Stories & Inspiration
Honoring My Mentors – #2 Sally Swift
Day #2 of honoring my mentors. Sally Swift has been one of the big influences in my life. Let me share with you what I learned from her.
Sally Swift
As the founder of Centered Riding®, Sally Swift has changed the way riders see their own role. It’s not about the horse not doing this or not doing that, it’s about what you need to do inside of yourself to be a rider that can help the horse move well and happily.
How awesome is that?
During my time at university, I came across Sally Swift’s first book. This was so different to anything I had heard about horse riding before. I wanted THIS: I wanted to improve the use of my body and mind to be able to communicate subtly with my horse. Body to body, mind to mind.
I tried learning from the book but that wasn’t so easy. When I finally had the chance to participate in the first European Centered Riding Instructor training in 1992, I was hooked.
I took many more trainings over the next 3 decades to become a Centered Riding clinician, and it has been a cornerstone of my teaching ever since.
What is inspiring:
The depth of exploring how the body/mind of a rider work and using imagery to make the rider truly FEEL what needs to happen in her body. And: what also really inspires me is that Sally Swift wrote her first book and built this international organization when she was over 60! So, what excuse do we have? Lol.
Most important thing I learned:
Really understanding your body/mind from within makes you a good rider.