ICP California

I just got in last night from my trip to Lake View Terrace, CA (just North of LA) where I completed the dressage section of my USEA Instructor's Certification Program for Level II.  Workshops are held throughout the country.  I chose to fly to California to get a perspective on what eventing is like on the West Coast and so that Brian and I could visit the San Jose and Gilroy area where he used to live.

Our instructor for the week was Brian Sabo.  I had never met Brian before, though he is a well known West Coast trainer.  He and his wife Lisa run an active teaching and training business and one of Brian's star pupils is Gina Miles.

The dressage workshop was very informative.  I found Brian to be knowledgeable and personable.  I had an arsenal of clarification questions going into the workshop and he was very thorough in his answers.  I feel that the workshop will make me a better rider and a better coach.  When I first signed up for the ICP program I was not overly excited about going through the process of it.  By the end of the program this summer, not including the cost of the workshops and the assessment, I will have taken three weeks away from my horses and my students, traveling on my own dime.  The workshop days are also pretty grueling.  On the first day we sat for twelve hours.  The second and third days begin to feel like a marathon.  To my surprise, however, I came away from this workshop wanting to take the next round of workshops, the level III/IV workshops.  In early September I will take my assessment as a Level II, or CCI* level instructor.  From my experience in the workshops, the clinicians and I feel that I am more of a level III or CCI** level instructor.  In order to be a candidate for a Level III certification, however, you must have three or more students riding at the intermediate level or higher.  This is not currently the case, but I hope that within the next year it will be.  I know that even now I feel comfortable teaching at that level. 

My fellow instructor candidates were all California residents.  We had a good time together.  I was impressed with how different the farms were from what we have in this part of the country.  The farm where we worked was cut into the side of a hill.  It was all sand, with not a speck of grass in sight.  The property was about eleven acres and was owned by upper level event rider Susan Friend LeTourneur.  She took me on a tour one afternoon.  The front of the property had two rings, a dressage ring and a jumping ring.  It also had a cross country jumping field.  All of the riding areas looked the same because even the cross country "field" was sand.  The cross country field, however, had corners and ditches and banks and water.  To hack, you rode your horse straight up the side of the mountain and then walked along a ridge line path around the back side of the property and came back down into one of the rings.  The setup was very ingenious and even though I have never seen anything like it, I can see that it works.

I am now back in Plymouth Meeting for several weeks.  Tomorrow I compete in my second annual SheROX triathlon down by the Art Museum.  My students Lynn Rzonca and Heather Ferrell are also competing.  

Off to sit on a horse!

Ashley