Encouraging Riders to make their own Decisions.

The following lesson plan I used at all my Rda sessions one week, I wanted to encourage the riders to chose where they wanted to ride and also interact with their helpers as at one of the Rda groups that I coach at, there's several riders that are on the autistic spectrum some of which find it difficult to interact with people.

I used poles to make a cross in the middle of the school, allowing enough distance between the pole for the riders and their helpers to walk between without walking on a pole. Each pair of  poles were a matching colour.

  I had an upright and a bucket by each set of poles with items in the buckets and on the uprights.

  I also had a row of cones down one side, I put cones out down a side in most riding sessions that I teach or coach in because while riders are mounting at the start of the sessions, riders already mounted can be steering through these cones or practice their halting by stopping at each cone, rather that just walking around the arena, this is a good way to stimulate riders while they are warming up and waiting for the session to commence.

I did various things with this plan.

1. To start with I got riders to ride their horses through the poles,first down the centre line and across the middle from 'B' to 'E'.
2. I then got them walk through a set of poles then to turn left or right when getting to 'X' and walk through a set of poles to leave the cross.
3. The riders then had to do the same again but this time they chose which colour poles to walk through into the cross and then chose which way to turn and go through the poles to come out of the cross.
4. I then asked the riders to halt between the poles that they walked through into and out of the cross.
5. Riders then collected something of a tray and walked through the poles at 'X' they chose whether to go straight on or turn either to the left or right, going through the poles before placing their item on the tray.
6. The riders did the same as above but this time chose something out a bucket and place it in another bucket.
7. I then got the riders to halt when they went through each set of poles, while they were taking an item.

The helpers encouraged riders to chose were they wanted to go and what item they wanted, The riders had to interact with the leader before the horses were allowed to go where the riders wanted.

Doing this sort of exercise allows me the opportunity to stand back and watch how the riders work with their helpers and to observe  how the rider is riding and if there is anything that needs to be addressed.

When doing this I get a lot of feedback from the helpers about the riders, another comment from helpers is that they feel that they can interact and work better with the riders, so feeling that they are valued.