As a coach, I believe in teaching what I know. If I don’t know, I need to find out and know, or not teach it at all. I do see people at times trying to teach something that they do not know / not completely clear about and it ends up being messy and confusing. Think about the saying “the blind leading the blind”.

As a coach, we have a responsibility to teach the correct thing; not just correct in terms of riding skills, but also correct in terms of horse welfare.

Coaches need to know the subject that they are trying to teach. Do not start something that you are going to struggle to follow through, or have to end up bullshitting your student halfway through. If you get asked a question which you do not know the answer to, just say that you are not sure but you will check and get back to them. If something does not work, and you do not know how to fix it, you can always stop trying to teach it on that day. Do something you do know, and go back and research what went wrong and try again another day. Don’t keep continuing until it all turns to s***!

For example, a coach wants to teach his rider sitting trot without stirrups. The rider cannot sit and ends up bouncing on the horse’s back. The coach now has no idea what exercises to do or what instructions to give to the student that will help the rider sit better to the trot. In the meantime, the horse is going round and round with a rider bouncing around and possibly giving him a sore back.

To avoid things going to s*** in the first place, coaches should have a goal; both short term and long term for every lesson they teach. These goals should be discussed with each student, to make sure that the coach’s goal and the student’s goal do meet somewhat it the middle, and lastly making sure that the goals are SMART – Specific, Measureable, Achievable, Realistic, Timely

Then, preparing lesson plans are a good way of having a clear idea of what you want to teach and achieve in your lesson. In the Equestrian Australia / Majlis Ekuin Malaysia Coaching system, we are all taught to prepare comprehensive lesson plans as part of our training.

As coaches, continuous professional development is important, as horse riding is such a dynamic and evolving sport. Every rider and horse is different, and so is every horse and rider combination. This can be done in many different ways – reading, watching videos of credible riders and coaches, having lessons, learning about different topics that relate to horse riding e.g. biomechanics of rider and horse, saddle fitting, etc.

I find that when I have lessons or attend a course / clinic, I learn so much not just about my own riding, but also how to improve my coaching. It may even be a simple as something you do not want to emulate as you did not feel it was the right thing to do / not putting horse welfare first / etc.

As coaches, we need to develop our eye, and to develop our knowledge. Let’s not be a “katak dibawah tempurung” / living under a rock. Nowadays, everything we want can be found on the Internet. Google is literally at our fingertips. So no excuses really to not know something!