Articles
The Flying Changes Saddlery Qld State Squad Training Camp
Me, Amy Zeller, Tracey Round and Mandy Finnimore.
Anita and Jayden watching the world cup on video
“I think my horse has better socks than that one”
Let’s talk Dressage
Tracey, Anita, Mandy, Lease, Keran, Jayden and me!
Oh, and Amy!
On the weekend of the 11th-13th of January, members of the 2007 and 2008 Qld State Dressage squads together with the organizing committee of the Qld Festival of Dressage were invited to attend a training camp at Noosa North Shore resort.
This venue was originally chosen as we had planned to take our horses along but thanks to our mate “EI” this did not happen. Once we had enjoyed a couple of glasses of wine at dusk rather than feeding/walking/fussing over our horses we all came to see the benefit of leaving the horses behind!
Noosa North Shore proved to be a fantastic venue. The holiday houses were five star and all very new. Each house accommodated eight people in a fairly luxurious way. The houses were all fully air-conditioned and self contained although all of our meals were held at the Resort. The food for the whole weekend was delicious and there was plenty of it!
The atmosphere of the camp was relaxed, friendly and very positive. Each evening after dinner we stayed together as a group to discuss this year’s Dressage festival (which will be even better than last year!!) and the future direction of QLD dressage and the roles that the squads should play. We made some exciting plans and all participants were involved in the discussion.
The Saturday morning program started with a session with Sports Psychologist, Jonah Oliver. Jonah’s focus for the morning was on dealing with anxiety to enable peak performance levels. We all agreed that Jonah’s lack of experience with anything to do with dressage, if anything, made his session even more valuable to us.
In Jonah’s opinion, Dressage contains every challenge that he has to help athletes deal with. He was very impressed that we were together as a group for the weekend and only wished that other squads that he worked with would do the same.
In the afternoon we met one of the squad sponsors, Ken Ford from Equigenics. Ken discussed the products that he is encouraging the squad members to try. I am very excited by feeding the great products from Equigenics and HYGAIN, I am sure my horses will look and feel fantastic.
Saturday afternoon’s fitness session was a yoga class. Our instructor was lovely and I do think that I was more flexible at the end than what I was at the start (which wouldn’t be hard!). There was a bit giggling going on and I have concluded that Mandy Finnimore and I were the most un-supple camp participants!
All those who went on the weekend think that they had the ‘best house of people” so I guess that means we all had a good time. I know we all stayed up late talking and laughing in our house and I miss my “big brother’ housemates already!
Sunday morning came and it was time for Keran Ainslie, the Squad’s publicity officer, to talk to us about what we can do to help raise the profile of Dressage. Keran is extremely well qualified and experienced in marketing and media and we are lucky to have her on board. Her talk was passionate and interesting and we all came away excited about our sport and where we were taking it.
Sunday afternoon allowed us some time to participate in the High ropes challenge. This was a team bonding exercise that was great fun and more than a little challenging. Linda Shore is afraid of nothing!
In between dangling from ropes 20 meters up, we had a one on one session with the selectors to discuss our training goals for 2008. This was a great opportunity to get some feedback and advice from the selectors in a relaxed atmosphere.
To summarise, the weekend was informative, fun, relaxing, interesting, challenging, and very positive. I don’t think we could have crammed any more in! I for one can’t wait for the next one.