I used to think I needed to train my dressage horses with someone regularly to make any progress. I’ve learned that it really depends on who you can find to train with. Once you’ve been riding for a while, you start to develop your own system. In dressage, there are plenty of opinions on what is right and wrong. Someone will always think you’re wrong and this can be a problem if you don’t recognize it.
The last few clinics I rode in actually made things worse for me. The instructors wanted to radically reconstruct everything I was doing. When someone tries to completely change you like, it makes you assume that everything you do is wrong. Maybe wrong to them, but not wrong to you. You can train incorrectly and you’ll get a result. It may not be the best result, but it is a result.
If you can find a kindred spirit, someone that connects with you, that allows your voice to be heard, then consider yourself very lucky. I had that for a very short period of time, which ended in 2006 with my mentor’s death. I look back on it now and I’m so glad I recognized what a gift it was to work with someone like that. He clearly knew more than me, but was humble about it. He told me he wasn’t God, and just told me what he saw. He said I was the trainer, and if he told me to do something that didn’t work, I was to ignore it.
Since he died, I’ve been searching for my next mentor. I’m still searching. I do learn from everyone I work with, as long as I can incorporate it into my system. It fails when I try to embrace their entire method and abandon my own. I second guess myself so much I become useless. This is something that must be avoided.
I don’t recommend working on your own for extended periods of time. But I will say this – it can work. It took me a long, long, time to train my first horse to Grand Prix. Even I didn’t think it was possible to do such a thing without a trainer. It was hard, frustrating, and I was off in the weeds more times than on the correct path. I pondered why it was that I managed to succeed, and I think it was stubbornness. I refused to give up in the face of overwhelming odds.
Of course I can’t rest – I’ve reached this goal and now I’ve set another one. I need to get better at Grand Prix. My horse is sound and relatively young (age 14). I still have days when I get frustrated, and tell myself to give up, but that’s one inner voice I am able to ignore. My other voice tells me to keep on, because if not now, when? You never know what you can accomplish if you give up. That’s why I don’t!
I hope my posts offer some encouragement – I’ve had every kind of setback you can imagine so I know how it feels, especially when you have to rehab a lame horse. If you can find someone to help you with your riding position, that would be the best. The last 2 clinics I rode in focused mainly on that, I was interfering with my horse without even knowing. To overcome bad habits on your own is really hard too. I do have mirrors so that helps. Have a great lesson and thanks again for following 🙂