Lesson Barn
I love to teach and lessons are a huge part of all things Kalsem training. Whether with my regular students, a “drop-in” for a pre show refresher or as a clinician I love to teach.
I have been teaching students since my 1986. My first student was a young horseman with his first horse who wanted to learn to ride after I trained his horse. Not only did he learn to ride but he even showed his mare successfully in a few open shows and trail rode extensively. 
Brought up on western horses my family all played a role in my equine education. My grandfather made sure I had a horse, my father (a journeyman farrier) made sure it had good pedals (and paid for most of it), my mother hauled us all over. We rode with friends in EVERY aspect of equestrian sports EXCEPT Dressage and Jumping.
After selling a few family horses that my family and I had trained I got very serious about my training education. I was actively working and showing Western Pleasure horses and dabbling in Reining horses when I saw a brilliant demo at the Iowa Horse Fair. It was not just a riding or training demo but actually a Dressage movement demo. It was there I found my thrill, one stride lead changes WOW now that looked like fun. So my poor little western pony suddenly became a dressage horse. I didn’t change my tack but I gathered some books and READ and tried it, and READ and tried it and this goes on this way a while…..I tried a lot of dressage things while things were coming together in my Western career.
I managed to get my little horse down to 3 stride changes just before he got a new family.
In the mean time I also made him jump. Yes my western pleasure horse jumped 40″ much happier than he EVER did anything western. I found out years later the english saddle I learned to jump on was not only, probably, a polo style saddle but it was also about four inches too big for me. huh? Who knew? Who cared ? It was fun!
In my late 20’s because of a bet (I may have been pontificating on my training greatness) I entered Iowa Games. After my first cross country experience I was hooked for life. All of the things I had been learning about balancing and controlling my horses body really came full circle when I started using dressage and jumping to train my horses. I really believe there is no horse and rider combination that can not benefit from the discipline and balance dressage training offers.
A self proclaimed life long learner I still read a ton and I love to take clinics and lessons. So when I saw the opportunity to join the USEA’s (United States Eventing Association) Instructor Certification program I was very excited. It was rather expensive but after completing it I can enthusiastically say that the knowledge gained from the experience was more than worth the admission price. I am a Level I USEA Certified Instructor and better at everything I do because of it. In addition the my ICP I have also done the classroom work for the USEA L judge program. That too was a great learning experience and a ton of fun because my oldest daughter went with me.
Even if your not interested in jumping or dressage or even trotting I bet we can find fun things for you to enjoy at Kalsem Training. Besides lessons we hack out around our lovely farm frequently, sometimes we get to go hunting, sometimes we just play and we ALWAYS need ground crew (jump setters and a water barer) so feel free to come around and stay a while we think you will enjoy it.
