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You’re
an experienced trainer, teacher, or therapist … and you’ve been looking for a
better way to help your clients.
You want to be a teacher and care about the horses and riders you work with.
You want a way to help them resolve soundness and schooling problems
that’s gentle, humane, enjoyable, and smart.
Welcome to The ART™ Of
Straightness Teacher Training!
ART™ Alignment riding
therapy
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Have you
noticed how well young children move; their
posture is naturally graceful and
biomechanically perfect?
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Have you
noticed how adamant they are about finding out
how things work for themselves by trial and
error?
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Have you
noticed how we bend out of shape as we grow up
and stop using our enquiring mind because we are
made to believe that the experts know best?
All I asked for when
I started riding was
to be able to ride
my horse, on the
bit; in good balance
and that it would be
enjoyable and
comfortable for both
me and my horse.
It’s not rocket
science so why did I
find what teachers
were imparting to me
so complicated? this
carried on when I
trained to be a
horse trainer.
Rescued by one of
the greatest human
movement specialist
F M Alexander’s
Alexander teacher
training, and then
Moshe Feldenkrais,
my journey to
simplicity finally
arrived.
What was even more
liberating was that
both of these great
men agreed that the
secret of good
biomechanics lay
deep within each and
every one of us, so
we don’t have to
fork out loads of
money, forever, to
the “experts,”
hoping to gain a few
crumbs from their
table. All we need
to do, and it is
deceptively simple,
is to find our way
back to how we
learned and moved
when we were
innocent young
children before we
got bent out of
shape.
I decided to
use my human training to improve the
horse's way of going. Since then
like, Alexander and Feldenkrais over
the past 20 years I have become
infatuated with living biomechanics,
in other words the study of movement
as it is - warts and all!
In brief I
found out:
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Right-or left-handedness
in humans spreads a
misalignment throughout
their whole body,
developing over the
course of years. It
can’t be voluntarily
switched off or relaxed.
And it is the root cause
of problems in
horsemanship.
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Just as we are right-or
left-handed, so are
horses and all the above
relates to them.
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Trying to fix your body
into an ideal position
always fails because
when you start mucking
out, driving or
generally living, your
one-sidedness reinforces
your spinal twist
knocking your ideal
position out of shape.
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Your horse suffers the
same malady and makes it
impossible for you to
sit straight.
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You
actually increase your
own and your horse’s
crookedness by trying to
build an ideal position
on a wonky foundation,
giving yourself and your
horse a double dose of
crookedness.
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If
a horse has soundness
problems, the vet has
checked them out, and is
happy for you to ride
them, usually I find
that your problem is a
ridden one that
often doesn’t go away
permanently by treating
either horse or rider
separately. The rider
has to learn how to
counterbalance their own
and their horse’s
one-sidedness during
riding. And that is what
I specialise in at the
remedial level and now
call it, “ridden massage
therapy.”
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Alexander and
Feldenkrais were not taught by
experts, they used their child like
(not to be confused with childish)
curiosity to create something
wonderful. Encouraged by them I
found out over time that I actually
knew more than I thought I did and
The ART Of straightness was born!
Training to be a good teacher
takes time and money and because of that we have split the course up
into 3 levels. We have done this to give you time to fully absorb
the training without having to worry about money.
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Level 1 starts with
schooling the rider. Once complete you are qualified to
teach ART term one and start earning money teaching
dismounted workshops and night school classes using the term 1
syllabus.
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Level 2 continues with
schooling the rider to a more advanced level. Although on the
course we focus more on straightening the horse, the
qualification is centred more around the rider's training
because you need the time of level 3 to really understand how to
bring horse and rider into alignment during riding. With the level 2
syllabus under your belt you are qualified to teach ART
Term 2, increasing the amount of workshops you have available to teach.
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Level 3 puts more emphasis
on training the horse and ART™ Alignment Riding Therapy. By
the time you have completed level 3 you have
acquired enough experience, skill and confidence to teach the
rider and horse together.
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ART™
Teacher Training |
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If you believe in the partnership between
horse and rider … this program is your opportunity to make a
difference in the often hit-and-miss, often cruel world of
horse-and-rider training.
If you are not an experienced teacher or therapist we have a training course
for you too email
me for more details.
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You’ll learn…
- How to understand what’s out of
alignment in your body and in the bodies of others – so
you can realign and strengthen your core structure and
self-carriage, and help your students do the same.
- Similarly, how to understand
what’s out of alignment in the horse’s body, so you can
realign and strengthen the horse’s core structure and
self-carriage.
- What it means to ride
independently of the horse’s movement, so aids are
applied with clarity, sensitivity, and accuracy (and
therefore with greater effectiveness and less struggle).
- Skills and sensitivity to show
your horse the way.
- How to take control of your
thoughts and emotions, so they stop impacting your
horse’s behaviour.
- The physical sensitivity and
“feel” required to develop a deep, elegant Classical
Seat.
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Are you
willing to invest in yourself and your riding?
For your horse to
believe in you, you need to believe in yourself. Without
pressure riders are free to enjoy learning one thing at a time until
they uncover their own personal winning formula.
For me as a trainer if
it isn't simple, achievable, fun, enlightening and for the good of
the horse and rider, I am not interested. My training system
works at the pace and speed each rider and horse are comfortable
with.
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2012 Teacher
training courses.
Keep your eyes on this page as more teacher training
programs will be added. |
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The next level one
12 day teacher training course will be held over the following
weekends. |
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April
21st 22nd 23rd |
Garden
Cottage Hawridge Place Hawridge Chesham Bucks HP5 2UG
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Level 1
Teacher Training.
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May 19th 20th 21st |
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June 23rd 24th 25th |
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July 28th 29th 30th
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"Finding Joni
Bentley’s work was like finding an incredibly important
missing component to my work as an Equine Muscle Release
therapist.
It is extremely frustrating as a therapist to treat a horse
and see improvements in its movement and way of going, only
to go back, maybe a month later, to find that all the old
patterns of crookedness have returned, together with the
familiar muscle tightness.
Joni’s work teaches the rider to be their horses’ own
therapist. The simple exercises she gives encourage the
rider to overcome both theirs, and the horses natural right
or left handedness, and promote free, forward, straight
movement, thus reducing the strain on joints, muscles and
connective tissue caused by a naturally crooked horse trying
to carry a naturally crooked rider!
I have been working with, and watching Joni teach for a
number of years now and in that time I have seen apparently
lame horses go sound, spooky horses calm down and sour
horses that wouldn’t go forwards trotting expressively
around the school.
I have also seen frustrated, unhappy riders get back that
joy of riding that, after all, we all started riding for in
the first place!
All this in the course of an hours lesson.
For me, this work is the cornerstone of success in whatever
discipline you ride.
Even if you are just a happy hacker, doesn’t your horse
deserve to be ridden in a way that not only does not damage
him, but in a way that positively promotes his good health
and lengthens his ridden career? Plus if your horse is
actually enjoying being ridden then I’m sure that you will
enjoy it more too!
Thank you Joni for all the learning!
Julie Dexter BTA. EMRT.
If you are interested
in applying for the course, ,
 or phone for a chat 01442 402756 mobile 07771811561
I look forward
to hearing from you.
Joni
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NEW
This new
training course with video feedback is now available.
To find out more
and watch video previews
click here.
Contact in
detail
£25
NEW DVD with video
feedback.
£55 plus £3 p&p
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