Clinic with Anke Hawke

Once again, we had Anke Hawke from Anke Hawke Balance Dressage down in Victoria for a clinic. I want to thank my friend Yvonne who organises these clinics. We had some old and some new faces attending the clinic.

I managed to get in four sessions with Anke. Three of them with Phoebus, and one with Romeo. Anke has a superb eye for detail and spots very small details that I often can’t see or feel until she points it out. And of course, an educated eye on the ground will see things that a rider cannot see from the top. So as usual, there was a lot of very specific, highly useful feedback and many suggestions for things to try, to think about and to work on in future. I highly recommend Anke as a coach.

Phoebus is very crooked and there are certain limitations to what he is able to do, for example, we struggle a lot with right lead canters. He is much more evenly muscled than he used to be, but there is still a long way to go. On the other hand, he has progressed to Spanish walk, lateral work including counter bends in walk, shoulder in and beginnings of travers in trot, beginnings of (left hand) canter pirouettes, roll-backs and we are playing with two time canter (mezair). So we looked a things to help him track straighter and set him up use his hindquarters more effectively. We also just had a little bit of a play, as he clearly enjoys exploring possibilities, and is currently experimenting with a very passage-ey trot. Of course he is also capable of an amble, but I tend to ask that only on trail rides.

Romeo is up to walk shoulder in and travers and I’m im the process of separating his trot from his amble, which is going well. With him, there are no physical restrictions, and there is a lot to explore. So we mainly looked at getting him going will a little more bend at times, and trying to get him more in balance, especially in transitions.

On Saturday, I brought in Keldan as well, and Anke and I had a little fun session with (synthetic) swords, practicing some guards and cuts and little plays. First on the punching bag that graces my arena and doubles as a pell, and then with each other. After a little while we swapped horses and she rode Keldan and I rode Phoebus. Keldan loves this game and it didn’t take long before there was a fair bit of zooming around, while Phoebus managed to show off some his new cool tricks. Using weapons on horseback is not just a lot of fun, but a great way to give focus and purpose to the riding and provide very clear contextual signals to a horse while riding one handed and mainly off the seat.

I think I have a good chance of Anke coming back by taking her out for nice trail rides or giving her horses and swords to play with! I only have photos of one of the ridden sessions with Phoebus, and all of them are by Yvonne.

Sparky also participated in the clinic, he was loaned to a lovely local girl who had two nice lessons with Anke.