The value of clinics

[carol machulski]

Sunday I attended or more correctly participated in a  conformation clinic. After defining and critiquing a sample horse, we attendees were encouraged to try out hand..eyes?..at rating the next four horses. Sometimes we did well and at other times not so good. We had trouble gauging the difference between what rates an 8 or 9 or understanding why the clinician rated the horse a minus 5 for its croup. In a little over 2 hours we barely understood the basics of what constitutes good conformation never mind rating the real thing! At the end I left deciding that before tacking Ophelia on wednesday I was going to step back and diagram her! It won't make much of a difference as I like riding her.   

 

[Angharad]

Yup.

I guess how valuable a clinic is depends on many factors, like who's giving it, their level of expertise, the level of expertise of the attendees, the goal of the clinic and whether it was reached, and the list goes on...

If your confirmation clinic was slated for novices, I would have thought that the time would have been spent better on the basics of good confirmation for different breeds. Rushing to have the participants "rate" horses seems a bit of a waste of time, but maybe the presenter thought it would pique your interest or show you how complicated the process can be.

Of course, clinics come in a zillion flavors--I always benefited greatly from riding clinics with top riders/trainers. And clinics for specialized training or hands on techniques were usually fascinating and informative--for instance, a T-Touch clinic with Linda Tellington-Jones I attended was really exciting.

[carol machulski]

I agree as l have attended clinics given by Janet Foy and Steffen Peters as well as 2 Centered riding practicianers and at the 1996 Olympics Lendon Gray gave a crash course in Grand Prix before the day's tests began which I really appreciated as it was, for me at that time, my introduction to Dressage. This German-trained uberreitelehrin has been at our barn for about a year and this is the first clinic of her's that I've attended. As far as I  know all the attendees were novices at this. She did go over the basics but not too much in depth and what I wanted to get from the clinic was more about how horse and rider conformation need to mesh. I don't think it  happened.