Skip to main content
MENU

Andrea Quale: 2015 Continuing Education Grant Recipient

I am a young trainer, having nine years of dressage training and instructing experience. I am working hard to build up my knowledge and my credentials, and what better way than the USDF Instructor Certification Program!

I applied for the Continuing Education for Instructors Grant when a good friend of mine, Anna Bigwood, told me her, Lisa Koch and Audrey Staton were organizing the Training and First Level Instructor Certification Workshops in my area. I was so excited to learn about this certification process, and to continue my education.

We had the most wonderful instructor for all three of the Workshop weekends; Heidi Chote. She was amazingly helpful, and made all of the large amounts of information easy to understand and retain. She was very positive throughout the entire workshop series, and met each individuals needs as we went through the processes. Heidi also had many little helpful tidbits and hints for us that she uses every day in her training and for being successful in the certification testing.

The first weekend for us was the Training Workshop. We all brought a horse we were familiar with to ride the first day. After spending the morning in a lecture with Heidi, we had a clear idea of what we were getting ourselves into! I was so excited to apply the process Heidi wanted us to go through in our training sessions with our horses to break up our thought process in our training. I loved the structure, and how we were taught to evaluate what we felt with our horse and pertain it directly with the dressage training pyramid. On the second day, we had to do it all over again, however we had an unfamiliar horse to ride. My favorite part was watching (and experiencing) the process of getting to know a strange horse, and the horses getting to know an unfamiliar rider. It was very cool to be able to discuss, with such a positive and supportive group of professionals, each horses strengths and weaknesses, and providing a theoretical plan of what you would do with the horse in your training program in the next month or so.

The second weekend was the Teaching Workshop. I was very nervous about this section, and I felt like this was going to be the hardest of all three. Heidi did so well to prepare us and we had great study material, I believe this piece of the workshop ended up being my favorite. It was extremely fun to teach an unfamiliar student and horse partnership. To be able to step in with fresh eyes and give the students a new outlook on their horse and their riding was wonderfully rewarding. Since I was hosting the workshop at the facility I train at, Rose Mountain Ranch, I was also lucky enough to have some of my own students participate. It was so fun and informative to see what other instructors picked up about my students, and helped me learn what I could improve about some of my daily lessons.

The last weekend was the Lunging of Horse and Rider Workshop. I felt very comfortable with the idea of lunging a rider. I have had a lot of experience lunging riders, but nonetheless I learned so many new exercises and most importantly, the order of the exercises you should go through; Seat, legs, then upper body, to create the best, most stable riding position. I also had a blast learning more about lunging the horse in side reins, and how effective it is in the training and conditioning of the horse.

Overall, these workshops were a great experience. I appreciate everyone who helped make it possible, including The Dressage Foundation for making it financially possible for me to attend. I recommend anyone to at least audit these workshops, even if you do not want to become a Certified Instructor. These workshops helped me overall become a more confident Trainer and Instructor.