Browsing by Subject "meditation"

Mindfulness is an increasingly used method both in sports and in educational contexts. One field where mindfulness is not quite used yet is horseback riding and riding pedagogy. Pre-vious research shows that mindfulness meditation can for example enhance concentration, body awareness and the acceptance of feelings. The aim of this study is to analyze how mindfulness can be used in riding pedagogy to support learning and improve the rider’s per-formance. The research questions are: Does mindful learning as a method promote teaching horseback riding? How do students experience the use of mindfulness in training? The research approach of the study was Design-Based Research. Also fenomenology was partly used. The collection of the data took place in April 2018 and the sample consists of eight (8) amateur equestrians. All the equestrians were women and some of them had horses partially as a profession, but mostly they were all leisure riders. All of them owned at least one horse and they rode several times a week. The respondents got a recorded body scan-meditation praxis that they were supposed to listen to at least six (6) times in two weeks time. Further, they all got an individual focus area, which they were ought to concen-trate on extra carefully. For example, one individual focus area was the stability in the pel-vis. Both observation and qualitative semi structured interviews were used as research methods. The material was analyzed inductively. The results show that mindfulness has a place in modern riding pedagogy – the respond-ents had positive experiences of using mindfulness in riding. Their experiences varied sligthly, depending on earlier experiences. Also attitude and temperament can affect how the respondents feel about using mindfulness in riding. It is commonly known that the horse is the mirror of the rider, and the respondents in the study confirmed that. All of them wit-nessed that the horse gave immediate response when the rider herself was more mindful and aware of the situation and her own body. They also experienced that their body awa-reness increased and they felt they could better accept their own weaknesses. A renewal of riding pedagogy was welcomed. More pedagogical methods, where both the rider and the horse feel safe, are needed.