During my showjumping coach training we had a lot of acronyms and abbreviations embossed onto our brains. The one that stands out the most for me is the four "C"s; Control, concentration, confidence and commitment. Although I find these are all equally as important as each other, in this blog I'll be looking at two in particular; confidence and control.
All the 'C's overlap each other frequently. If one is missing or less developed than the others, this would be where we find ourselves running into problems. | I teach a group of lovely ladies on a Friday afternoon at a local riding school. They are taking part in a relatively new scheme run by the BHS called "Taking back the reins". It is aimed at the more mature rider who is either starting their riding career later on in life, or who rode as a child and would like to return to it. It's a great scheme which incorporates BHS stages as well as riding and learning how to conduct oneself around equines. |
Back in June 2015 when I started teaching this group I realised we very much needed to focus on one thing in particular; their confidence. The ladies are very evenly matched ability wise, but they all had issues with the canter, whether it be the transition or maintaining the pace once they had achieved it. After spending a lesson or two chasing riding school horses around the arena and realising just how unfit I was, I knew I needed a different approach. So begin the first 'C'.
Each of these riders had some form of reservation regarding the canter. One lady had taken a fall earlier that year whilst jumping, and another was just extremely nervous around horses in general, but was determined to overcome her fears. As a group they were all very conscious of their self preservation, something I realise kicks in more so when you're a bit older, especially if you have children. So, instead of improving their confidence by merely reassuring them that they could do it, we started from scratch. We spent hours of lessons practising sitting trot, countless transitions, and performing exercises which seem very straightforward, but needed a certain degree of determination to achieve correctly. | Confidence can be so volatile, we have to be careful how we manage it. Everyone's confidence grows at different rates & from diverse practises; but without a doubt, |
After just a few sessions with these ladies I started to get asked questions. Why am I doing that, how do I do it properly, what effect is it having upon my horse? Almost instantly their confidence was growing, which was made evident due to the questions they were asking being the right ones. Soon enough when something wasn't quite going to plan and they wondered why, it was me asking the questions; "Okay, so why didn't he halt exactly where you wanted him to? What will you do next time to change the outcome?" And soon enough they were answering their own questions and were really beginning to ride. By encouraging the group to perform simple tasks but demand 100% perfection from such tasks gave them the confidence that they could execute them while being in full control of the horse. And here is the first overlap of many. We require confidence in our own ability and knowledge in order to use our aids as productively as possible. Alongside this the control element will start to automatically slip into place.
In order to move forward sometimes we need to take a step back, refocus ourselves and build on foundations. | These ladies, after hours of gruelling lessons, hard work and aching legs, are really starting to come together. We didn't even think about doing any canter work for over a month, yet when we started to reintroduce it they all managed it without fuss. Why? Because they have the confidence that they can control the horse, and a new found control over their own confidence. |