This is a list of the types of clinics Karen offers. She is happy to customize her clinics to your needs.
Ask about fundraisers for Pony clubs, 4-H groups, and Therapeutic Riding Centers
Discipline Specific Clinics
Disciplines:
- Classical and Western Dressage
- Hunt Seat
- Jumping
- Western Pleasure
- English and Western Equitation
Professional Credentials
- American Riding Instructor Association (ARIA) Test Center Administrator
- ARIA Certified Level III Dressage Instructor
- ARIA Certified Level II Hunt Seat Instructor
- Certified Ride-Right Level III Instructor
- Western Dressage Association “Train the Trainers” Graduate
Liberty and Groundwork Clinics
RPH Groundwork Clinics provide the rider with a fresh perspective on how their horse moves and a deeper awareness of tensions within the horse. This adds an important dimension to the rider’s understanding of their horse’s body, and the suppling, strengthening, and conditioning the horse needs to perform well.
Groundwork allows the handler to refine his or her skills and aids. Riders leave the clinic with new tools that they can use at home to school a green horse, relax a mount prior to riding, reduce lameness while improving performance, and most importantly–improve their equine partnership.
Equine Biomechanics Clinics
Karen explains to riders the importance of creating and maintaining efficient and healthy topline posture and movement within their horses.
The clinics focus on:
- supple swinging equine back and the difference between back-movers and leg movers
- well-developed long head and neck axis and its effects on the horses ability to easily carry the rider
- yielding soft hand during training
“What is absolutely essential for the training of the horse is an understanding of the links between muscular function and the skeleton working in combination during the different phases of training and exercises. This applies to whichever type of equine activity has been chosen.” – Klaus Balkenhol, a USA Olympic Dressage coach, states in The Rider Forms the Horse
Rider Biomechanics Clinics
“Connecting the Rider’s body with the Horse’s Movement”
Let’s improve our body awareness, fitness, and co-ordination so that we can connect to our horse’s movement for more enjoyment while riding.
Karen’s Rider Biomechanics Clinics focus on how to develop awareness in our riding so that we can efficiently and gracefully connect to our horses’ movement. The format progresses through a series of exercises that help the rider first with body awareness and then with other exercises designed to develop strength, endurance and coordination.
Format for the clinics
The clinics start with a PowerPoint lecture that clearly describes the goals needed to develop the balanced and connected seat. Then the information is transferred onto the horse through exercises in individual or group sessions. One of Karen’s two-day clinics can cover 50+ easy to learn and understand unmounted and mounted exercises that connect the rider’s movement to the horse’s movement. The clinics are designed for lots of exploration, awareness, mindfulness, and FUN!!!!!!!
Clinic FAQ
Thank you very much for your interest in organizing a clinic with Karen Ososki. Below you will find answers to the most commonly asked questions we receive. Please read through them and when you are ready to go forward with planning, please contact us at: Clinics@KarenOsoski.com
Scheduling
If you are a Clinic Organizer outside of Montana, please give yourself several months to organize your clinic. Karen has a full schedule and it may be some time before she can come to you. However, we are very interested in working with motivated horse people and we do take all inquiries very seriously.
If you are in Montana, Karen’s schedule is more flexible.
Is Karen the right clinician for you?
Karen is extensively certified to teach through ARIA and her 35 plus years of riding and training across all disciplines. She is first and foremost an educator and advocate for the horse and uses riding and ground work to help riders develop calm, attentive and confident horses that are a pleasure to ride – and are fit, supple and responsive whether they are doing dressage, jumping or simply hacking. She is a calm and supportive clinician who focuses on developing each rider and horse pair’s individual best without stress and tension that impair the horse’s and rider’s ability to learn and retain new information.