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one thing i must say first is that yes english riders have more contact but does not mean the horse is completely controlled by the reins the seat and legs must come into the equation.

as for this ladies umm teaching technique i dont understand what shes getting at. yes there are different styles of riding but most only have a few slight differeances eg at the place i ride the thumbs (easiest way to describe it) are ontop and point to the ears of the horse. at another place whcih many riders come from the thumbs are point ing to each other.

now im sure these differeances dont have a huge omg your hurting the horse your horrible kind of effect but it depends on the teacher.

as for the jeans thing that could really stuff your back up if its how i think she wants you to sit. it also might just be a way of getting you to sit back in the saddle.

personally if the instructer doesnt work for you change them.

You shouldn't have to ride the horse through their mouth in english if you are a good rider. I ride with my legs, English AND Western. Yes, reins steer the horse. But your LEGS push the horse forward, back, to the left, to the right, and bend them. Your LEGS, hunny, work the horse. Your hands are their for support to keep THEIR head strait in the direction you want. Personally, I am being retrained to keep a hard hand with my outside rein, because the horses I ride there like to go In, and cut corners. I use my LEG on the Inside to move the horse Out, and keep my outside rein taught so he knows I can pull on his face if need be. But I don't EVER pull on their face. When cantering, you should keep your reins taught, but not tight. You should keep your hands and arms in a position that I shouldn't be able to move them out of place. When you canter, you push Forward with your legs, and ask nicely to go more with your thighs, calves, and bum. YOU'RE motions ask the horse to do stuff, not the reins.

What Mindy is teaching you is correct, but she is telling you wrong. Like, yes, Sit on your a** so we can't see those pockets. When I canter, I am told to absorb the shock from each stride with my but cheeks. I have to literally curl my bum so that you can't see my pockets. It helps, because your posture will improve greatly and you will feel a difference. Yes, you SHOULD use your legs to get the gelding in and out of those barrels. That's HOW you DO it. You don't PULL on each side of his face to tell him where to go Sweetie. You tell him where to go with a good strong leg on his side. Reins are for guidance.

Hope this helped a little. :3

The only reason the horse won't turn on the last one is because You are probably thinking it's over and he senses that. Use your upper torso and legs to move. Kind of how like you can swivel your top half one direction and push him the way YOU want to go with your legs. :3 I got a 17HH TB mare in heat to go where I wanted with just my legs and moving my head, and torso where I wanted her to go.

Western is a more Relaxed english. Neck reining is more or less using the reins to tell them go this way please or this way please, but not really asking much. Western helps you get the basics down and teaches you to Relax, yet be ready. If you do western first, I bet you will be a better rider when you start english. Though, with western, they use one hand on the reins, and on your side. I still think you should accept the advice she is giving you, and know that you have it easy.
You know why you have it easy? Because our coach Julie threatens to chuck her bright lime green crocs at us and our horses if we put our heels up and toes down. She will yell at us to keep our heels down and to keep sitting at the trot with no stirrups. Girly, you got it Easy. -___o

If you don't want him to bee line, Slow him down and give a few half halts on his reins. If he doesn't listen, halt him all together and ask him to walk it.

Kicking the horse while your own him Won't hurt him. Trust me. They weigh about 1500 pounds. We are around 100-200 pounds. We are a hat to them. Crops don't hurt them when you ask them nicely. Crops only give a small sting to tell them to get it in gear. Kicking them is only asking them to move it now cause you mean business.

I've done english on and off for about 6 years, and one year of western. First time I started riding english I was told I have the posture that all riders want. Years don't matter sweetie. There is a 13 year old who has had about 6 lessons and can walk, trot, trot without stirrups, canter and jump 1 foot to 1'6'' just from those 6 lessons.
It's not the years, it's the coach. I have been at maybe 7 different stables to learn to ride at, and I am sticking with Riverbend stables because Julie is breaking down what we learned and building it back up again.

Western will be taken by ANY rider. I bet Ian Miller even had a few years of western riding. Any rider will do western at some point, and it helps you learn better. I learned to handle hot headed geldings that want to be with the group of horses on the other side of the other field riding the opposite direction and I had faulty stirrups in a western saddle (meaning, the stirrups were attached with bailer twine) . If you can handle that brute of a gelding and tell him who's the boss, then you can go back to english and jump 5 feet.

x_o
I agree with you trite. I also think that Mindy had a higher opinion of how well her horse was trained for lessons than he actually did. You should have told her though thatyou couldn't use your leg properly in the saddle. It also would have been helpful for you to know WHY she wanted to train you western rather than english. I think that her theory in making you stear with your legs was because she probably saw that you were heavy handed like you said. So she went to the other extreme. I think it's a good excercise, but i dont think it was fair that she wouldn't let you use your reins when he obviously wasnt in control by your leg when he made a B-line for the gait.

Both english and western, for beginners and young horses, start off more in the mouth. Thats just the way it is until the horse/rider is trained to use/accept their seat and leg properly. In the trained or higher levels of both, both use the leg, seat and weight aids more than the reins. Bit pressure actually isn't that different either, on a well trained horse. In western they use stronger bits (large curbs) so the slightest pressure is like a half hault.

Maybe next time, ask her, and ask to use an english saddle, even if youre doing the smae excersise.

Having good, well taught basics in either english or western is universal. Basics are basics, they don't vary much between the 2. It's when thing start getting a bit more complicated (working on lateral, going round, etc) that it's honestly more helpful to learn english, and then western. I've riden english almost completely (limited western experience), but the first time I got on a western horse, I was able to make him do the whole western pleasure super slow jog, and the tiny lope. All with his head down, and using his back, western round. But then you see some western riders try english and even jump, and they fly all over the place (i didn't say ALL western riders, I said SOME).

I started out in western but then moved on to hunter. I like both and I think both can teach the other something. I would definitely say just enjoy the new experience, and if you can learn to have a strong leg and a good seat in western it will definitely translate to english.