Some people take lessons continually, some never have. Some people watch all the trainers on TV and Video, some never have. Some people stay with one trainer for years, and some change trainers regularly. What’s the correct thing to do? It’s up to the individual and their circumstances.

Someone I knew used to say that boarding horses and teaching is like a revolving door – they come and they go. At first I used to take it personally, now I’ve moved beyond that. There is a time and purpose for each season. Perhaps the next person will explain something differently that they my grasp.

The interesting thing about being a teacher/trainer is that when someone comes to you, you never know what they actually know or have done in the past. So where do I start? From the beginning.

Now this woman has been riding since she was very young, in Germany. Now I’ve known many instructors from Germany, and they are extremely strong and strict. I’ve watched her ride as she’s trying to get her horse back into work after a lay-up, and I’ve seen things I would like to see her do differently. Now there are many styles of riding, but what I’ve seen I categorize as not as safe as I would like it, or just simple adjustments to making her riding more efficient.

Well she came to me a couple of weeks ago and spoke about wanting to take lessons. She was a little shaken up when her horse displayed a very enthusiastic approach to what she was asking. Hitting the ground, when you’re pushing 60, gives you a feeling that you might need help.

It’s funny, when we are young, we hit the ground, got back on and hurt for a few days. When you hit the ground around the age of 60 you rethink your priorities. The “I can’t afford to get hurt” thing goes off like a neon sign in your head. “If I get hurt who will take care of all my responsibilities?” “What will happen with my job or my family?” That puts fear in our minds, and we all know what fear can do when we are riding horses.

So when she came to me I gave her my thoughts on the lesson plan. I told her that we were going to start from scratch. I explained that I know she knows how to ride, but that I was going to go over things she may have already heard or practiced in the past. I also told her that there might be holes in her training and we will work through the known and she might find things that were never fully explained or things that might have been rushed over. She said that it would be fine.

Well her fears are gone, her horses is quiet and relaxed and she’s loving her lessons. After each lesson she tells me that she has learned something new and different each time. I always ask her if there is something she would like me to explain in further detail and she always tells me no that the instructions were perfectly clear and easy to understand.

Perhaps it’s because I’ve taught children for so many years that I’ve perfected my explanations into a simple form. Or perhaps it’s because no one ever explained why things were done that way. Most instructors will just say “do it this way,” without giving the mechanics of why.

We didn’t do “around the world” or “touch ears, tail, left toe, right toe,” but I did have her close her eyes and feel which leg was moving forward at any given time. She was also having trouble detecting her correct diagonal. She had always watched the outside leg, I simple told her to try and watch the inside leg and yup it happened. Most people instruct on the outside, I was taught on the inside. I’m not a rocket scientist, but there is a more sweeping motion with the inside than the outside that she could see with a quick glance. We are working on the feeling of the movement, but right now, after all these years, she’s excited about finally getting things right.

Sometimes it’s because instructors fly through their explanations, sometimes they forget to mention things, but sometimes it’s a matter of saying the same thing in a different way. What you don’t get from one instructor you may get with the next. You get that A Ha! moment.

What I’ve found with most people, they don’t ask questions. They don’t want to feel stupid so they just keep moving on. If you don’t fully understand something Stop! and ask for a better explanation. You won’t look stupid, you’ll look interested in learning.

Remember, any holes that are left in your training will come back to bite you later. When you are building a house you can’t leave out a block here and a plank there, it will fall. Come to think of it, so will you.

The title and the next paragraph come from my daily devotional written by Cara Whitney “Unbridled Faith.” For some reason it hit me that I should write about it.

It reads – “Giving your trust to a horse after it has hurt you can be a hard obstacle to overcome. Even after a “naughty” horse has spent a good thirty days with a trainer, you are still left to wonder if he has changed his ways. The horse’s behavior may have changed, but how we see him is still the same.”

Well this leads me to something I wrote about probably several years ago. “Fear is the single most dangerous and destructive force in a relationship with a horse. Eradicate fear and you begin to develop trust.” Well now isn’t that easier said than done.

As I’ve mentioned, the new horse came with a laundry list of cautions. My immediate reaction was, this horse is going to kill me. One step at a time and I found that most everything was over played, but I’m thankful that I was given a heads-up, and more thankful that I was wise enough to take one step at a time and give him the benefit of the doubt.

So here you have a horse that hurt you. Fear is a normal instinct to keep us from getting hurt again. You have a catch 22 situation here. Horses, as we know, know us better than we know ourselves. We can’t walk up to a horse and lie to them. Telling them “I am not afraid” will not work. If you have fear they will do one of two things; take advantage of you, or be fearful themselves.

I could write for weeks about how to overcome fear, but the best way I have found is to just keep chipping away at it. Start at square one with your relationship with your horse and when you are both comfortable move to square two. The more you do something, the more comfortable you will become.

Once you build up the trust between the two of you, everything will fall into place. You may need a professional to help you work through your fears. We’ve all had them at some point in our lives. Maybe with your horse or maybe with something else. Repetition is the only way to get beyond it.

I was in a car accident almost 50 years ago. I was stopped at a red light and a DUI slammed into me. I haven’t stopped driving or given up stopping at red lights, but I do watch my rear view mirror to make sure if someone is not going to stop, that maybe I should just move out of the way.

Your horse and riding means too much to you to let fear determine your life. Take back control and move forward. Don’t totally throw caution to the wind. If the thought presents itself, ask yourself if this is something you need to work through or is your unconscious mind trying to warn you to rethink things that may be harmful to you.

Keep an open mind, but use the mind you were given.