The Personal Training System from SoundRiding….

I have been teaching now for longer than I care to remember!

Spending hour upon hour projecting ones voice, often in difficult weather conditions meaning extra effort to be heard is required, means 2 things, one, you end up losing your voice (not ideal!) or secondly your riders not hearing you and often missing crucial instruction.

A couple of years ago I attended the British Dressage National Championships and while perusing the retail stands – as you must- I came across the SoundRiding System stand. We had a chat about the system and tried one out, my friend who I was with had never used one before whereas I had worn one with a previous trainer, she was very impressed with the system and purchased one for me to teach her with.

As mentioned I have worn one before so was familiar with how the rider felt receiving instruction, but when I was the trainer I could immediately tell the difference in how my friend reacted. The system however belonged to her, so it was pretty much a once a week usage.

I ummed and arghed for another year whether I should spend my hard earned money on the system, after all they are not cheap!

The nationals arrived 2014, once again I perused all the trade stands and found another type of system being launched but after a demonstration and a look at the system I found myself heading towards the SoundRiding stand…

Yet again I found myself trying one out, and once again being impressed! The decision was made, I purchased one!

There are one way and two way systems, I opted for the one way as I feel when you get into a “conversation” while training, the “moment” can easily be missed, although my riders feel it is more like I can’t hear them answer back!!

Since September 2014 I have used it on virtually every rider, from beginners to helping riders warm up at competitions, EVERY rider has confirmed that this has indeed made a big difference to their sessions, being able to react quickly before the “moment” passed, hearing every instruction clearly rather than having to second guess if I wasn’t quite heard and not having to have me stood in the “middle” to instruct or distract the horse, something which can happen when they are particularly used to voice commands, for example when I would say “prepare to trot” often the horse would lock onto my words rather than the riders aids.

The money I spent was a gamble, but 4 months on and I feel I couldn’t have spent it more wisely.

Some of the benefits of the SoundRiding system:

• Lightweight
• Easy to use
• Battery powered, standard AA type
• Riders are able to react quicker
• Horses aren’t distracted
• Excellent for use in Warm up arenas
• Encourages a relaxed training session
• Trainers keep their voices longer!!
• There are different channels to teach a group of riders but still keep it individual (each rider would require their own headset)
• Comes with a 3year guarantee

I can’t believe I left it so long to purchase it!!