Building Confidence in the Rider

 Tips for the Insecure, Anxious, Anticipative, or Timid Rider

What about building the rider's confidence for riding out?

Horse Skills Help- Human Anticipation

 In my recent remote coaching sessions working with students across multiple continents, the latest discussion has been about the human's anticipation and how it directly affects the horse.

A common challenge many equine enthusiasts face is struggling with the anticipation of "what will happen" when with their horse.

There is a fine line of being aware of your surroundings, and things that are occurring at the moment, but to also not fixate on these and the potential outcome.

Horse Skills Tips - Learning to Be Present

ReLearning to Be Present...

 

The rate of mental distraction and emotional chaos I see people bringing to their horse interactions nowadays seems to be increasing (at an alarming rate.)

Reactive Riding - Horse Help & Tips

 Reactive Riding

When people sit down in that saddle their brain tends to focus solely on themselves. Instead, if they treated their horse-like they were "on the same team" and told the horse what the PLAN was ahead of time, the horse would have a better chance of offering the desired response toward the rider. 

Horseback Riders and Equine Enthusiast Tips- Stop overwhelming Yourself

Stop Overwhelming Yourself
It is very easy to become overwhelmed by everything that "isn't" or is challenging, frustrating, and exhausting with the horse.
Unrealistic expectations, hopefulness and continuously comparing ourselves or our horses to what "everyone else" is/can do, is detrimental to the Quality of our interactions and leads to less-than-ideal scenarios.
I wish more folks gave themselves permission to literally and figuratively focus on being present and addressing themselves and their horse in small segments. Each segment of Clarity in Communication can connect to the next, which influences how the "final" piece of accomplishment is experienced by the horse.

The Human Intention- Influencing the horse's mental, emotional, and physical responses

Until humans figure out what we are bringing to the equine partnership, we cannot offer the horse clear, intentional, specific, and segmented communication they so often need.

Horseback Riding- Trail Riding Tips to Improve Confidence and Clarity by Alternative Horsemanship

 One of the greatest challenges I have is getting folks to switch from reactive to proactive behavior with their horse.

Although for a majority of people riding is supposed to be a fun outlet or escape from other aspects of their life, it isn't always the romanticized experience that initially inspires most folks to start riding in the first place. But it can quickly become an emotionally frustrating experience when the human has intentions that may not yet be appropriate for their own abilities or that of their horse.

I can't count how many people I meet that seemed to have woken up one day and randomly decided to start doing something with their horse and then wondered why it ended in disaster.

Confidence Building in Human and Horse Webinar

Alternative Horsemanship with Samantha Harvey the Remote Horse Coach presents this 60-minute two-part webinar addressing building confidence in the horse and rider. It is split into two segments: Part 1 Recognizing patterns of reactive interaction. Part 2 What proactive practices build confidence in the horse and rider. Click here to watch on the Alternative Horsemanship Remote Horse Coach Video Catalogue

Horseback Rider Help- Letting go to feel the Horse

"Letting Go" to Feel the Horse

Learning to ride and becoming clear in the mechanics of aids to communicate can be a challenge in itself. And that is what a majority of folks limit their riding goals to. The experience is solely about the human.

But for those seeking connection, balance, and fluidity, they have to "let go" of gripping, holding, bracing, making, leveraging, and constantly driving the horse with pressure.

The willingness and connected feel of the horse comes from "letting go" of containing him in order to feel his feedback, acknowledge it without criticism, and address it, without it becoming a fight.

The "with-you-ness" of the equine partner- where the rider feels they have options to ask anything at any time- and the horse offers to try- comes from the human mentally "letting go" of and replacing hopeful, passive, reactive communication with the mental presence and proactive interaction with the equine.

Finding the peaceful, calm, quiet, and softness in the horse experience comes from the human "letting go" of their emotional chaos and distraction before they are ever in proximity to the horse.

"Letting go" of self-imposed or society's have-tos, allows for unexpected Opportunities to arise that often become some of the most valued and trust-building times- for both the human and the horse.

Horse & Rider Confidence- Bad Weather Opportunities

 Weather Opportunities 

 Often when weather conditions and circumstances are out of our control or are not ideal, we tend to shy away from spending time with our horses to avoid potential conflict or issues.  I find some of the most successful learning situations are when our surroundings are less than ideal. 

In the Moment-ness with the horse- Improving your Horsemanship