Truthful Tuesday

 

I read an article the other day that someone on my timeline had shared from The Chronicle of the Horse. It was about riding through fear. The author is a sports psychologist so her thoughts come from an educated place. She talks about how the old advice of just pushing through fear probably isn't the best approach. Instead, she recommends finding what you are comfortable doing and build from there. I found this advice validating because that's been my approach as an adult who mainly works on my own with my horses. Start where you're comfortable until it gets boring, then add on from there until you're back where you left off. It's a solid approach, but does require a lot of patience. But that's not my confession. 

My confession today is that I've been applying this approach to Al's work this winter. Not to myself. I'm not afraid of Al. But I am desperate to get him to a place where he's comfortable emotionally in his work. And riding indoors is not that place for him. Short of never riding indoors, I've been working hard this winter to help create a comfort zone for him while inside. I don't think I can ask him to push past his comfort zone if he doesn't have one ya know? So we've been riding in the center of the ring a bit away from the end doors that he's most anxious about. It makes the already small ring even smaller, but it is giving me a horse that's relaxed in his work. And he's actually doing work these days. Not perfect work. We still have our struggles. But I'm not just sitting up there waiting for the next explosion anymore. Each week, if things are going as they had been, I reintroduce something a little harder into our workday. At first it was just asking for more within the gaits. This past week I brought back lateral work. Mostly just at the walk. This week I'm hoping to add it in at the trot too. 

Just like with humans, it's been slow going, but the progress is really huge. So I'm staying the course. I'll add some jumps and things in too as jumping doesn't seem to be a stressor for him. That's solidly built into his comfort zone. Why? I have no idea. This horse's brain is... definitely unique. We probably won't get to really jumping again for a couple weeks though. We have the vet coming Friday for a check in and depending on how that goes we'll progress from there. 

So that's my confession. I'm using techniques I learned in college (my BA is in pysch) on my horse. Which is off label, yes. But they seem to be successful. Let's call it a case study. We can title it Applying the Human Approach to Overcoming Fear on Equines. Alternate title: Amateur Rider Attempts to Be Successful Without a Trainer.