I started riding when I was four years old, and more than forty years later, I am still fascinated by the same relationship that captured me then: what happens between a horse and a human being when the two try to move, understand, and communicate together.

Over the years, I have been a student, competitor, instructor, bodyworker, coach, and lifelong horsewoman.

But perhaps most importantly, I have remained a rider.

And riding has never stopped giving me questions.

It grew out of years of trying to solve problems that didn't always seem to have answers in traditional riding instruction.

Like most riders, I was taught what to do.

Sit taller. Put your leg here. Move your hand there. Use more seat. Don't lean. Relax.

Sometimes those instructions worked.

Sometimes they didn't.

And the longer I taught, the more interested I became in why.

Why can one rider make a correction easily while another cannot?

Why does a rider understand an instruction intellectually but struggle to make it happen physically?

Why does fear change the way someone moves?

Why can a rider perform beautifully on one horse and struggle on another?

Why do experienced riders develop patterns they cannot feel?

And why, when something isn't working between horse and rider, are we so often quicker to examine the horse than the person sitting on them?

Those questions changed the direction of my work.

My search for answers eventually took me beyond traditional riding instruction and deeper into the human body.

I became a Licensed Massage Therapist and studied approaches including Myoskeletal Alignment, Myofascial Release, and Active Isolated Stretching. 

I began looking at riders not simply as people who needed better position, but as human bodies with individual histories, movement patterns, restrictions, compensations, strengths, and limitations.

That changed the way I taught.

But biomechanics alone wasn't enough.

Because riders aren't just bodies.

We think. We learn. We anticipate. We become afraid. We gain confidence. We misunderstand. We develop habits. We solve problems. We feel—or sometimes cannot feel—what is happening beneath us.

The more closely I studied riders, the clearer it became:

If we want to develop better riding, we have to develop the whole rider.

That realization eventually became Riderology.

My perspective wasn't built only from teaching other people.

It was built from being a rider myself.

I've experienced breakthroughs and frustration. Confidence and doubt. Horses who made things feel easy and horses who exposed everything I still needed to learn.

I've even been told, more than once in my riding life, that I couldn't ride.

Those experiences could have made me chase harder after the appearance of being a good rider.

Instead, over time, they made me much more interested in becoming one.

That distinction now sits at the heart of my work.

I don't believe good riders are people who have eliminated every weakness, mastered every skill, or reached some imaginary point where they no longer struggle.

I believe good riders remain curious.

They take responsibility for their half of the partnership.

They keep learning.

And they are willing to change themselves when changing themselves may make things better for the horse.

I'm still doing that work, too.

Not a discipline.

Not a type of horse.

Riders.

My work combines decades of horsemanship with riding instruction, human movement, biomechanics, body awareness, education, and practical problem-solving.

Sometimes that means helping a rider understand why they continually collapse to one side.

Sometimes it means discovering why sitting the trot feels impossible.

Sometimes the problem isn't physical at all.

And sometimes the most important thing I can do is help a rider recognize what they are already doing well.

I don't believe every rider needs the same solution.

I believe we need to understand the person in front of us well enough to discover what their next step needs to be.

Because developing better riders isn't about creating one ideal rider.

It is about helping each rider become more capable of meeting the horse beneath them.

I am the founder of Riderology™ and The Rider's Mechanic™, a Certified Riding Instructor and Licensed Massage Therapist specializing in riders.

I work with riders through private coaching, clinics, workshops, movement and biomechanics education, writing, and the continuing development of Riderology.

My riding background has crossed disciplines, but today I compete in Working Equitation and continue my own education as both a rider and horsewoman.

I am also writing Riderology, a book devoted to something I believe our industry has needed for a long time: a comprehensive framework for understanding how riders develop physically, mentally, emotionally, and technically throughout a lifetime of horsemanship.

Because after all these years, I am more convinced than ever that better horsemanship doesn't begin only with understanding the horse.

It also begins with understanding ourselves.

That may be the most important thing I can tell you about me.

I don't stand outside Riderology as the person who has completed the process.

I'm in it.

Every horse I ride asks something different of me. Every student makes me think. Every question leads to another question. And every year I understand something about riding that 

I couldn't have understood the year before.

I expect that to continue for the rest of my life.

Because there is no finished rider.

There is only the rider we are today—

and the rider we are still capable of becoming.