Using the techniques of sports psychology, this handbook offers an approach on learning to ride. The authors, instructors of international repute, discuss methods for overcoming fear, focusing the mind and positive thinking, and offer advice on how to eradicate faults, make rapid progress and eliminate competition nerves. They examine the precise detail of how to ride, starting from the basics. They analyze the rider's position at halt and in motion, in walk, trot and canter, and over jumps, and describe the aids for a variety of ridden exercises, including circles, turns, half-turns, leg-yield, half turn on the forehand and rein-back. The instruction is so specific that in every exercise the rider should know, even before starting to ride the movement, exactly what he is supposed to be doing and how he should set about achieving it. Using feedback and mental rehearsal, he should also know how to repeat the movement successfully.
