2023 Lynn Palm Western Dressage Fund Grant Recipient: Valerie Poulter
As one of the Lynn Palm Western Dressage Fund grant recipients for 2023, I can only say that this opportunity to further my Western Dressage education has been the highlight of my year. I was able to attend the three-day “Breathe to Ride Clinic” offered by Kristen Whittaker and Katie Behner. I came into this clinic knowing my performance anxiety was holding me back, but I assumed that I knew how to breathe. I was in for an eye opening three days.
Day One “The Mind”
This day is billed as the hardest day, where we focus both on the difference between performance breathing and centering breathing (focus on the head to the belly button). In addition to learning to control and recognize our “internal environment,” we also worked on to “Strive to Improve the quality of our intentions.” The afternoon session was spent in the arena with our horses reviewing the class material – I was truly impressed at how fast my horse responded to my efforts at intentional breathing – he was soft and forward and a willing partner.
Day 2 “The Body”
Focus of this session built on the introduction of mindful breathing and added the biomechanics that are influenced by both intentional breath holding and unintentional breath holding (where unintentional tension is created in both rider and horse – a big issue for me). Learning effective muscle tension in “the seat” (defined as the area from the belly button to the feet) was the focus in both the class and the arena session. Again, my mind was blown at how effective the techniques were and had better insight into the way my horse learns, and how I needed to slow down for him to process what I was asking him to do something new or challenging.
Day 3 Consolidation of Days 1 & 2
Putting the pieces together! We also examined cadence vs rhythm (or feel and timing). This was the day I really noticed an increase in my confidence and trust in both me and my horse, so much so that I was able to finally begin to canter in lessons shortly after!
My scores have improved, and I feel so much calmer when riding, an enormous improvement!
