Marijke de Jong's ST Academy FAQ

Is The ST Academy Right For Me?

The ST Academy is extraordinary, but it isn’t right for everyone.

Get answers to the most frequently asked questions, so you can make the best decision for you!

1. ST Academy Overview

Quick answers to the most common questions.

2. Who It's Perfect For?

Find out if the ST Academy is right for you and your horse.

3. Tuition & Currencies

The costs and currencies.

4. Last Little Details

Clear answers to help you make the best choice.

1. ST Academy Overview

The Straightness Training (ST) Academy is an online learning environment for riders who want to transform their difficult horse into a balanced horse, or want to take their partnership and work with their horse to the next levels. 

The ST Academy helps you do the right things and to do things right.

It helps you fast-track your growth and save you years of expensive trial and error.

Take the first STep with our free training:

straightnesstrainingacademy.com/free-training

Get our very first Kick STart course  for only 1 euro:

straightnesstrainingacademy.com/marijkedejong

 

Get coached, get better and get results with our Scholars membership:

straightnesstrainingacademy.com/scholars

Becoming a Basic ST Instructor is possible for you! Discover how:

straightnesstrainingacademy.com/certification 

Becoming a Basic ST Instructor is possible for you - check out our Certification Program to see how:

straightnesstrainingacademy.com/certification 

We’ve got a special page for you that explains everything you receive, including all of the course materials and live calls, and how it works, and what to invest:

https://www.straightnesstrainingacademy.com/enroll

And make sure to download the Program Brochure for even more details:

https://www.straightnesstrainingacademy.com/program-brochure 

2. Who It's Perfect For?

The ST Academy is geared for big-hearted horse lovers, novice riders, ambitious leisure riders, advanced horse trainers, and instructors.

It’s for committed beginners and evolving professionals who want direction, clarity, and skills.

Our Scholars span over several equestrian disciplines, over 100 breeds, and across 50 countries.

And there are riders who are taking the course right along with you who have lots of problems with their horse all the way up to riders and instructors with highly trained horses. It’s really exciting to work with such a broad spectrum.

The rich range of diverse riders and horses we have in the ST Academy is one of our distinct advantages. We spent a lot of time working on this course so that it works for all of you.

Yes, the ST Academy provides a coaching program for horse lovers of all levels! While we can't guarantee that outcome for you, what we can say is this:

The ST Academy is ideal if you're just starting out, because it will train you to think like a horseman, and avoid many of the mistakes we make when we start training a horse.

If you are an advanced rider, professional horse trainer, or riding instructor, the ST Academy will help you to take your work to the next level, and achieve extraordinary results with your horse!

We're proud to have graduates in 58 countries on all continents, from many equestrian disciplines, from all levels, and across 100+ horse breeds.

You see, one of the key principles is: ST is for the horse, the horse is not for ST!

This means, ST is beneficial to all kinds of horses - no matter what breed!

From Thoroughbreds, warmbloods, coldbloods, draught horses, sports horses, Selle Français, Frisians, Andalusians, Quarters, Icelandics, Norwegians, Lippizaners, Shetties, Arabs, Haflingers, Gypsy cobs, Welsh cobs, Paints, Appaloosas, Knabstruppers Morgans, Mustangs, Lusitanos, Foxtrotters, Saddlebreds, Boereperden, Frederiksborgers, Akhal-Tekes, Shires, Percherons, Freibergers, Highlands, Mangalarga Marchadors, Criollos, Pasu Peruano, New Forests, Connemaras, and many other breeds and mixed breeds.

Because every horse is asymmetrical by nature - in body and limbs - so we need to rebalance and him so that he can carry us in a healthy way - no matter what breed, no matter what gait.

Whatever gait you practice, from the natural gaits as the walk, trot, and canter, to the artifical gaits such as piaffe and passage, to the special gaits as the pace, tölt, marcha picada, single foot, running walk, fox trot, rack or revaal. 

Your horse will be very grateful to have you as his Straightness Training coach, as he will perform all these gaits with a solid support of the hind legs instead of leaning on the fragile front legs.

Every flavor or rider is on board of the ST Academy: from newbie to ambitious leisure rider, from professional horse trainers to instructors, and riders from all kinds of equestrian disciplines such as dressage, classical riding, natural horsemanship, trail riding, western, show jumping, eventing, and trick training.

ST is really a wonderful ‘add-on’ method because it helps to rebalance your horse, no matter what breed or discipline.

With ST you can create the best possible physique for your horse, so your equine partner can do the job in the best possible way, so you can perform at your best in your own discipline!

What if you consulted the vet, the dentist, the farrier, different kinds of instructors, and it’s still not easy to ride your horse?

Well, if you have tried everything to solve your problems - such as rearing, bucking or spooky or stubborn behaviour - and got told that ‘’it must be a problem between your horse’s ears’’, then try Straightness Training!

So yes, you are welcome to join the ST Academy as a Scholar, so we can guide you to help your 'problem horse' the best you can.

Straightness Training is about 'Think First, Act Later' so it's not a problem that you don't have your own horse yet.

And perhaps you can ask the riding school to let you work with the same horse for a while. Some riding schools are really forthcoming to ST and let you practice in groundwork in your own time when it's not busy at the riding school. So perhaps there are opportunities at your riding school as well. Just ask, and you will find out.

In Straightness Training, we always start bitless to spare the mouth and to preserve the sensitivity of the mouth. Because in the beginning, most horses are a kind of stiff in the body, because of the natural asymmetry. Therefore, a bit is only introduced later on in the horse's education - but ONLY if a rider would like to. So of course, a bit isn't mandatory and if you wish to carry on bitless that is fine.

We range from total beginner riders to professionals, and we have well-educated horses and horses who bring along a lot of challenges. And this rich diversity of horses and authentic riders in the ST Academy are one of our distinct advantages.

No matter our age, no matter what equestrian discipline, no matter what level, we all must understand how to counteract the natural asymmetry effectively, how to rebalance our horse, and how to create a loving relationship and respectful working partnership with our horse.

Regardless of our horse, the nature of every horse is that we need to know how to bond, how to build trust, how to educate a horse, how to create understanding and motivation, how to stretch his comfort zone, how to deal with challenges that we ALL face, no one excluded, and how to turn things around and make a positive change for our horse.

So if you train horses, the ST Academy can help.

Since we have customers in over 50 different countries, unfortunately, it is impossible to serve all these countries with educational materials in their own language. But the good thing is, that I'm not a native speaker myself when it comes to English. Therefore, I use only simple words, short sentences and I speak slowly. So also for students from for example Italy, Spain, France, Brazil, Russia or whatever non-native-English speaking country you live in, the program is easy to follow. And people laugh about my 'Dunglish' expressions (Dutch + English). And we always enjoy the Swenglish, Danglish, and Genglish way of writing of our Swedish, Danish and German students. We can understand each other perfectly and feel the message and good intentions no matter what. We are not limited by perfection! So if you speak a little Franglais, Spanglish, Russlish, or another exotic English variant, you're very welcome to join the club!

No. While the majority of our students are women, we have a powerful and growing audience of male Scholars. The content is not gender specific, and everyone is welcome in the ST Academy!

We’ve had one 80+ year old student purchase his first laptop (ever) to do the program. As long as you’re hungry to learn and a researcher for life, you’ll be fine.

3. Last Little Details

A lot of riders are 'the only one' doing Straightness Training in the riding arena...

Or at the barn...

Or in their home-town...

Or even in the country!

And that's the wonderful thing about the ST Academy:

You’ll reach ST experts and like-minded Academy students all across the world, but you never have to leave home!

Now there's an African Proverb that says:

  • If you go fast, go alone.
  • If you go far, go together.

So we believe in 'together is better'!

And thanks to the internet we can do great things together...

And we can get more results...

And get far!

Experience shows, that riders from all over the world really come a long way thanks to online instruction and coaching in the ST Academy.

We have riders in the US, UK, Australia, South Africa, Brazil, Europe, and other parts of the world doing really well with their horses through distance learning!

Thanks to the educational videos in the ST Mastery and ST Evaluation Program you have a good visual example:

✔️ By having this good strong image, you are able to apply what you have seen, with your horse.

✔️ By repeatedly watching the videos, you are able to see what needs more attention in the training

✔️ By having the visual images, you have a good 'benchmark' guide to work to.

✔️ The videos have been carefully compiled in a clear, professional, informative manner and are very easy to follow.

And as you have seen in our FREE training, we will provide:

  • Videos for each training subject
  • Written documents to compliment each video
  • Checklists and worksheets

And this is a very powerful combo:

When you are able to 'watch' and 'read' and 'do' around a subject, the learning experience is much clearer and more deeply understood.

People learn in different ways, some learn by 'watching', others by 'reading' and others by 'doing'.

In reality, it is a blend of these in how we learn, but everyone is unique and one person may have more of a learning style dominated by watching and another by reading, others by doing.

So by providing both a video and written documents in combination with the video lessons in the ST Evaluation Program, it supports more peoples learning styles.

Because not everyone is lucky enough to have an ST Instructor who can help both rider and horse because there are not many ST Instructors around the globe yet (we are working on it!).

So in the ST Academy, you and I work together as a team in your development, whether you are a beginner or an advanced rider, towards your goal and the results you seek!

And together with all Mastery Students, we can build a world in which the vast majority of riders go home every day feeling fulfilled by training their horse!

We believe in a bright future and our ability to build it together!

And we'd love to have you join us!

For in-person and hands-on lessons, clinics and workshops, you can contact one of our certified and licensed ST Instructors.

Also, check out the ST Events group on Facebook for more information about upcoming events near you.

Marijke de Jong focusses 100% on teaching online. 

In the Scholar Program, Marijke de Jong teaches about Straightness Training through weekly live online group classes, video reviews, and private online coaching.

Our Scholar Program is our most popular and most efficient and effective online program - for more details, follow this link:

straightnesstrainingacademy.com/scholars

The good thing about the online Scholar Program is that you never have to leave home and can learn at your own pace and meet like-minded ST enthusiasts on a daily basis!

We don’t offer scholarships or discounts on the Scholars Program and the Basic ST Instructor Certification Program.

The ST Academy programs offer you an immense amount of value for what you pay each month, and it’s unlike any programs you’ve ever tried before.

 So all of our students invest the same amount for our programs.

 

Click here to hear what STudents have to say about their experience with the ST Academy.

Write us at [email protected]  and we’ll happily take care of you.  

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