Points made during the dressage sessions (BN-I):

Your focus should be to increase the accuracy with which you apply your skills not the power you use, power will actually come from the increase in accuracy.

Be sure to be aware of and consider both the physical and psychological aspects of your horse when teaching it new things and throughout your training.

The law of accumulative effect: Accumulative effects are gained through the maintenance of a concept (i.e. if you/your horse doesn't get it at first, don't give up, maintaining the concept is the only way you and the horse will learn the concept).

Just because something doesn't happen the first time don't give up, trust in the accumulative learning.

True extension comes from true collection.  Don't expect a jaw dropping medium trot if your horse cannot carry collection on a 20 meter circle. 

If you want to win competitions, train to build your competitive skills.  For example, while the medium trot is visually inspiring, it has a lower point value than the walk, which has a co-efficient of 2, so be sure not to throw away points, especially if your horse has a naturally lovely walk. Don't think for  a minute that dressage tests haven't been won on the walk.

If you want to win competitions, you have to realize, no one cares what you think, its what the judges think.

School a shorter gait with increased tempo at home (not what you would ride in competition) to begin to explain collection to your horse.  Training increased tempo in your dressage schools will also translate to cross country, consider that while you are galloping cross country and then enter the preparation phase before a jump you want to increase the tempo of the steps without losing the speed (which will cost you time), so think of the dressage canter as the cousin of the cross country gallop.

Don't be afraid to play tag with disaster, push to your/your horse's limits without terrorizing your horse, it is the only way you will get better.

The worst thing about a horse making a mistake in training (i.e. breaking to the canter while learning to lengthen the trot) is that its embarrassing, and if that's the worst thing that happens, that's not all that bad.

Teach at new things at the embryonic level - i.e. "embryonic half pass".

Green eggs and ham theory - "just keep asking"

Its important to realize that being aggressive does not mean being hostile and its important to make sure that if you are approaching something aggressively, you do not turn hostile in your approach (esp toward your horse).  Sometimes it helps to think about approaching things progressively rather than aggressively because it is less likely to turn hostile if you have that frame of mind.

During the jumping sessions:

Exercise one: five poles on the ground set up as canter poles, thirty feet (two strides) to two more canter poles, also ten feet apart:

| - 10' - |        - 30' -      | - 10' - | - 10' - | - 10' - | - 10' - |

After walking through, and then trotting through, the horses cantered through, both directions.  At the canter, the goal was to be accurate coming in, the last canter stride before the first ground pole should place the front feet approximately 5 feet from the ground pole, the hind feet have to have about two feet to come past the placement of the front feet, which will then set you up for an accurate ride through the exercise. If you get in wrong, its hard to correct in the middle.

The goal of the lesson was to be accurate, if you can't see a distance, you can at least see your take off spot and you can practice to be very accurate in your take off spot (which in turn, will teach you to see distance).

After cantering the poles, all the poles were raised to small verticals except the first and last pole, which remained as ground poles.  Cantering the verticals was easier than cantering the poles because the verticals naturally backed the horses off.

Keep the canter active coming around the corner to the exercise, if you come around the corner and don't see the distance, you have to do something, you can't sit there and do nothing, because nothing good ever comes out of doing nothing, so do something, influence the tempo or the length of stride and don’t be afraid to have made the wrong decision, the fences are small, so the likelihood of getting hurt is quite low, if you make the wrong decision you will at least know to try something different the next time around. If you do nothing, you will never get better because you will have never tried to change the outcome.

If you are having trouble with your horse, remember, while it is not your fault, it is now your problem.  Don't blame yourself for your horse's behavior, but do address it.

Ride your skills. Your skills do not change based on the situation.  Situations may change the pressure you feel, but don't let the pressure trick you into thinking your skills are any different before that pressure was applied.  For example, riding into the stadium arena at the Olympics, you have the same skills that you had a minute before you rode in, so don't let the pressure of  the situation trick you into riding differently.

Exercise two:

Plank vertical to a white gate oxer, on a short-ish 4 stride (walked at 54'). Placing pole before the plank vertical.  Goal was to get a good distance to the plank and then get the four strides to the oxer.  Getting the distance to the plank was the hardest part, once in, the four strides to the oxer were easy to get. The oxer was raised/widened while the plank stayed the same.