Set the tone

Your word for the month:

• It’s usually best to decide on your word AFTER you’ve completed the rest of the monthly planning.
• Setting a word for the month is an effective way to swiftly refocus and realign your daily thoughts and actions with what really matters this month. When faced with any decision, your word for the month can often be a handy trigger to guide you to make the right choice.
• Your word should encapsulate the overall theme of the month for you.
• Your word can also be a short phrase as long as you can easily recall it.
• Examples might include words such as breathe, relax, go for it, ride first, ducks in a row, enjoy, smile, get involved, I belong.

What will you make happen?

• This is your list of what’s going to be ticked-off your list this month in order for you to progress towards that quarterly vision.
• It’s really nice to think about where you’ll be at the end of the month, so it can be useful to phrase this as ‘it’s the end of the month and I have…’
• An example might be, ‘It’s the end of January 20XX and I am ready to compete at xx level, AND I have entered xxx competition at this level.”

How will you make that happen?

• Consider where you are now, and where you’ll be at the end of the month. What needs to happen to bridge that gap?
• What action steps can you lock in now? 
• For example, you may need to focus on training one or two movements to confirm that next level, you may need to commit to getting off the property with your horse each week this month to work through some issues that come up with you ride at new venues. 
• You may want to lock in some training sessions with your coach, or sessions with your personal bodyworker or massage therapist, or carve out time for visualisation and meditation sessions.
• You may need to be creative about some solutions. You could book an off-the-horse session with the coach to discuss issues without having to deal with the horse at the same time, or you could put 20 minutes in your calendar each day to watch videos of the test you’re wanting to compete in.

How will you feel about your achievements?

• Allow yourself to step into the feeling of accomplishment. It’s coming your way!

WEEKLY PLANNING

Not many riders actually plan their rides, yet there are some fantastic reasons to do so. 

If you don’t plan, you will inevitably do one of the following:

• Deal only with the resistances you horse throws at you that day
• Ride the movements you love the most
• Ride around aimlessly not really working on anything
• Focus too much on only new movements, or only test movements

Planning your week will give you the structure that is required to train a dressage horse. 

Your week should include the following types of rides:

• Fundamentals: This is a session of refining the pure basic aids and responses, nothing new or fancy. It’s usually best scheduled on the first day of the training week for you.

The focus of a Fundamentals session could be half halts, in front of the leg, transitions, frame adjustability and so on.

• Advancing Knowledge: Training new movements into your horse. 

The focus on an Advancing Knowledge day should be one or two movements, and variations of movements, from the level you’re working towards. Break the movement down into ingredients and train those. For intensive support on this consider joining our Dressage Breakthrough program in Performance Riders.

• Competition Preparation: Testing and training lines and set-ups from the tests.

The focus on a Competition Preparation day could be the trot or canter work from a test you’ll be riding in the next competition. 

• In-Hand: Lunging or in-hand work. A great day for gaining insights on the biomechanics and balance of your horse.Go easy on the lunging, we want the horses’ legs to last a long time.

• Fun Ride.

What challenges do you know you’ll face this week?

• Scheduling challenges such as a busy day with work or family are always difficult when you’re trying to keep a consistent training program. 
• We often like to say – horses are all different, but they’re also all the same. Horses have set resistances that they throw at us, and once you know your horse quite well, you’ll know what his or her favoured options are. Before you hop on, consider what might (or will!) go wrong. Forewarned is forearmed!

What plans can you put in place to overcome those challenges?

• Plan ahead and around scheduling issues.
• Plan the resistances your horse will come up with, use visualisation or drawing to consider what will happen and how you will react. 

Weekly learning notes.

Dressage is a lifelong pursuit of learning, and what a privilege that is! Use this space to take notes of workshops you’ve attended, books you’ve read, insights you’ve had and anything else that has contributed to your knowledge as a rider and horseperson this week.

Focus your intentions

What new knowledge will you train into your horse?

• You don’t need a crystal ball in dressage, the future is laid out before you in the form of dressage levels and tests!
• Look at the level ahead, where are the big gaps in your horse’s knowledge? 
• Identify movements and combinations of movements.
• This knowledge is vital for effectively planning your weekly schedule and daily rides.
• Don’t get too ambitious, it’s only one month, focus on just a couple of movements. 
• You may resist this step if you feel you need to be perfect or at a certain standard (for example, achieving 70% or whatever arbitrary number you put on it) before you train higher movements. This is self-sabotage. Go forth and train the new movements!! 

What tests will you focus on?

• The answers are all in the tests! Go through the level you’re looking at competing in, print out the tests, laminate them, post copies in the arena, in your bedroom, on the fridge, you get the idea. 
• If you want to ride dressage, test-riding is a large part of that, don’t ignore it!
• There’s no need to ride whole tests. 
• Focus on movements and combinations of movements.
• Drill down even further into preparations for movements.

What do you want to focus on to improve as a rider?

• You’re a significant part of the equation in dressage, how can you come to the party as an athlete?
• Where are the gaps in your knowledge, experience, physical conditioning or mindset?
• What can you do to fill those gaps?
• For those in a Performance Riders program, head to the course site or your support group and get the discussion happening to get ideas and inspiration. 
• Pick one or two things and do that well, don’t try to do everything in one month.

What actions will you take?

• How will you go ahead and implement?
• Do you need to put things in your calendar, tell your partner about your plans, organise logistics, book appointments, what will you action? 
• This is a commitment to yourself. Take it seriously. 

Coached sessions: what do you want to focus on?

• You might think, well I’ll focus on whatever my coach identifies as needing work. No! We are all about empowering YOU to take control of your own training and progress. You can’t delegate this. You can be part of a team but you’re the one who needs to be in the driver’s seat.
• Be prepared to go to your coached sessions with an explanation of what you’ve been working on, what’s problems have come up, and therefore what you’d like to focus on in that session.
• Of course you can be flexible and issues will arise during coached sessions, but make sure you don’t neglect your planned focus altogether. It could be that your coach identifies that you need to work on a specific ingredient WITHIN your identified focus, that’s great! That’s precisely what coaches are for.
• Imagine how productive, enjoyable and fruitful your sessions will be when you focus on specific areas that are aligned to your overall monthly and yearly goals. You’ll be on fire and your coach will love that.

Competitions: What is the purpose for each?

• In Performance Riders programs we teach the importance of having a specific purpose for every show you enter.
• It’s important that your purpose is related as much as possible to things you can control. 
• Not having a specific purpose will mean your assessment of the performance is measured against unhelpful benchmarks. 
• Having a purpose to reach a certain score or achieving a certain placing is not a good idea. The judging and performance of other riders is not in your control.
• Having a purpose will allow you to learn important insights from competition, and to give you a sound read on whether the show was productive or not. Have you ever had a great ride then gone home disappointed because you didn’t place? Or conversely, have you had a poor ride then gone home happy because you won? These situations are not helpful. 
• Some examples might include having a calm and focused first show with an inexperienced horse (or rider), testing your recent training at a new level, getting through the warm up without stressing out, experimenting with how far you can push the energy levels in the test, getting all clean tempi changes, and so on. 
• You can see how, with a purpose, how clearly you can then assess your performance, and tweak this element for your next competitions. 

Key reminders and words of inspiration:

• This is a good space to reflect on the planning you’ve done and consider the themes that have arisen. 
• Jot down some words, reminders, and perhaps a quote that will help guide you this month.

Key monthly dates:

• You’ll plan your weekly schedule in the weekly planning section, but the monthly planner is useful for vet, farrier and other horse appointments, plus rider appointments and competitions so you can get an overview of the frequency of these events and plan any training around them.