It really depends on how you learn. I always like doing a private or two when I first connect with a trainer so that I have a good idea of if we'll mesh together well. After I decide if it's a good match, I then pop over in to group lessons. I bounce back and forth between the two dependent on what my needs are. Right now, I generally prefer to take a private flat lesson and a group lesson for our over fences work. When I was teaching, I noticed that the riders I saw twice a week for group lessons would progress MUCH faster than the ones who I saw once a week for a private lesson. This was consistent across age groups and also across initial skill level.

With group lessons though, you do need to be mindful and make sure that the group is of a reasonable size (4 or less, really), of comparable levels and that the trainer is capable of teaching a group. There are a lot of trainers who are great one on one, but the minute you ask them to pay attention to more than a single person at once, it goes out the window.

Spooksandbolts wrote:
blah, blah, blah, blah and the dog ate your homework and I can smell bovine excrement