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News - Tips - Insights

OnForm Partners With Golf Insider UK For Expert Tips and Techniques To Improve Your Golf Game

1/7/2021

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We're excited to announce that we have partnered with Golf Insider UK to bring you golf tips and practice techniques to help you raise your game.  Will Shaw, founder, is a golf professional focused on using deliberate practice and scientifically proven techniques to drive high performance learning. Alongside his applied work, Will lectures at Leeds Beckett University on the topics of sports biomechanics and skill acquisition.

We've chosen to work with Will  because the combination of OnForm video analysis along with his training techniques are a perfect compliment to ensure your development as a golfer.  You'll be able to use our Practice Partner feature to automatically capture every swing, and make improvements with pinpoint feedback. 


Will brings deliberate practice to the self-coached golfer looking to make real improvements. If you're serious about getting better at golf, there's no better way than with specific, structured training provided by an expert, and Golf Insider has loads of articles to help you make real progress.  "We're so excited to work with Will and Golf Insider UK, his approach to learning along with OnForm's video analysis platform is an ideal way to make real improvement" - Gear Fisher, Co-Founder of OnForm.

​Check out golfinsideruk.com today and be sure to use OnForm when you're on the practice tee so you can review every shot.





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Customer Profile with Erik Schjolberg, PGA Golf Instructor

12/31/2020

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This interview was conducted over email. Erik has been a phenomenal early adopter of OnForm and has helped us perfect the app for golf instructors.  He's made the switch to OnForm, read on to see why and how he's using it.

Tell us about yourself (disciplines you coach, how long, successes etc)
  • Close to 30 years of teaching experience.
  • PGA Associate
  • TPI Certified (level 1 and 2)
I like to work with every level of golfer. I have had a motto from the very beginning that no golfer is going to get worse during our practice session. I hear too often that students are told that they are going to get worse before they get better. My goal is to get my students to understand what we are working on and why. I accomplish this by using video at the beginning of a lesson, show the student what we are going to work on and why we are going to work on that. I then shoot some video at the end to document the improvement and best of all send my students a 5-10 minute video lesson within 24-48 hours of their visit. This video lesson will show their swing along with drills we are working on to accomplish our goal and maybe even other golfers so they can see the correct positions.

All that being said. I follow the updated ball flight laws. I care where your ball goes. The first question you may hear from me is, tell me about your ball flight. Then we must have control of our club face before we worry about our path. Students are always amazed by how getting them in the correct posture and alignment with a good grip can make such a huge difference in their ball flight.

Lastly, I try to uncomplicate the golf swing so my students can be athletic and not focused on 10 different things they are supposed to be doing. I accomplish this through dynamic drills and focusing on one fix that will cure a few different issues. So, typically, my students are working on one area at a time and experience has taught me where to focus to get the greatest benefit.

How did you hear about OnForm and how did you get started with it?
I found OnForm on the App Store.

Have you used video in your coaching in the past?
I was using another app at the time I found OnForm. I was unhappy with many of the functions of the other app which is what led me to look for another app to take its place.

What features do you find most useful?
There are tons of features that I love. The best part of this app is that everything is contained within it. What I mean by that is, I never have to leave the app for anything having to do with my students and lessons. From all of our communications between each other (students), pdf’s I send of launch monitor data, lesson videos, etc. all of it is captured in OnForm. There is no more going to your text messages, email program, photos app, etc. to organize everything per student.

What are the main things you use with the app like the video analysis, chat or comparison features?
I can’t think of a function that I don’t use.

What do your students think about using it?
The students all love it and have told me, the ones that switched from V1 that they like this much better. Easier to navigate.

How is it helping?
OnForm has saved me hours and hours per week. I used to spend so much time looking for files, videos, communications, etc., that I don’t have to do anymore. Features like auto capture works so good that I can count on it to take great videos so I can focus on what I want to during the lesson. 

Is it opening up new ways of generating income for your coaching business?
Not that I have seen yet. Maybe in the future.

Do you have suggestions for others getting started with it?
I would just tell them, and have, go all in. With the mass transfer feature it isn’t hard to move everything over. Keep your old product for a month or so just to make sure you have everything before they cancel it.

Has there been anything surprising you've found while using it?
The accuracy of the auto capture is crazy accurate. I love it!

What features do you wish it had?
I hope one day there is the ability to link this with my Trackman.  ( -great suggestion, we'd love that too!)

Have you used it to prescribe workouts?
I use it all the time for workouts and lessons.

Any other comments or suggestions?
Look into offering, if possible, integration with Trackman. 
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Many thanks to Erik for taking the time to talk about how he's using OnForm from the perspective of a seasoned Golf Instructor. 

-Gear Fisher
Co-Founder, OnForm, Inc.

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Comparing OnForm with CoachNow for Golf Instructors

11/11/2020

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Golf instructors are starting to take notice of our platform. Because we integrate video feedback, sharing and text communications into one simple platform, instructors are seeing benefits like increased efficiency, better communication and faster student development.  When we started to build OnForm, we surveyed the existing apps in the marketplace and felt a strong need to create something new that leverages the latest in UI/UX and the latest advancements in computer vision techniques.

CoachNow is one of the apps that has been on the market for several years, and they've created good tool. But where they stop, we've focused. Our people-first design eliminates the confusion between spaces, segments, feeds and posts.  We wanted to create a platform with simpler terminology, that just worked the way you work. We call it our people-first architecture. So far, our users have appreciated the intuitive UI and straightforward design esthetic. The app was designed to get out of your way, let you do your job, and be there when you need it, wherever you need it.  

If you're looking for a modern software platform that you can rely on which improves student engagement and makes coaching fun, give OnForm a try.  From our auto-detect swing capture camera, to our crazy simple sharing features and our time saving notifications and organization, you'll appreciate the attention we've given to every detail.

​Download OnForm today and see what people are talking about... and best of all, we're just getting started. We've got some seriously cool, useful tricks up our sleeves, and we look forward to bringing them to life so you can focus on being the best golf instructor you can be.

I invite you to download OnForm today and I'd love to personally give you a 1:1 Zoom demo to get you going quickly.

Thanks for your support!
-Gear Fisher
Co-Founder, OnForm, Inc.
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Golf Instruction Platform Comparison: OnForm vs. V1 Pro

11/4/2020

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OnForm vs. V1 Pro - Golf Coaching Platform Comparsion
Golf instructors are busy folks. Managing student communications, lessons, scheduling and finding time to play a round, let alone spend quality time with the family is a big challenge. Enabling you to coach more efficiently and save time are what we're focused on.  We believe in coaching: expert instruction to guide people to achieve their true potential. It's a rewarding endeavor to help others achieve their dreams.  Providing you tools to grow your business and be more efficient is our mission, and that's why we created OnForm.

Our vision for OnForm has been to create a coaching platform that takes advantage of recent advancements in computer vision, user interface and the Cloud to create easy to use, yet incredibly powerfuL apps for golf instructors. We aim to help grow your business and engage your students in exciting new ways that encourage and strengthen your relationships.  This can be done both in-person and remotely, where you can ultimately provide better feedback, improved lessons and faster learning.  We believe that making you the hero is the best thing we can do. That's core to our coach first business philosophy.

To accomplish all this, we set out to learn from the past and then create the future. OnForm is the result of decades of coaching platform experience, cutting edge software development and a passion for sports all rolled into a product to empower coaches to help you help your students.  We've built a modern yet flexible platform for you to keep all your videos, communications and lessons in one place. And we've thrown in some really cool features for your students like the practice partner so they will be more engaged as well.

We're certainly not the first, but we do believe we are the best, most intuitive app out there, and we're just getting started. The desire to have all your drill videos, student videos, voice-over analysis' and student communications in one place is natural. Fumbling between messaging apps, analysis apps, swing capture apps, email and text is a total pain. It's impossible to scale your business with such in-efficient tools. Coaching more efficiently and saving time so you can grow your business is what you should be focused on. We can help!

V1 Pro is perhaps the most entrenched and well known app for golf instructors, and for good reason: they've been around forever. But the app is also showing its age.  We're offering this short list of features above as a a quick comparison guide to help you consider a new platform for your lessons and your coaching business. We think you and your  clients will love its simplicity and power.  So far, we've received rave reviews on ease of use, speed and functionality, just check out the app store for yourself.

If you're looking to make the switch from V1 Pro to something that allows you to coach more efficiently, communicate with your students and provide top-notch feedback for individuals and groups, all in one place, give it a try. Better yet, schedule a 1:1 demo with me and I'll show you how to get up to speed quickly. Don't worry about your existing videos, we've made it a cinch to import them into OnForm so you can get going without a hitch.

You can download the OnForm app here.

​I look forward to showing you around and I'd love to hear any feedback or suggestions!

Till next time, swing away,
-Gear

Co-Founder, OnForm, Inc.

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Moving Golf Lessons to the Subscription Economy

10/28/2020

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For a traditional golf instructor in the typical pay-per-lesson business model, a lesson is booked, paid for and delivered usually without much thought to the actual process of how value was passed between buyer and seller.  It’s a natural occurrence: the golf instructor has knowledge and a struggling golfer has a need for improvement.  The golfer schedules a lesson, spends 45 minutes with 1:1 instruction, then hopes to take this new knowledge back out on course. It is a perfectly fine system that has worked for ages, but it has many limitations.

For one, it forces the instructor and student to be together. Knowledge is only provided while physically in the same place on the lesson tee.  Once the lesson is over, there is often little ‘take-away’ or specific homework provided so the student can progress on their own. Follow ups only occur when booking another lesson and the instructor has to remember what happened since the last time they were together. Income is only earned when a lesson is provided, which can be hot or cold depending on seasonality and many other factors.  In a service business, you only grow by charging more or working more, and there are limits to both.  Scaling your golf instruction business is simply about booking more lessons, taking up more of your time until you reach saturation and finally reach wits end.  There is another way.

Imagine a world where your expertise is relied upon routinely. Not in long, dedicated time commitments, but rather in smaller chunks accessed more frequently.  Imagine creating a strong relationship between you and your students by providing your knowledge in a low friction, simple manner, and with ability to do it remotely. You no longer have to be tied down to the lesson tee.  You’ll also get paid even when you’re not in a lesson!  The ability to manage many more clients is now a reality and scaling revenue is easier.

The solution is moving from a transactional approach to a subscription model. Instead of ‘paying for your time’ it’s ‘paying for your expertise’, from ‘per lesson’ to a longer-term engagement that provides access to your knowledge and builds trust, confidence and accountability with your students.  To do this, you’ll need to make yourself available using technology to provide quick commentary and feedback to your client when they need it most. That might happen while they are on course, traveling or practicing on their own.  Imagine a client visits the range, records a few swings and asks for your feedback. You can accomplish this in a few minutes of time using technology.  Of course you’ll still want to meet with them for in-person lessons, but you might be able to provide a quick review by analyzing a video or providing a reminder using a brief text message conversation.

This is the world powered by OnForm, a new video analysis and communication platform intended to power the subscription economy for coaches. We believe it’s a better way forward for the coach and the student.  The transition is already happening in other sports like cycling, triathlon and running. Those coaches have built businesses using a software-based coaching platform to provide training programs and workout analysis virtually through technology. The same transformation lies ahead for ‘skill based’ sports like golf. Companies like GolfTec are already making it happen and providing in-person training combined with virtual coaching.

Asking your clients to pay a reasonable monthly fee to obtain routine expertise in addition to in-person lessons is the way of the future. It helps smooth out revenue spikes, unchains you from the lesson tee, and is far more scalable than existing pay-per-lesson models. The sooner you give it a try, the sooner you’ll see the benefits, and so will your students!

​Let us help you make the move, we have a ton of experience in helping coaches grow their business. Contact us today and setup a private 1:1 demo and discuss how you can grow your business. Book a time today https://calendly.com/onform/demo 

Thanks for reading!
-Gear Fisher
Co-Founder, OnForm, Inc.


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How to video record your golf swing

10/7/2020

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Since we get asked this question all the time, we wanted to share some best practices on how to video your golf swing.
There’s two angles we recommend for taping your golf swing, "down the line" and "face on". 

Down the line

Down the line is basically parallel to the target line. This view is the most common and is easier to capture on the range because the camera is not taking up a bay on the range. It’ll help you see the plane of your backswing, how your club face is pointing at the top of the swing and other aspects of your golf swing, such as your wrist hinge and hip rotation.

Face on

Face on is directly across from you perpendicular to the target line. This view will help show your setup angles, grip, body position and weight shift. At higher FPSs, you may even be able to see the club face angle at the impact point.

Instructions For The Perfect Setup

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We recommend you capture your swings from both angles because they’ll tell you different things, when combined together will give you a full view of your golf swing. OnForm's new Practice Partner feature supports both angles and will make it easy to capture either angle.
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Here are specific instructions on how to setup your phone or tablet for each angle.

Down the line

  1. Place an alignment stick or another club on the ground to help you become more aligned with your chosen target. Choosing a target is one of the most important elements of a purposeful practice routine - we’ll have more to say on this topic soon.
  2. Place your iPhone or iPad about 12-15 feet behind you in line of the alignment stick. If you are not using an alignment stick or ground club, position the device directly in line with the toes of your feet (see yellow line in adjacent picture). Use a tripod to hold your device or one of several handy accessories, e.g., SelfieGolf or GorillaPod, to attach your device to your golf bag.
  3. Orient your device in portrait mode in order to get as much of your full golf swing as possible, especially the top of your swing including the position of the club head.
  4. Finally, position your device at the same height as your wrist during setup (see the red bullseye in the adjacent picture). This is most optimal for analyzing your swing plane and other aspects of your swing.
  5. Swing when ready! Let OnForm’s AI-powered practice partner feature do the hard work of automatically capturing every swing you take, and recording your results, such as shot distance and accuracy, no manual work needed.
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Face On
  1. As with down the line, place an alignment stick or a club on the ground to help you become aligned with your chosen target.
  2. Place your iPhone or iPad 10-15 feet perpendicular to the alignment stick. If you are not using an alignment stick, place your device perpendicular to the middle of your chest.
  3. Position your device about belt high in this case. You can also keep it wrist high if you prefer to not change the height when switching between down the line and face on.
  4. As with down the line, orient your device in portrait mode to capture as much of your full swing as possible, particularly a full view of your takeaway and the top of your swing.
  5. Then just swing away!

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Here is a very useful Youtube video from the great golf instructors at MeAndMyGolf describing how to setup your device when recording your golf swing.
Hope that helps! Swing away!
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An Introduction To The New AI Powered, OnForm Practice Partner For Golf

10/2/2020

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I'm excited to announce the launch of a very powerful, fun and super useful new feature within the OnForm app. We've called the whole experience "Practice Partner", and it's designed to help golfers by auto-detecting every swing they take, saving them as short video clips, then leveraging voice dictation to capture the distance and direction of every shot. Videos are saved in your OnForm library with full text titles containing the club, distance, direction and feel. And it all happens without interrupting the flow of your practice session. 
As a component to our overall platform, the Practice Partner simplifies one of the hardest things about using video: capturing the video in the first place!  Before, you might have a friend capture a video of your swing or do it yourself manually. You'd end up with a 30 second video of a 3 second swing. Afterward, when you review the swing, you'd have to scrub forward to find the swing, maybe trim the clip so you don't waste so much space on your device, fiddle with awkward playback controls and slow motion, and even then, after you look at it once, it will probably go to die on your camera roll never to be seen again.

We imagined a better way!

We trained a machine learning model to become your video assistant. Doing the annoying stuff for you, capturing more about the swing than you could on your own, and keeping it organized and easy to manage.
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Every swing is auto-captured, clipped and titled, without interrupting your practice session
Just setup the camera and it will auto-detect each swing! It makes practice more fun, and more objective at the same time. Simply swing away, instantly review your shots, and discover your areas of improvement using our slow-motion and visualization tools. 

Share with an instructor
Because OnForm is a true coaching platform, it's easy to work with a coach/instructor to get the best feedback and fastest improvement.  There is no substitute for working with a good coach. The accountability and precise feedback will improve your game faster than any fad device or gadget. Thanks to our built-in sharing and text messaging features, it's easy to share the video with a coach so you can get real feedback about how to improve.  In person lessons also become more powerful and useful as you can review your coach's feedback well after the lesson and during your own private practice time.

Give it a try!

Getting started is simple, you must have iOS 14 on your iPad or iPhone (the Practice Partner feature is not available on Android) and then head to the range.  We've trained the model to recognize 3/4 and full swings and working on adapting it to learn short chip shot swings and putts.  We'd love to hear your feedback on how it goes, drop us a line by mentioning us on Instagram or Facebook with the hashtag #getOnForm. Have fun and swing away!
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How does OnForm Compare to Coach's Eye?

9/15/2020

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As the new kid on the block we often get asked how we're different from other video analysis apps already on the market like Coach's Eye. Well, I'm glad you asked! Let's take a minute to see how OnForm is designed from the ground up to be easier and more useful than its predecessors.

The first difference is the people behind the app and their vision for empowering coaches. Gear Fisher and Krishna Ramachandran, the co-founders of OnForm have both come from experienced business backgrounds working with coaches and athletes for decades. Krishna was the co-founder of Ubersense, which was purchased by Hudl and re-branded as Hudl Technique in 2015.  Coach's Eye and Hudl Technique are what we refer to as "first generation" video analysis apps. They pioneered and democratized previously expensive and hard-to-use video technology and made it available for coaches to improve and develop athletes.

Gear Fisher is the co-founder of TrainingPeaks, a very popular training and coaching platform used by endurance athletes. Gear and Krishna joined forces to leverage each of their strengths to create OnForm, a combination of video analysis tools and a coaching platform all in one. So the first big difference is the vision and team around which the company was formed.  We have spent our careers helping coaches coach smarter and be more efficient. We're thrilled to have a chance to take that to an even bigger audience through OnForm.

The overarching goal of OnForm was to be a true coaching platform, not just a video analysis tool. We aimed to improve the loop between practice and feedback with video. In addition, we included chat messaging to foster conversations between coach and athlete, and our design allows for others like parents, assistant coaches etc. to be included in that conversation as well. It can be private or shared among a group to get multiple inputs.

This is partly why we designed the core architecture of the app to be 'people-first'. Sure, the main utility is around capturing and analyzing video, but it's always a video of a person, and that means we wanted to make it easy to organize, find and share video among people. Our menu structure and app layout is based on existing team and individual coaching relationships which feels familiar and obvious as you navigate the app.

Because the whole point of capturing and analyzing video is to show your students/clients/athletes how they can improve, we made sharing video seamless and intuitive.  The people-first layout means that you simply chat with your students/clients/athletes and sharing video is as easy and natural as a text-message conversation. The benefit of this is that by default, all your video is organized by person, chronologically and automatically just by using the app.

With all that video sharing and recording, we knew storage is a chief concern. We didn't want to have our customers managing 'lockers' or deciding what to keep in the cloud or on the device, we just wanted to take care of it all for you. So, you'll find that we sync all your videos magically to the cloud and we manage the space on your device so you don't have to. In this day and age people expect apps to 'just work' and not be a burden. We take care of it so you don't have to worry about video, archiving, storing, sharing etc. 

It's pretty easy to see when you try other apps like Coach's Eye, you'll see that they just don't have sharing, storage and organization figured out quite like we do.  Our modern approach to these challenges is what sets us apart both in functionality and with our easy-to-use interface.  

The future of video analysis is beyond exciting, we've laid the groundwork with our interface and infrastructure so that we're in prime position to add computer vision and enhanced machine learning/artificial intelligence to empower coaches and athletes around the world with never before seen insights and improvement tools. I can't wait to show you what's coming, but that will be in a future post.

Give the app a try today, for free! You only pay if you need to store more than 10 videos.

Thanks for reading,
​-Gear
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Is Online Coaching Here To Stay?

8/31/2020

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Sam Watson of EquiRatings, an equestrian data performance company, considers the future of coaching.

It is understandable why equestrian athletes and their coaches may think online coaching is just a fad; a necessity brought on by COVID-19 restrictions and, at most, a tool to compensate for the lack of face-to-face lessons.  But we at OnForm started developing our video coaching solution long before COVID-19 was a blip on the radar.

We believe video coaching is at the forefront of improving your performance in skills sports and an impactful addition to in-person training. So as the equestrian world resumes in-persons lessons and clinics and competition, we know that yes, online coaching is here to stay.

GETTING BETTER IN SKILL SPORTS
When it comes to improving performance, start by asking yourself: what limits performance? The thing about equestrian sports is that we don’t really push natural ability to an extreme level. We test a vast range of skills and attributes which is why, for the horse, we often talk about the importance of ‘trainability’. This is because the skills in our sport can be learned and the attributes can be developed. What equestrian sports push to extreme limits is the capacity to learn.

When it comes to learning in horse sports, I’ll be making specific references to eventing because that’s what I know, but the principles of training for skills sports are applicable across equestrian disciplines.

YOU & YOUR HORSE CAN’T LEARN IT ALL AT ONCE
From flying changes to the narrowest of skinnies, eventing tests a broad spectrum of skills which is similar to other technical sports like golf. Planning how much you can learn in each skill is dictated by how much you need to learn in order to ride responsibly and win. In the same way that a golfer can’t just focus on driving, bunker-shots or putting, eventers have to strike a balance between training time in each phase.

The limiting factors of performance in eventing are essentially time and training load. What I would ask you to think about next is the quality of your time and the efficiency of your training load.

MAKE THE MOST OF YOUR EFFORTS (FOR YOU & YOUR HORSE)
Ever feel like you are practicing your mistakes and making things worse rather than better? Every athlete has and every athlete does, on occasion. That type of training is obviously a poor use of time and an additional training load that horses simply don’t need and often can’t afford.

So, how do we get better faster and how do we make the most of our training time and efforts? There are two ways. Either ask someone (the “give a man a fish” solution) or improve your understanding so you can work it out (the “teach a man to fish” solution). Both methods are important. You will always need to ask people, which is why coaching is so important. However, as you are being instructed, you should also be aiming to learn.

LEARN THE ROUTE
Don’t overlook that last line. How many times has GPS directed you somewhere but if you were to drive that route again without navigation you would almost certainly get lost? That is because you are not trying to learn the route, you are just relying on technology to guide you. This works just fine for navigation, but in sport we must train in a way that prepares us to ride our horses effectively when no one is navigating for us – that is, between lessons.

Likewise, we must also be preparing to ride in competition. In training, we have our coach (the navigator). In competition, we ride solo. Not only that, we also ride a new route with new obstacles and challenges. We need to have the capacity to not only repeat what we have done in training, but also adapt to new situations.

WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH ONLINE COACHING?
So how does this relate to online coaching? Well, it all relates to the requirement to learn quickly, effectively and in a way that develops understanding. When I was a child learning to ride, I had instructors that would bark orders like “walk”, “trot”, “heels down”, “sit up”, “look up”. Actually, my orders were more like “tuck in your shirt”, “stop talking” and “get back on your pony” (as I sat on the ground at the landing side of the fence and the pony grinned at me from the take-off side). To get going, instruction is important. Driving instructors perform a similar role with new drivers – “brake”, “mirrors”, “turn signal”, etc.

Once you are riding on your own, your learning objective changes. The objective is no longer to simply ride, the objective is to understand so you can work things out when no one is watching. And, once you become a competitor, the goal is to perform, on demand and without assistance.

So, when you become a competitor, you should now understand your performance. You should move beyond the “what” (heels down, sit up) and into the “how” (stability, balance). There are two standout ways to better understand how you perform and how you improve.
  1. Get feedback from an expert
  2. Review your performance
It is that simple. Coaching and video.

THE FUTURE OF IMPROVING YOUR PERFORMANCE
It is therefore no surprise that “video coaching” is not only here to stay, it is also the obvious step to take your performance to the next level. Currently, we feel what we are doing and we listen to the instruction. For most, this is like driving with GPS. It is effective, it feels good because we get to our destination quicker, but how much are we actually taking in, learning and understanding? How prepared are we to ride solo under the pressure of competition?

You don’t need to change how you train, you just need to add to it. This will take your performance to the next level. You need to watch your performance and study it, in competition and in training. Become a student of your sport rather than a robot of instruction. When you review your performance, make sure you have the expert feedback from a coach which can help you to identify the source of performance gains and prescribe the solutions that will bring those gains to fruition.

Coaches can help you to plan your training so that your time is well spent. A video coaching tool like OnForm allows the coach to then review your training and competition so that you extract maximum value from your sessions. With a complete review of your video (like voiceover, side-by-side, and visual markup), you can watch your performance and listen to the expert feedback at the same time. So simple, so effective, but such a game changer.

Welcome to the future of performance improvement.

-Sam Watson
​Co-Founder, https://www.equiratings.com

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An Interview with Equestrian Coach Dawn Britnell BHS Senior Accredited Professional Coach

7/22/2020

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Dawn Britnell has been using OnForm for several months and is one of our early adopters and most engaged users. We asked her to share her experiences with OnForm so other's can learn how a seasoned coach managed to adopt new technology with their coaching business. The following interview was conducted via email.
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Tell us about yourself (disciplines you coach, how long, successes etc)
  • I am a BHS Senior Professional Coach, a Centre 10 Elite Coach and a dressage judge. I have been coaching for over 40 years and still love it. I work with Pony Club riders in all disciplines and Tests right the way through to international riders in dressage and eventing including my own son who competes at FEI5*. I rode competitively to PSG and Intermediate. I am also a WOW Saddle fitter and retailer. I feel passionately that all horses deserve to be ridden as well and as harmoniously as possible.
How did you hear about OnForm and how did you get started with it?
  • David competed in the Event Rider Masters series which was supported by the team from Equiratings. I follow everything they do so it was natural that I would look at the new coaching app being talked about on their Facebook page. It’s an ill wind that blows no good because had it not been for the Covid-19 lockdown I would not have had the time to download it, play and get excited by what it, and therefore I, can do. I have to say it took a leap of faith to buy an iPad-Pro as I have an android phone but I am glad I did!
Have you used video in your coaching in the past?
  • All the time and for donkeys years! Do you remember the video cameras that were the size of an overnight case? I used one of those whilst I was coaching and stood with the rider with them peering at the tiny screen to see what I meant when I said they were tipping forward. More recently I would WhatsApp the video across to them so they could see it and work on what they remembered I said. OnForm has changed all that!
What features do you find most useful?
  • The voiceover function is ground-breaking, especially when the rider does it first before you overlay your coaching point of view! Slowing the video down so I can spot when they did a quick fix! Freezing the video and drawing on it to highlight a point – your leg would work better here, your half-halts would be easier if your hand normally looked like this or hey, look how well your horse is carrying HIMSELF! Just look at the muscle definition here, here and there!
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The main video analysis screen used to create voice-overs, markup video with drawings and annotations as well as slow motion playback for careful review of any video.
What are the main things you use with the app?
  • All of it, though I am no artist, so it can sometimes look like a child has had a party! And I need a lot of practice to get the side by side thing to work. In fact Gear, I feel a Zoom session coming on please? [happy to jump on Zoom and guide you through it! - Gear]
What do your clients think about using it?
  • Some are nervous and shy to begin thinking they are not good enough. Then they are intrigued and they analyse videos and get thoroughly excited by it when they see what it can do. I even have two riders on the same yard making a fun competition out of it’s usage….
How is it helping?
  • The incredible feedback loop!
    ​It doesn’t just work how Sam says it will with competition rounds and coaching sessions though. I have riders inventing ways to make it work for themselves over what I have already offered. One has sent me a video of herself coaching to critique to work towards her coaching assessment. Another has sent me videos of her horse when she thought the saddle needed a refit – it is easier to see in slo-mo. One nervous child likes to learn and analyse things at home at her own pace without the pressure of others watching. And they all LOVE IT when I put lines on them and their horses to show straightness or otherwise etc!
Is it opening up new ways of generating income for your coaching business?
  • Absolutely and I keep thinking of more ways to make it work for me and those I work with. At the moment I only have riders I know somehow signed up to my 3 plans but I would love to reach out to others further afield whose coach does not use video in this way….. It would also suit anyone who finds regular lessons difficult for some reason or a rider who has become frustrated by a lack of progress leading to despondency. I know I can add huge value to ANY riders learning experience using OnForm and make it fun and exciting again. All you need is a video and we can interact within the app for free to begin with! It should also be great when all the arenas in the Chilterns are frozen or under snow. We can revisit July videos and dream……
Do you have suggestions for others getting started with it?
  • Don’t be afraid – if a slight technophobe like me can have fun with the app you can. Find a guinea-pig or two and practice on them for free for a while before offering it up professionally. I probably came to the market earlier than I would have done to try to get some form of income during lockdown but it helped me out and a fair few people had my work for free for a while as I practiced!
Has there been anything surprising you've found while using it?
  • Yes, I pride myself on missing very little whilst coaching but, when you use the slo-mo part of the app it is surprising how you spot that little sneaky indirect rein aid or a postural que from the horse which a couple of strides later became a loss of balance. It is helping me to refine my eye still further and the riders love the wholeness and self-awareness of the experience. They come to me much more often between lessons on the app or on Messenger to say “Hey, guess what I just did for the 1st time without you there!” and that makes me feel amazing.
What features do you wish it had?
  • The ability to write text onto paused video would be wonderful as I am very left handed and need to use the clear facility alarmingly often. The facility to upload video direct to the app in realtime whilst with the client would be great as it would save time. I would also love to be able to pop stills in though I get round that by videoing the picture for a second or two.
Have you used it to prescribe workouts?
  • Oh yes, often including jumping, flat, on foot and mindset exercises. Riders have then sent the completed videos of their first attempts at experimentation back to me before we get to work proper on it in our next coaching sessions. The fact that this is all saved when I pay for them to be a premium subscriber through my account gives us both access to all their and their horses progression. Already I have riders looking back at their first videos and saying “Look how much better we are at that transition!” This is incredibly empowering and fits right at home with many of my mantras including “Better is always good enough.” and “Practice, reflect, rest, prepare & repeat, only better!”
Any other comments or suggestions?
  • Thank you for inventing your app right when I needed it. I didn’t know I needed it but I did. And so did my riders and their horses and those I have yet to meet. Also thank you for your support in getting to grips with the app, answering my probably very daft questions quickly, effectively and with good humour. It is great to know that I, or my riders, can email or Zoom a face to face with Gear to clear up a tricky iphone security question, for example, even though he lives on another continent. I have paid my first year’s subscription with no qualms as I have met and know the people involved in Equiratings and therefore OnForm and I have met Gear online. I really can’t wait to see where it leads me in terms of adaptability, accessibility and profitability.
Thank you Dawn for taking the time to answer all my pesky questions!
​- Gear  

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If any reader would like to reach out to Dawn for riding instructions, or otherwise, you can contact her via her website: https://dawnbritnellequine.com/ or through Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/dawnbritnellequine/
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