As a collecting exercise, shoulder-in requires the horse to bend and bring the inside hind leg more medial, developing collection and the response of yielding the rider’s inside leg and filling out the outside rein, thus improving the connection from hind leg to rein.  Now he has coiled the hind joints and can thrust off into a lengthened or medium trot.  He is also learning that shoulder-in does not just fizzle out into the corner and all that we have achieved fades away through the short side, only to attempt to regain it down the next long side of shoulder-in.  How nice to accomplish more, through fewer repetitions!  This concept works with all horses and all levels, of course the more education of a horse and rider, the bigger repertoire the rider has to work with.  Here the trainer can be creative!

The teaching workshop was the following month.   During testing, a candidate will teach one lesson of their own choosing and teach another lesson on a topic given to them by the examiners, leg yield for example.  Most of us are used to a forty-five minute lesson, but for testing only thirty minutes is allotted.  Like in riding, an accurate assessment and strong knowledge of exercises is key for success.  While teaching, the trainer must pay close attention to both horse and rider, making sure that the rider is not causing the issue.  The warm-up phase is used to gather information; the accomplished trainer will not fall into the trap of simply directing traffic!  Trainers will use that time to have their student show what they do and don’t know, while asking them questions through the work in order to find some area that can be improved.

As part of the teaching workshop, we were treated to a demonstration of a group lesson.  Due to logistical reasons, USDF no longer requires candidates to teach a group lesson for testing, but it is certainly something for everybody to explore.  Rachel Saavedra, our USDF faculty instructor taught three other certified instructors.  Three great riders on three great horses was pretty fun to watch!  A good group lesson can offer a great deal to the students and in this time where many people’s finances are limited, it is a good idea to offer group lessons.  Many riders think that group lessons are for beginners, but in fact a good instructor can manipulate the exercises to give everybody a workout.  For the rider with a lazy horse, they may get some relief from constantly urging their horse forward when the horse finds his forward drive through his natural instinct to keep up with the herd.  The most schooled horse may be the last horse in the ride because they have the tool of collection to stay behind the rest of the group.     

The final workshops of the series on were on lounging.  Schooling a horse on the lounge line does not mean watching the horse fly around you like a “kite on a string”.  Lounging is one of the most under estimated skills in the horse world.  Few understand how potentially dangerous lounging can be and fewer understand lounging as a valuable tool for schooling horses.  This makes it an important part of the certification process.  The USDF manual on lounging gives us the following reasons for lounging horses:

• Training of young horses
• Supplementing the training program
• Improving conformational shortcomings
• Re-training problem horses or horses from other disciplines
• Exercising horses that cannot be ridden
• As preparation for work-in-hand (Politz, 2008)

A skilled trainer can effectively ride the horse through lunging on the ground.  Consistency is a key to good lounging.  Your voice should reflect what you are asking.  Use a higher pitch for an upward transition and lower pitch for a downward transition; this will help your horse understand what you are asking for.  Your voice commands are always preceded by “and”, used like a half halt.  Be aware that many German raised horses are trained to the word, “schritt” meaning walk and many American horses are trained that “shht!” means go! 

Proper equipment and fit are paramount to good lounging.  A lounging cavesson which preserves the bars of the horse’s mouth by using pressure on the nose for control is recommended along with a snaffle bit on the bridle.  The lounging cavesson must be snug in order to prevent it from getting pulled into the horse’s eye on the far side.  The horse should wear a saddle to help lounging tack stay in place if the horse pulls, with a surcingle for attaching side reins. 

The choreography of the lounging session is crucial in order to school the horse and to stay organized.  The lounge line should be held in cascading loops or ribbons, the excess line in the whip hand.  The horse should be trained to walk calmly away from the trainer on the lounge line, but if he didn’t or was spooked during lounging the lunge line can be easily fed out to the horse so as to not get a hand wrapped in the line. It is important, especially on a young or inexperienced horse to adjust the side reins loosely to start, as the pressure may cause the horse to run backward, rear, or flip over.  They will become acclimated to the pressure of the side reins through gradually shortening them and applying forward driving aids.  It is also important for your body to maintain a driving position in relationship to your horse on the lounging circle to keep him moving forward, looking at the inside hind leg will help.  Be aware of your terrain, the location of gates where your horse could run out and walls that may stop your horse, especially if a round pen is not available to work in. 

In addition to schooling the horse on the lounge, it is also required for the participating instructors to school a rider on the lounge.  Schooling the rider on the lounge is a great way to start beginners, and for an experienced rider to tune up their seat.  There is no substitute for the rider to take the reins away and work only with the gaits of the horse.  An appropriate mount for a lounge lesson is a horse well-schooled in side reins on the lounge that is fairly unflappable and has three good gaits without faults, but he need not be a fancy or extravagant mover.  When lounging the rider, the horse should go on a slightly longer side rein and be more on “auto-pilot” so that attention can be given to the rider.  After warming up the horse on the lounge line, the trainer should briefly lounge the rider through a few warm-up exercises with stirrups and make an initial assessment of their seat and then put them to work without stirrups as soon as possible to make the most improvements to their seat during the session.  Exercises to supple the rider are helpful as well as exercises that encourage muscle tone.  There are many exercises to use, but one concept is the take the problem area of the rider’s seat and move it around to isolate it to make the correction.  For example, for the rider who tends to ride with their knees and toes away from the horse, the trainer can ask them to take their whole leg off the horse and rotate it, knee and toe in and knee and toe out, allowing them to feel that the correction comes from the hip. 

USDF has books on each of these topics which are required reading for certification, that anyone can order from USDF.  In my report, I have attempted to narrow down a few of the key points, a challenge to say the least, as there was so much valuable information at each workshop!  I am grateful that USDF has put the time and resources into developing the certification program and it seems as though each year, the committee is hard at work refining and improving the certification program.  I am also grateful that my local East Bay Chapter of the California Dressage Society chapter decided to sponsor the workshops; thank you, to organizer, Emily McDonald and faculty, Rachel Saavedra.  Thank you to The Dressage Foundation for awarding me the grant to make this workshop possible for me.

Works Cited
Saavedra, Rachel.  "Develop a Training Plan to Move Up."  Dressage Today (2003).
Politz, Gerhard (2008).  USDF Lunging Manual . Lexington, KY: USDF.