Hi there all you horsey nuts! Are we ready to rock this “back to school” season? Of course, not everyone is impacted directly by students going back to school – except maybe by buses slowing traffic all of a sudden… As frustrating as that may be, please be courteous for the safety of all the kiddos!
But, getting back to the subject here – horses. Even if you are not a student anymore, or don’t have a student in your home, you can still jump on board to “go back to school”. What do I mean? Take a little time to take your horse back to the drawing board and school together this month! You may have been avidly pursuing improvement all summer long, but even if you haven’t it’s never too late to start. This month I propose we all become our own trainers by taking a “before” and “after” video of ourselves riding a pattern.
Step 1)
Take the next day or two and pick a riding pattern. Any pattern will do. You can browse online for inspiration, or make up your own. Below are a few posts where I have detailed patterns you can choose from as well. These articles explain the pattern, the training benefits of the pattern and also some trouble shooting tips. If patterns are a new practice to you, choosing one of these to start may be a good idea. The most recent I have discussed are The Diamond Ring, Big Circle-Little Circle and The Four Leaf Clover.
Step 2)
Video your first attempt at the pattern. You can enlist the help of a friend to video you or you can pick up a phone tripod with a remote to operate your phone while riding your horse. Don’t worry about your ride being messy. In fact, it may be a disaster! Start slow and break it into pieces if needed. Expect that your first few rides through the pattern are going to be you showing your horse what is expected and you figuring out where you are going. Seriously, no pressure. Be kind to yourself and your horse.
Step 3)
Continue your riding schedule incorporating your pattern into the agenda for a few weeks. Just 5 or 10 minutes working on part of the pattern each ride can be enough to see improvement. Once a week try riding the whole pattern through and see what parts you are still struggling with and target the sticky parts for the next few rides.
Step 4)
At the end of the month – roughly 4 weeks after your first ride, video yourself on the whole pattern again. It’s ok to try the pattern a couple times while videoing. You will see differences even between two attempts in the same day. But do not drill your horse over and over trying to get a perfect ride for this video. You will absolutely not perfect this pattern in one month. We are looking for genuine improvement over the course of several weeks, not how much you can frustrate yourself in one ride.
Step 5)
Compare and contrast your video rides, analyzing yourself first, then your horse. Take note of everything that improved… or got worse. Hopefully nothing got worse, but if it did figure out why. When we work with our horses things should get slowly and steadily better. If something got worse, there is a reason. It might be a physical issue for the horse or it might be something you are doing accidentally that is causing the issue. Also figure out why things improved. What were the solutions that made a difference? Take a real note of the cause and effect relationship between our riding and your horse’s performance.
Why Video Myself?
Watching videos of yourself riding can be very humbling. It may even feel uncomfortable at times. Such is the case any time we hold a mirror up to ourselves and really take a good look. So why put ourselves through that? Because it is critical to be completely honest with ourselves both to the positive and the negative to improve. By watching ourselves ride we can develop an eye for both riding problems and solutions. Observing gives us an opportunity to think through techniques and strategies that make a positive impact. You will not believe how much you will learn about your horse watching him ride, rather than just being the one on his back. And even more importantly it gives us a realistic view of where we really are as a rider.
Why on a Pattern?
Focusing on a pattern will cause you to stay in a predictable space that you will be more easily able to catch good quality video. Not so far away that details get fuzzy and not so close that all you can see is your kneecap passing the camera. Additionally a pattern will generally challenge us to do more than just one speed. It will have us doing transitions and turns and changes of direction… all areas where our riding issues are more likely to present rather than just riding across the field or doing endless laps around the arena. Those have some value as fitness activities but they are not great diagnostic tools for seeking improvement.
How I am Applying this Activity
I love this activity for all ages and levels of riders, including the kids! What kid doesn’t love to see themselves in pictures and videos? I will be doing this with all of my weekly riders – with their first and last lessons of the month. My very next task today is to decide on the pattern we will be practicing this month. I will be downloading the videos to youtube.com and sending it to them so they can view both videos at length.
I am literally days away from my arena being useable (still in final construction). So I have not had an opportunity to video myself on good footing worth sharing for serious consideration. I do plan to in the near future though and will be sure to post my own before and after videos with the notes of my self analysis. We and our horses are where we are and should not be embarrassed about anything but a lack of effort seeking improvement.
On a personal note; I always welcome comments, questions or even pictures and videos of your ride. I love to help solve those pesky little problems – or even the big ones! Please don’t hesitate to comment for more personalized conversation!
The three times rule. When a task proves difficult, try it 3 times. If you are unsuccessful in 3 tries figure out what is the biggest hang up and work on that instead. You can always come back another day and try again. Build on successes rather than endlessly repeating failures.
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