From: Heather
Dear Jessica, I've looked through the archives and not found anything like my problem. I hope that doesn't mean I'm the only person in the world with this problem, but that is how I feel right now. I have a huge fear of riding in front of people, and it's getting worse all the time. I did something stupid and got myself into trouble and now I am scared to death that everybody will find out how hopeless I am and then I won't have any friends.
I am in my 40s and have taken some lessons but not a whole lot. I have owned horses for a lot of years, and right now my husband and I own five horses that we keep on our farm. I do most of my riding there, by myself. Here is my problem. About ten years ago I got interested in dressage, not super interested but mainly curious about it. Up to then I had done trail riding for the most part. So I took a few dressage lessons with a lady who was in our area for the summer, and when she left I practiced what she taught me and I read some of the books she recommended. Well, here's what I did. I started reading more books about dressage, and then more books, and pretty soon I had a big old bookshelf with a line of dressage books on it, and I had read them all. I know a lot of terms and a lot of techniques to do, at least in my head, and I can discuss and argue about dressage with my friends on the phone and on the Internet. But here is the problem: I can't relate what I know to what I do when I'm riding a real horse. My horses aren't fancy warmblood dressage horses, but they are nice riding horses and I should be able to practice some of this stuff with them. But even though all of it makes sense to me when I am reading the books or talking or e-mailing with my friends, when I get into the saddle it's like some other person has taken over my body and my brain, and this person doesn't know anything at all about dressage, she can't even ride very well or control the horse very well either.
This has been getting worse and worse. I can't stop reading and discussing and I really do think that dressage is very interesting and I want to do it so bad! But the problem is that I guess you could say I already do it so BAD (ha ha). I am ashamed to have anybody see me ride, so I don't know if I could take lessons even if we had a good dressage instructor around here. Some of my telephone and online friends have come to visit, and I always find some excuse not to ride, but the truth is that I just don't want to lose their respect and friendship. If they saw me ride I would be humiliated because they would know how much of a fake I am. I feel like I told everyone I had this wonderful huge palatial home and now I can't let anyone come to my house and see that I live in a double-wide trailer! It really does feel like that!! I miss riding with friends and I would like to become a better rider, but I don't know what to do. I feel that I painted myself into a corner here. I'm sure my friends are starting to wonder why I can't ever ride, and why I never sign up for the clinics in our region or anything like that. I wish I could, but I have talked so much about all this technical dressage stuff that I couldn't sign up for a lesson at my real level, it would just be too embarrassing, and if I tried to take one at my "talking" level I know I couldn't do anything and that would be even more embarrassing. All of this is my own stupid fault and I know it, but I don't know what to do! Please help me Jessica, I don't want to be a lonely old lady with no friends to ride with, but how do I fix this?
Heather
Many riders experience something like this, at some point during their lives. If you like to read and think and talk about riding, and you have, for one reason or another (weather, winter, injury, business travel?) more reading and thinking and talking time than actual riding time, it's likely that your physical skills will lag behind your intellectual understanding of the subject.
Dressage IS compelling, and there's a big technical/theoretical side to it - there's much more to it than "just" riding. But you do need the time in the saddle as well as the "book-learning". Otherwise, with NO real practical experience, you end up talking about dressage in the same way that I talk with some of my friends about figure-skating. We're very good armchair critics, we appreciate the sport, we're good at observing and analyzing a short program, a long program, a freestyle... but our own skills are limited to skating forwards (badly) and backwards (badly) and doing NO jumps, and (perhaps) only the most simple, primitive, two-person, hand-holding spins (also badly). We know quite a lot, but since we can't DO it, we don't make all of the necessary connections. We can explain the difference between what we see and what should be done to make it better - that's all theory and technique. What we cannot do is explain HOW to do what should be done to improve the performance. That's where actual practical experience comes in. We don't have it, full stop.
It's the same with horses. A young horse can be carefully trained by a great expert according to the best classical principles and the latest in scientific understanding, but at some point, everything will have to be put into practice, not just once, but again and again, to create the "wet saddle blankets" that are ALSO an important part of training.
You don't need to e-mail or telephone everyone you know and announce that you'd like to confess that you're a great big phoney.
For one thing, people are usually much more understanding than that! Lots of people - not just riders - do this to one degree or another, and some do it in much more dangerous ways. I'll bet that if you took even ONE lesson with a good instructor or clinician, then announced to your friends that you've discovered that you don't know nearly as much as you thought you did, and that you need to start over and work your way up with your new understanding and your new ambition to do everything CORRECTLY this time, they would ALL understand, and they would applaud you. And - you'd be telling the truth.
Alternatively, you can say that you have to begin again - as rehab. Don't invent a terrible accident - resist the temptation to add yet another layer of fiction to your construct - just tell them that you need to start over. If you like, you can say that you tripped over your ego and hurt your pride. ;-) Every honest rider should be able to relate to THAT.
I know this seems like a big problem to you, just now, but really it doesn't have to be! You haven't done anything terrible, and you haven't hurt anyone except yourself. Your friends will understand, and I'm sure that many of them can relate to your concerns. A lot of riders get so caught up in theory, especially if they have the chance to discuss it with other people, that they get ahead of themselves - after a lot of discussion, ALL of those people are likely to be talking a level or two above their actual riding ability/experience. They've worked so hard to achieve a good understanding of the theory behind the riding, that they've ended up with their theoretical ability far ahead of their physical skills.
So what? That state doesn't have to be permanent.
Life is too short NOT to have fun. Don't waste any more time worrying about what you can do and how it compares to what your friends may THINK that you can do, or to what YOU think that your friends think that you can do! Please don't try to hold everyone off and do a crash course to "catch up" before you ride with them. Instead, just go out and ride with them. In the arena, in a field, on the trails - go wherever they're going, just ride and chat and enjoy your time with your friends. Go out, ride, and have fun. It's important to ride as well as you can, but some riders get hung up when they suddenly realize that they don't ride as well as they talk about riding - and they stop riding entirely. THAT is very sad, and completely unnecessary.
Riding involves theory and practice. Riding involves understanding and TIME. It takes practice over time to enable ANY rider to relate theory to reality and become adept at putting principles into practice. If you continue to find reasons (or invent excuses?) not to ride with your friends, they aren't going to figure out that you've "oversold" your riding abilities, they'll just think that you don't like them as much as they like you, or they'll think that you've lost interest in riding. Since you DO like your friends, and you DO like to ride, just take a deep breath, tack up your horse, and go. After the first time, you won't be afraid anymore, and then you can sign up for the next good clinic...
Until you overcome this worry, you won't be able to begin to close the gap between theory and practice. Wanting to be a better rider should cause you to spend MORE time in the saddle, not LESS - and it certainly shouldn't keep you off your horse entirely! Give yourself a chance - and give your friends a chance. What exactly do you think they will do? Laugh at you? I doubt that will happen. If you're envisioning a scenario in which all of your friends are sitting around the arena frowning and making notes on clipboards whilst you humiliate yourself under a spotlight in full dressage regalia, you need a new mental image! Since your friends are obviously happy to visit you, make your first "group ride" a trail ride where you'll be on familiar ground, so that you can show them the sights. Your friends will be very happy to see you on horseback, and then they'll tell you all about what they did that week at work, and why a sports bra is a good investment, and how their husband promised to clean the barn before they get back tonight... Relax, these are your friends! Ask yourself whether you will stop liking THEM if you go riding with them and discover that their own riding isn't exactly, precisely to the very highest standard, as per their discussions with you online and on the telephone. I'm going to bet that you won't be the only rider in the group who is a better rider in her head than in the saddle. It's much, much more common than you think - and there really isn't anything wrong with it. Riding SHOULD be a process of constant improvement. EVERY rider is ALWAYS trying to improve - that's just part of the process, and part of the fun.
Jessica
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