Three C:s to check before riding. 

-Connection 

-Confidence 

-Cues (aids)

This is a modified version of a horsemanship structure I learned when first starting pony clubbing. The meaning is to assess your horse (and yourself) to keep you and your horse under threshold and communicating well. 

Back then the focus was more on an obedient horse, in my teaching I focus more on a horse that sees the environment as a resource and is fine communicating any uncertainty about it back to the rider. Whether the rider sits on the horse or work from the ground. 

Connection: how’s your two way communication working? Is your horse an active participant in their training?

Confidence: are you calm and relaxed in the environment you work in? Do you have an exit strategy? Remember your own relaxation as well. Avoid situations where one of you feel to afraid to have connection. 

Cues (aids). Is it clear what’s what? Can you communicate with different body parts. From halt and go to sidemovements, depending on your level. I meet a lot of horses who think the reins are for moving forward (!). Not ideal in most situations. 

Everything doesn’t have to be perfect all the time. But a baseline of all three Cs will help you succeed and help you structure your sessions. 

For more on my training and teaching, check: rewardbasedriding.com

To work with the horse while the horse is standing still, in a halt or just parking, is something I am very passionate about. 

When we talk about working in halt many think about the "full" school halt. However that is a tool being closer to the end of all the work we can do in halt.

And the goal is not the school halt itself but what it the journey towards it can bring to our horse and training. Even if we don't get there!
To improve the whole horse in both standing and movement, to gymnastize and to educate, clarify or improve the secondary aids.

In the podcast I refer to this blog post showing how it can look in pictures: https://www.rewardbasedriding.com/post/the-school-halt
And to this video, how it can look in movement:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pk0aLT5pjzM&t=37s

Thanks for tuning in!

Angelica

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

In this episode we chat about how session structure helped us create more balance and relaxation and how "pause" can be used as a structure tool.

I am joined by the lovely dutch horse trainer Do Groen and together we share from our experience from when we started training reward based and give some examples how it can look when we do a session today.

If you wanna reach us as a team, send us an e-mail HERE

LINKS MENTIONED

Reward Based Horse Academy:
Two week hands-on practical course in January

Horses with Choices: Do's Instagram
Reward Based Art of Riding: Angelicas dressage teaching

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

In this episode I'm answering a few questions about me and where I come from. You´ll find the questions in the chapters if you are interested in a specific one. But it is everything from: How long have you been using R+ and what were your biggest challenges in th beginning to my favorite exercise.

Phew...now it is done! :D 

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

In this episode:
Coming from the view on horse training as something that we do to help the horse become better at being a horse, we will have look at different ways to create physical and emotional balance.

This is the key to relaxation and connection and a gymnastically sound horse. But how does it look and how do we get there? Are there different kinds of balance. Can we have to much of it?

We are starting to scratch the surface in which directions we can look for and how to set up balanced sessions and create balance between behaviors. For sure there's PLENTY  more to dive into but it's a start.

Thanks for listening!

If you wanna share your thoughts you´ll find the email HERE.


Upcoming webinar and workshop:

WEBINAR: Straightening the crooked R+ horse

Practical WORKSHOP: Training with food rewards

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

This somewhat a continuation from our mutual Riding Workshop.
Here we are chatting about how to start with reward based riding.
Presenting different alternatives.

We both have go to preferred options about how to go about this, but as always, there are many ways to Rome. You are the one deciding what is best for you and your horse <3

Ways to access more of our teaching:
You'll find more about me at https://www.rewardbasedriding.com/
And Hannah at https://connectiontraining.com/

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

Today I am joined by lovely Susanna Davisson from Hästvis.

We talk about trying to read the clues our horses behaviors gives us when we are interacting or training together. And how seeing them as clues help us be better at adapting our training.

Susanna has a membership group in Swedish where talking and learning to read body languages and emotions is a very important part. You will find exercises for both horses and humans. You will find it here:
https://hastvis.mykajabi.com/

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

A talk about Feldenkrais, horses and feel with Caroline Ritter.

Bodý awareness is about exploring for both of us. 
But in a little different ways.
Here we are exploring our thoughts on the subject. 

If you are interested exploring together with us we have an upcoming series of lesson starting with ”Connection”

It will consist of us talking strategies how we can show up more connected in our own body as a preparation to connect more with our horse. Followed by a Feldenkrais lesson on the same subject.

More about that here: https://www.rewardbasedriding.com/shop

Wanna know more about Carro, you can find her at:
 https://www.feldenkrais.wien

https://www.discocavallo.com

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

In this episode we talk about lovely Ellen and our journey to help her become less crooked and more emotionally and physically balanced. Thiis episode one so if you have questions for the next episode...let me know.

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

This episode sprung out from a passionate listener mail and conversation and is dedicated to training our older horses to help keep them fit.

I talk a bit general and give examples from my own training with my older horses.


You can find examples of most exercises I talk about on my social media: https://www.facebook.com/hesselius.angelica/
https://www.instagram.com/reward_based_art_of_riding/

Or, if you are patient, in the upcoming halt course. 



Thanks for listening! 
If you wanna support this podcast the best way is to subscribe.  

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

Joined by my good friends and awesome humans Do Groen and Ulrika Anderasson we are continuing on with the newly made tradition of picking one word for the year to come.

So last year a friend of mine sent me this idea to pick a word to set the tone for the upcoming year. I quite love it. The idea is to choose a word that will work as kind of polestar. It will help you navigate. It will help you with perspective. ”It is both the port of call and the wind at your back helping you get there. It pushes and pulls you”.

 The idea is also to activily choose the word for the year not to have the year choose it for you in retrospect.  Here we chat a little about our thoughts and hopes for the coming year. 

More Ulrika: http://www.ullisrudolf.se/
More Do: https://www.rewardbasedhorseacademy.com/ or https://www.instagram.com/horseswithchoices/

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

Core skills and foundation behaviors. Why do we need them, what are they and why should we spend time building them?? Doesn't matter what we want to do with our horses, these behaviors can be used to build whatever we want…but if we want to build dressage in new ways without guiding our horse with pressure this is of great importance.

What are the first behaviors that we should train our horses?
This is going to be my personal answer but some of the behaviors I include here are more universal for r+ trainer I think.....havent met an r+ trainer who doesnt work with targets for example.

Here you can find me:

If you have questions or wanna contact me about courses or teaching, please send me an email via my home page below thanks :)


Reward Based Riding my courses, teaching and blog.
Facebook where I update most frequent
Instagram short form content
You Tube-longer videos and training

You can find more info about Ulrika's lovely teaching and training here: https://www.ullisrudolf.se/

SESSION PLANNER here: https://www.rewardbasedridingschool.com/

If you have questions or thoughts around the episode, we're happy to hear them via MAIL

Angelica and Do talk about how the first school term, the future and why the basics are so important for the reward based trainer.

If you wanna learn more, join or read about upcoming school terms, have a look here:
https://www.rewardbasedridingschool.com/

This episode is a recording from the CT Club, where I had a great conversation with Hannah Weston, followed by a Q&A for our active members.

We talk about how to set up those very first trot transitions from the saddle, and what we each focus on to make it work. A lot of it comes back to:

• Checking that the trot is well-prepared from the ground

• Re-training cues if you’ve previously relied on pressure and struggled with motivation

• Using the environment to help build duration and decide how long we can stay in trot

It’s also important to remember that stopping and reinforcing frequently is physically demanding for our horses, and something we need to consider carefully in the training process.

👉 Want to join the Riding School?

: https://www.rewardbasedridingschool.com/

Reward-based training isn’t just one way of working with horses — it’s a whole world of ideas, techniques, and creative approaches. Here Hannah Weston, Do Groen and Angelica Hesselius talks a little bit about their views on dialect in your practical training and why that enriches the world :P We also go into our mutual project:

https://www.rplushorsesummit.com

At this summit, you’ll meet trainers from across the globe — from pioneers to fresh, emerging voices — each showing how they bring the same core principles to life in their own unique way. You’ll explore practical sessions, watch training in action, and join in theory talks that deepen your understanding. It’s not just about the horses — we’ll also explore reward-based training for us humans, alongside body awareness through Feldenkrais and Yoga. Because the way we move, think, and feel directly shapes our partnership with our horses. Whether you’re a professional or simply love spending time with horses, you’ll feel welcome here. Expect real conversations, genuine connection, and tools you can take home and use right away.

Reinforcement follows the same principles across species — but bodies, emotions, and contexts differ. In this episode, we talk about reinforcement and reinforcers across horses, dogs, and reindeer, and what cross-species training can teach us about food, movement, arousal, reward delivery, and thoughtful trainer choices.

If you want to join on Monday the 12th of January (11 A.M Central European Time) go to: CLASSROOM: https://www.rewardbasedridingschool.com/the-classroom

To read more or visit Ulrika at her ranch: https://www.ullisrudolf.se