Musical Freestyle Clinic Review by Dinah Guarino

With the exception of Old Man Winter hanging around for the weekend of the clinic, the freestyle clinic was a raging success for both auditors and participants.
Ann Guptill arrived at Brookside Farm in Moravia laden with a bag full of CD’s along with lots of ideas for choreography for creating freestyles for our horses. The first day was spent finding the tempi’s for each of our horses, and then trying several pieces of music to match tempi’s for walk, trot and canter. Some riders had jotted down ideas for their choreography. Ann perused these and made suggestions, corrections or alterations. Rider and horse levels ranged from Training Level to Intermediaire one. This allowed both riders and auditors to see the process across the levels, putting in all the compulsory moves required for the particular level.
Comments from riders and auditors were very positive. “Ann Guptill made the process of creating a freestyle manageable by chunking the pieces and putting together the pieces”. Another one noted “Ann Guptill was very organized, pleasant, and put the creating of a freestyle into stages that allowed me to understand the purpose more clearly. She was very creative in her ideas for new movements”.
The only negative comments were related to the weather. In the future we could try to barter with Mother Nature for some tamer weather.
In conclusion, I think we can expect to see more freestyles performed at our future shows. Riders are already organizing for a place and time to practice our choreography in a full size arena, and videotaping in order to put our music to the ride.
Ann Guptill arrived at Brookside Farm in Moravia laden with a bag full of CD’s along with lots of ideas for choreography for creating freestyles for our horses. The first day was spent finding the tempi’s for each of our horses, and then trying several pieces of music to match tempi’s for walk, trot and canter. Some riders had jotted down ideas for their choreography. Ann perused these and made suggestions, corrections or alterations. Rider and horse levels ranged from Training Level to Intermediaire one. This allowed both riders and auditors to see the process across the levels, putting in all the compulsory moves required for the particular level.
Comments from riders and auditors were very positive. “Ann Guptill made the process of creating a freestyle manageable by chunking the pieces and putting together the pieces”. Another one noted “Ann Guptill was very organized, pleasant, and put the creating of a freestyle into stages that allowed me to understand the purpose more clearly. She was very creative in her ideas for new movements”.
The only negative comments were related to the weather. In the future we could try to barter with Mother Nature for some tamer weather.
In conclusion, I think we can expect to see more freestyles performed at our future shows. Riders are already organizing for a place and time to practice our choreography in a full size arena, and videotaping in order to put our music to the ride.
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