I read a quote recently that said, “life is like a dressage test, if you’re too busy thinking about your last move, the next one won’t be any good either." This made me think not only about my thought process inside the test arena, but also my thought process in daily training, and more importantly, which factors I carry with me from previous trainings.
Do I enter the training arena each day and think on how I am feeling then, or do I enter the training arena and think “Batialo was so good yesterday, so I know he can do it all today, Batialo hates that chair, I better not go near it, or I have a sore left leg, it will hurt again.”
There are hundreds of things we need to keep in mind when we are training, but there are also hundreds of things that creep into our head, or that we hold on to, that really we could do without. It takes practice to obtain the ability to get on the horse each day asking yourself, “how is my horse today?” and “how am I today” without thinking on how my horse was yesterday, or last week. Once mastered it will allow you to be far more tactful and more fair during your daily training. If you enter the test arena and after a terrible halt at X, you continue the centreline with the thought, “my god what a crappy halt, how can you expect to properly prepare for the turn at C?"
In training if you come into the arena a ball of stressed out tension as your horse jumped the day before it might be possible that he has forgotten all about his mini tantrum, but jumps again simply because he couldn’t figure out what was happening with the knot of tension above him. Dragging yesterday's memories in can affect you and your horse's ability to progress.
For example, you might be having terrible trouble with the left half pass and for some reason you just can’t seem to get it sorted. So you come out everyday and work on it and have in your mind that it isn’t as good as the right half pass. One day you come out and your horse has actually gained the strength to perform the left half pass with ease, but as you go to start the movement, your mind still tells him this will not be good, and so it isn’t. Instead of thinking how is the left half pass today, you pre-emptively doom it by thinking it would be bad. You didn’t give your horse the chance to show you he had it covered!
If you're always thinking about the difficulties you have faced in training, you will also miss the new challenges that arise each day. You come out thinking so much on your left leg, that you don’t notice your left arm is up round your armpits. If you come out and forget about your left leg, and just think am I even today, you might realise that your left leg is in a good spot, and can correct the arm/armpit situation that has sprung up.
Learning to differentiate between the thoughts I need to bring into training, and the thoughts I need to let go of, is an art in itself, because at the same time we can’t forget all the things we know we need to work on. So how do we find the balance between remembering enough, but not so much that it pigeon holes us into a training wall?
It’s about asking yourself the question, each time you get on the horse, before you start thinking about what you both need to work on, and before you have time to produce emotional responses to what went on before. It's about asking how do I feel today and how does my horse feel today? This will not only allow you to judge your horse and yourself at that moment, but also give you the ability to reward your horse for his effort today, not on what you got from him yesterday.
Horses aren’t machines and just because yesterday he did a super canter pirouette doesn’t mean that today, when he gives you the perfect half pirouette, that you don’t reward him because you now he can do the full. He won’t always feel like performing at 100%, and if he is a little sore, or was worked hard the day before, then ask if you think he is giving you his all today, and if he is, then show him, reward him, and reward yourself for being a tactful enough rider to recognise and know that the horse you are riding today is not exactly same as he was yesterday, or exactly how he will be tomorrow!
by Sarah Warne