As a student, I want somebody to teach me in such a way that I learn the information and assimilate it. After the instruction is over, I want to be able to continue to teach myself.
Most students will say they want to study with instructors who will help them win and bring them success—but I go one more than that. I want to be taught things that I can use to progress on my own.
As your skills and knowledge increase, you shouldn’t always need someone to help you choose the right bit or to tell you when to pull on the reins. Your trainer should teach you how to make a horse light, how to gauge distances, or how to engage the hindquarters. Then, when you can understand the theory and the process, you can use that knowledge again down the road on another horse, or in another situation.
A good teacher will teach his students how to teach. Sometimes that means teaching themselves; sometimes it means teaching others.
Teaching helps you to understand a particular exercise: both in theory and in execution. In many respects you haven’t really learned something until you can talk about it and teach it to somebody else.
Venturing Out on Your Own
Many instructors—myself included—have a tendency to be “control freaks.” As I explained earlier, at the beginning of your riding career, this is a necessity. The instructor must be in complete control and demand your absolute compliance to everything he says. Your life literally depends on it.
At some point, however, you must learn to think for yourself—to take responsibility for your actions. If you don’t, you run the risk of becoming too reliant on your instructor to make any significant progress.
Every instructor must realize that as students improve, they should be allowed to do more on their own. When you have gained a foundation that will allow you to have some success making your own choices, your instructor should recognize your abilities and encourage them.
Becoming a thinking rider doesn’t just happen. It has to be planned. As a teacher, I am constantly trying to create a rider who doesn’t need me. I want to produce a competent trainer who is self-reliant and who doesn’t require my input for every phase of the training process.
The way to become a thinking rider is to gradually do more and more on your own. Maybe you will begin by warming the horse up on your own. That might lead to doing a complete schooling session without the instructor’s input. As your skills improve, your instructor may ask you to school a green horse or analyze a part of a course by yourself.
Gradually accept responsibility for more and more difficult things. You must start to build experiences handling such things as course analysis, schooling problems, flighty horses, and training concerns on your own, without the instructor there to guide you every step of the way.
If at First You Don’t Succeed…
While it is important that you are not completely cut loose all at once, when you do try something by yourself, you should be allowed to make your own mistakes. It doesn’t do you any good if your instructor tells you to work on your own and then watches you and spits out comments the whole time.
You will inevitably have a few failures. Remember that your mistakes— even the spectacular debacles—are not luxuries. If you learn from them, you will ultimately become a better horseperson.
4
Goal-Oriented Riding
Ride with Purpose
When working on your riding, you owe it to yourself, your horse, and your instructor to do the best job you can. That starts with the basic assumption that your practice will ultimately lead to improvement. In other words, you must believe that you can actually meet (and eventually exceed) your goals.
Though a preoccupation with ribbons is detrimental to your riding—not to mention your enjoyment of the sport—I encourage all my students to set goals for themselves (figs. 4.1 A & B).
Once you know where you would like to end up, then you have to backtrack, break that goal into pieces, and develop the skills you will need in order to achieve your end. This process will determine your course of study. It will give you a “map” for systematically learning all the pieces that will enable you to attain your goal.
The trick is to know what you want in the end. But, don’t let your ultimate destination blind you to the steps that must be taken along the way.
Don’t Ride for Results
When setting goals for your riding, beware of focusing only on results. I have seen many riders concentrate so intensely on their ultimate goals that they completely destroy their chances of achieving them.
4.1 A Goals challenge you to grow.
B They infuse your riding with purpose.
The best argument I have against concentrating only on results is simple: it doesn’t work. With too many riders, a single unforeseen setback can so derail their “Master Plan” they never recover their momentum.
I have an older student, a woman in her sixties, who has ridden with me for over twelve years. She is always saying to me, “I just want to be consistent.”
This student is typical of many riders. She is not a bad rider, by any means. But, the more she worries about being consistent, doing well, and winning, the worse she performs.
I tell her over and over again, “If you obsess about consistency, you won’t have it. Forget about measuring up to what you have done in the past. Concentrate instead on what you are doing right now. Enjoy it and do it to the best of your ability.”
When I can finally get her to relax, forget about her “results” for a little bit, focus only on what she is doing, and enjoy the ride, that is when she masters a new skill or wins her class.
Preoccupation with being successful is no guarantee that success is just around the corner. Often, concentrating on your riding at the moment, instead of worrying about winning or placing, is what brings the best results.
What It Takes
The most important thing for any rider is interest. In order to succeed in anything, you have to really want to.
Of course, it doesn’t hurt if the rider is tall, thin, and athletic. If you are graced with the ideal body type, count your blessings. As for talent, hand-eye coordination, depth perception and so on—all these are important attributes. But, none of them outweigh interest.
Competitive
