When Your Instructor Tells You One Thing and Your Gut Tells You Something Different
When you’re warming your horse up for a lesson, there’s a palatable shift that happens when your instructor arrives and begins watching you.
Your senses are heightened, as you want to be sure you’re doing everything she’s taught you thus far.
You admire her. She's an incredible professional. More than likely, she’s probably forgotten more than you know in the few riding years you’ve been blessed to take consistent lessons.
The last thing you want is to disappoint her.
Your lessons have a certain structure that you and your horse can depend on.
There might be a few minutes of no stirrup work, a few minutes of staying in a two-point position, and then you work on some new element that you’re slightly nervous about, but put your complete trust in your instructor.
The nerves usually come up when you see her adjusting the height of the jump two holes up.
You notice you’re holding your breath, as soon as you hear the subtle sound of the metal jump cup moving into position.
Here we go. You think.
You can feel your horse get a little stronger, as you head towards the line of jumps.
Your horse clears them beautifully, even though it felt like you were micromanaging the whole time.
Your horse then lets out a little buck, just before his flying lead change. This is just enough to ask him to circle and come back to the walk.
Your trainer suggests closing your eyes for a few seconds before the first fence.
The thought feels terrifying and impossibly hard, but you are an amazing student and dutifully try this.
To your amazement, your horse softens, since your body doesn’t feel as tight.
The line feels effortless, and this time way more fun than it ever had.
Your horse lands on the correct lead and you can’t wait to try this technique again!
This is the type of student that I was as a child. I had complete confidence in my instructor and I was incredibly blessed to learn from her.
But what if you’re working with someone that suggests you do something and you get a gut feeling that it could end up being a bad idea?
This happened to me during a dressage clinic with an Olympic level trainer.
I had already had incredible rides with this trainer and trusted him to help me through some of the trickiest horses I’ve had the privilege of training. I had two incredible breakthroughs during previous clinics with him.
However, there was one ride when everything started to go off the rails.
I was riding a client’s horse and the longer I rode him, the more I felt like he was a ticking bomb underneath me.
The tension was building and the clinician asked us to canter.
I ignored him.
This horse felt like he was going to launch me if I asked for the transition.
Everything inside of me was in disarray. I desperately wanted to please the clinician, but my body was telling me that if we listened, I might get dumped.
I managed to mumble under my breath, “I need a moment.”
I proceeded to do some figure eights at the trot and then finally decided to stop riding.
The clinician got really quiet. I could tell he didn’t know what to do with me.
I was still quite young and I wish I could have verbalized at the time that I wanted to do what he asked, but it didn’t feel right. The horse wasn’t happy and I needed to stop.
Instead, I just felt completely disappointed in myself and ended up walking away in tears.
Later I found out that this horse had ulcers and he was on some heavy medication for them.
Ah! That was the ‘wanting-to-explode-at-any-moment’ feeling I was getting from him.
Happily I survived that moment and the horse was let off the hook. The clinician was slightly baffled, yet he moved on to his next student easily.
I was left with the lesson that no matter what your instructor tells you, you must speak up when your gut, and especially your horse, needs something completely different than what you’re being told to do.
It comes down to trusting yourself and pitching the people-pleasing mentality out the stall door, as far as you can fling it, for the safety and integrity of yourself and your relationship with your horse.
Ultimately, the only opinions that truly matter are yours and your horse’s.
Your instructor might get annoyed slightly, but if they are truly in it for you and your horse, they will want to understand the nuances of how you’re feeling and be able to think on their feet and adjust.
Are you willing to speak up more?
I hope you will.
Do it for yourself and for your horse.
Want more guidance on tuning in with your intuition?
Check out the "Believe in Your Magic" Program.
