Oct 20, 2023
This video unpacks what you need to do as a rider to finally achieve the understanding and the clarification of potential misunderstandings or gathering of assumed knowledge to progress and succeed in your dressage journey.
Tash's Takeaways: Assumed knowledge that is wrong or a misunderstanding taught to you by someone who misunderstood, can hold you back for years and years and years and stop you from ultimately creating the success that you really want in your riding. Alicia has cleared up so many misunderstandings and filled the holes of where there should be assumed knowledge, but there was none, so I could finally progress and be on the path to achieving the 70% plus Grand Prix scores that I want.
This video will give you clarification on another part of assumed knowledge to do with your seat. Where should your weight be distributed around your body for you to be able to drive with your seat, use your seat, influence with your seat? After this video, you will know the answers and you will be astounded at what you will be able to do differently with your seat and with your body and be able to create within your horse.
Tash's Takeaways: I had lessons for over 18 months with a seat specialist who did explain about putting the weight down through the ankles, but never explained it in a way that was useful for me to actually understand how to use my seat and how to distribute my weight to actually get a result. Alicia teaches this in a way that you can implement today to feel the result, which therefore locks in the learning.
Who hasn't heard heels down in a lesson? Learn how and why your instructor screams this to you in lessons and what you actually need to do instead, so they never say it again.
Tash's Takeaways: What I love about Alicia is everything she says is clarification on the nuance. So while 'heels down' is such a black-and-white, blunt instruction, this video explains what you can do instead to achieve what your instructor is actually asking you to do.
In this video, you are going to break through your understanding of what steering on a horse actually is and how the use of the rein can dramatically affect what the shoulders and therefore the entire horse does.
Tash's Takeaways: Never in my life was I taught that the goal of dressage was to get the horse more upright. This video explains what you should be doing with your reins, not only when you want your horse to turn, but when you want to do the higher Grand Prix movements as well.
This video is going to unpack for you the difference between learning to ride and learning to ride dressage. Exercises to help you with natural balance and learning to stay on are exercises to do exactly that, and exercises to learn how to do dressage are completely different. So as you're learning dressage, you need to learn what you should be doing to improve your dressage, not just your riding.
Tash's Takeaways: Alicia is a master at making sure that the intention matches the outcome. So riding without stirrups has a certain intention and a certain outcome, and when you unpack it in this way, you can start to learn what intentions and what outcomes you do want to improve your dressage riding.
This video is going to change your riding life. Learn the exact length your stirrups should be for you to be the best dressage rider you can be, and how some misunderstandings and assumed knowledge can really stuff you up when it comes to actioning your coach's feedback and trying to get the result in dressage.
Tash's Takeaways: No one ever told me where my weight should be, where my weight should be distributed in the saddle. This led to huge misunderstandings and assumed knowledge gaps when it came to riding Grand Prix. I'm so excited that you can learn this, so you're not going to make the same mistake I did.
Where your hand should be and contact is one of the cornerstones of dressage success. If you get this wrong, it's very hard to get anything else right. Alicia gives you a simple visual that you can use every single time you ride that will guarantee your hands always stay in the right position.
Tash's Takeaways: Where my hand should be in contact with the reins always confused me. Even training with Olympians I was told conflicting things. My horses have never gone better than when I keep my hands and my reins in a positive contact - this idea of a positive contact, not a negative contact is vital to make dressage progress. Shortening your reins and having a positive contact sounds so simple and easy, but if you just commit to doing that, everything about your dressage riding will change.
How and why and when we use our legs is another cornerstone in our dressage understanding that has to be correct if we are to progress. In this video, you will learn not just the how, but also the why of when to use your leg, and more importantly, when and how not to use your leg when you feel like that's all you can do.
Tash's Takeaways: It was a constant in my dressage test to have 'the horse needs to be more in front of the leg'. But what that meant and how to get it - that seemed a mystery for a very long time. Uncover the mystery now and watch this video so you can finally make progress in this area.
We've all heard inside leg to outside rein, but what is it and when should it be applied? All is revealed in this super exciting, breakthrough video.
Tash's Takeaways: Inside leg to outside rein was screamed to me for years by many different Olympic instructors, and I would also read about it in many different publications written by Olympians. It is only now from working with Alicia that I understand the nuance and the complexity of this framework and how, without the basics, this can never work, which is why I couldn't get the fancy second trot I was seeking for. Now understanding this, I am so much closer to the fancy second trot that I want to have.
Get ready for your mind to be blown. The half halt is not a light switch, a button you press or something you do. It is something that is meant to happen all the time, yet no one ever teaches you that. When you learn this, everything about your riding is about to change.
Tash's Takeaways: I was never explained what a half halt is. I never had a discussion with over seven Olympic coaches about what a half halt is and what I should be doing, when I should be doing one, and when I read all the literature of what a half halt is and when it should be done. Never was I told it was something that was done all of the time to make sure that the horse was balanced all of the time. Just by implementing this into my riding, my scores have dramatically improved and the way of my horse is going is immensely better.
Have you ever wondered what your ideal dressage horse should have as a prerequisite for a dressage career? Don't wonder anymore. This video will tell you everything you actually need to know about picking the best dressage horse you can.
Tash's Takeaways:This video is so exciting as everyone wants to pick the right dressage horse for them, but normally don't have criteria on how to do that. This video gives you these criteria and I'm so excited that everyone has this information!
For you and your horse to succeed and achieve your dressage goals, it needs to be a good match, just like a marriage. There needs to be an alignment between you and your horse. This video will help you get clarity on what that looks like.
Tash's Takeaways: Every horse is different and teaches you something you need to learn. The main thing is you want dressage to be fun, so you always wanna make sure you have the right partner to have the most fun with on your journey.
How many paces are there when you train and ride your horse? Most of us think there are only three - walk, trot and canter, but there are actually many paces that your horse will do in his dressage career, and you need to know how, what and when to choose any of them. This video will show you how.
Tash's Takeaways: When I was learning dressage, I was only taught the three paces - walk, trot, and canter. I figured out there was a couple more when I would read my dressage test and find out that I had to do a collected trot or an extended canter. But learning with Alicia has helped me understand there are so many more gears and there are so many more varied paces that I need to be able to access in my training and riding to be able to really succeed in my riding, especially Grand Prix.
Whether or not you've ridden travers for years or you've never tried to ride it before, this video will change your understanding of what the travers is and why it is so important to be riding and training it correctly.
Tash's Takeaways: I always thought the point of travers was to get the horse on four tracks and to show the movement to the judge. I totally missed the benefit of the exercise as well as the basic understanding of what it was actually testing and how to keep the balance of the horse while executing the movement. I'm so excited you get access to this video and can do your travers perfectly from the start.
Do you think the half pass is pushing the horse sideways? Whether you think that or not, your understanding of half pass and your ability to score high in this movement is going to be expanded from watching this video.
Tash's Takeaways: I was constantly frustrated because I could never ride a half pass better than a 7.5 no matter what I did. No matter how I tried, no matter which horse I was on. After watching this video, I now know why I could never score those scores, and now that's why I can get an eight or more for my half pass because I understand the movement at a whole new level.
