Hi everybody,

I am very frustrated with my riding.  Maybe some of you out there have some words of wisdom.

First, some background.  As an incorrigible horse lover, I have been riding on and off since childhood, but never took lessons for more than 6-9 months at a time due to finances, winter weather, or other circumstances, and rarely more than once a week, which meant I did the same beginner stuff repeatedly through the years.  I've been a sort of  permanent beginner, and never have gotten beyond trotting or cantering a few crossrails or gymnastics before stopping riding for one reason or another, and then having to get back in shape to do it the next time.  I've gone on several overseas riding trips, and always rode well enough to enjoy those.

Five years ago, I bought a horse, which I kept for a few years, and got to that same level again with the crossrails and gymnastics before becoming pregnant with my son and stopping riding two years ago.  I was back on the horse two weeks after giving birth, and I'm sure like many women, found that much had changed.  Unfortunately, I wasn't the only one--my horse had been ridden by a trainer during my pregnancy, and I came to realize that he was too much horse for me--too spooky and dominant to be a relaxing ride for somebody getting "back into it."  I was happy to be able to rehome him with my husband's cousin, whose daughter is an advanced hunter-jumper rider who has done many shows, and hit it off with my ex-horse immediately.

Also, I want to point out that I didn't feel more risk-averse after having the baby.  Lots of people told me that they became more cautious riders after having children.  I felt the same in my mind, but of course I was physically very deconditioned.  I was always a somewhat timid rider, however--after the baby, AND before.

As soon as I wasn't paying board anymore, last April, I began twice-weekly lessons with a well-regarded trainer, and for once, everything seemed perfect.  There's an indoor ring to prevent weather cancellations, the school horses are all sound, good-tempered and well-schooled, which prevents horse limitations from curtailing what the student may do, I have the money to ride twice a week (sometimes three times,) and the trainer is an excellent teacher. I am also working out at a boot-camp style class five days a week for general fitness.  But I'm beginning to think I have some unnamed learning disability or something where riding is concerned! 

After a year of twice weekly lessons, I am still posting the trot over cavalletti and working on my seat at the canter.  My instructor is NOT the one holding me back.  My ability is.  When we've tried more difficult things, many of which I've done before a few years ago, like cantering over ground poles, I've nearly fallen off.  Sometimes I do fall off.  I lose my balance trotting ground poles without stirrups.  It took me weeks to sit the trot without irons.  I haven't cantered without them yet. If my horse stumbles or bobbles over a crossrail, I have fallen off, or nearly fallen off.  This hasn't happened for a while because my trainer hasn't pointed me at one of those in a few months. I've gotten a lot better--but it's taking forever. Like, a whole year.

I used to say that I used "the prayer approach" when jumping because I never, ever in my life felt solid while doing it--I would just grab mane and pray.  I think I was always timid not because of a character flaw (which I had assumed,) but because I really didn't know what I was doing or why I always felt insecure. There are many things my trainer has told me that I never knew--like, that I'm supposed to urge the horse forward using my calf instead of heel, how and when to open and close my hip angle, and that a two-point is crouching somewhat down rather than standing up.  Keeping my hands more still.  Heels reliably down.  I'd been holding and using a crop wrong all of these years.  Things like that.

My question is, is this how long it takes to learn to ride?  Am I innately just bad at this?  Is it always this hard for this long, and this slow?  It makes me wonder whether I should bother.  Like, should I give up hunt seat?  My instinct says no, because trail riding could use all of the skills I'm practicing, regardless of what horse or what saddle I choose.  And I still love it.  And if I don't have these skills, and I lose a stirrup or my horse shies, then I'm not safe.  Is is normal to be a person who never gets beyond the basics and works them for her whole life, while other people advance and do hunter paces and go to shows?  I'm not physically uncoordinated or obviously limited in any way. 

I guess I don't know this because I've never ridden for so long all at once, so I've never had a chance to get impatient, and apparently prior trainers just pointed me at obstacles without my really knowing what I was doing, and considered it a success if I was still on the horse afterwards.  Maybe this is the curse of riding with a trainer who actually requires that I have knowledge and ability, for the first time at age 38.  But for a person who feels she works in large part to be able to afford to play with ponies, I'm struggling.

I appreciate any of you that have reached the end of this, and value your thoughts.

 Hi, I can empathise with you because back when my horse and I were jumping, I used to say we were doing it on a wing and a prayer.  I was always so unsteady in the saddle over jumps, especially since my horse liked to take any kind of jump at a steeplechase pace. I'd either get left behind or, in an effort to not get left behind, I'd jump ahead of him. I used to approach fences thinking "I'm going to die"!

After sticking with it for a few years in which we had some successes, but also failures and more than my share of falls or near falls, I decided to drop the jumping concentrate on dressage and just working on the flat.  My decision was made easier by the fact that my horse fot EPM and after he had recovered, the vet warned that he may not be safe to ride over fences again.  For a number of years after that, each time I rode was more a physical therapy session for the horse, to return him to full mobility.

Sticking to flat work took the fear factor out of it. I could still continue learning and improving, but I didn't have that specter of "I'm going to fall" hanging over me.

I think you might benefit from some lessons with a dressage trainer, or at least some flatwork lessons that don't involve jumping.  Talk to your trainer about it and see what she says.

Good luck to you.

In order to jump well, you need a good seat. The fact that you fall over fences and feel insecure means you do not have that good seat yet. It appears that all of your instructors have put you over fences before you were ready. Like Jayne said, take some lessons in dressage until you gain that independent seat that you need. You may discover that dressage is not an also-run discipline, but a very demanding one, even more difficult than jumping at times. It connects you to the horse in a way that jumping often does not. You do not need to jump in order to be a good rider.

 Everyone learns at a different rate, so be patient with yourself.  There's also a difference between learning to generally ride and learning to ride CORRECTLY.  

Conditioning your body is a great start -- but remember, as you have observed, riding is about balance and stability and less about muscle.  So what you want to be training are your core and stabilizer muscles, which is why balancing and work on a ball can be a great tool.

Also, take a critical look to see if you are being "trainer-blind" -- are all of the trainer's students like this or not?  I have been guilty  myself of not being able to see beyond my bubble and thinking I was doing the right thing when I really wasn't.  I'm not suggesting you have a poor trainer, she may be great, but it's always good to poke your head up and look around.

 

 

Thank you for your responses.

Well, obviously my seat needs work.  I agree that everybody put me over fences prematurely.  The falling off when jumping or cantering poles only happened after I was trying to get back in shape after i had my baby, but the insecurity has been all along. 

I don't think of dressage as an "also-ran" discipline or that it isn't demanding.  I'm not the kind of person who thinks of any riding style that way.  About ten years ago I took dressage lessons with a Centered Riding certified trainer, and then a little more recently I took some dressage lessons for a summer (my erratic riding again.)  Twenty years ago when i was studying in Germany, I took riding lessons, and there, it's all dressage unless you specifically request jumping, which I certainly did not.  So I'm not completely unfamiliar with dressage.

My main interest is in trail riding and hunter paces, so hunter-jumper makes sense (our trails have obstacles.)  It's also what is most widespread around my area, so if you sign up for English lessons, that's what you're most likely to get.  Actually, I think the biggest obstacle for me to take dedicated dressage lessons is that the "price of admission" is so high--the dressage barns are very fancy and full of people with strings of 17-hand warmbloods to ride.  I'm okay with my 15 hand QH crosses!  My trainer is an eventing trainer, and she works a lot of dressage into everything.  I believe I'm getting a well-rounded education in that way.

I'm not making a fetish of jumping, and I know you don't need to, in order to ride well, but it's just something I never felt comfortable doing without understanding the reason, and there are certain skills landmarks I've seen, and not making them is frustrating.  I've ridden so much, and am really treading water, and it's frustrating. I wonder what the hell I've been doing, and how I've been holding myself back.

Ha, yes, "trainer blindness."  In a word, no.  All the trainer's students are NOT like this.  They vary from beginner beginners to people who are off doing horse trials or other kinds of shows.  This barn isn't super show-focused, but those with interest in showing certainly do it.  I think this trainer used to have students showing at a very high level, but that she's scaled back to keeping it more low-key as she's gotten older.  I think she's around 70.

I've ridden with so many trainers; I try to take what each can offer and put it in my tool kit without making a religion of it.  This is a real old-time horsewoman, trained with some big names back when, and even my former trainer, who didn't like ANYBODY, had tons of respect for this current one.  She's the only trainer who actually has made me do the damn exercises until I got it right, instead of just pointing me at things and calling it a success if I was still on the horse at the other side.  The only trainer who didn't seem angry or impatient with me for needing more practice on something.  And this is the only place there have been school horses able and willing to, say, canter on both leads long enough or trot those cavalletti often enough to practice the subtleties.  Now at last I have a trainer on the ground saying, "arch your lower back" and "stretch down through your knee" and "open your hip angle." 

And it does feel better than it did.   All this is great.  I just can't believe how long it's taking!  I did all these exercises with at least a half dozen other trainers.  I feel like I'll never get past any of it. I know you keep refining your knowledge of even the basics, but this feels like I am constantly reinventing the wheel for myself....because I need to.  I feel like I'll never be able to do any more!

You've done these exercises so many times, granted, but you never did them long enough to make them second nature. You're starting over again every time. If I were you I'd ignore the lessons you took in the past and look at the instruction you're doing now as the first time. With that in mind, it hasn't really taken you all that long to get where you are. You said you were getting better, and if you keep at it religiously you WILL see the improvement. But if your riding is just done in fits and starts--like in the past--you'll never get over the "beginner" plateau. You have to commit to it: you can't learn to ride piece meal.

 Then it sounds to me like you are doing fine.  If your trainer is old-school, then she is going to insist that your basics ARE correct and stable before you move on, which is great -- now the length of time the old-schoolers insist on can vary, but it sounds like she is just insisting on installing correct basics and balance before you move on, which is great.  It also takes longer if you are not riding every day.  It can feel slow and frustrating at that stage, but it takes a LONG time for something to imprint in muscle memory (a study showed 10,000 hours before something became instinctive to muscles) and you are learning many new details and riding theory and it sounds like you have a person who is doing it right, so you are very lucky!

The slow and steady work now will pay off in the long run and one day you will suddenly find yourself secure and balanced in the saddle without you even realizing you got there.  Like I mentioned earlier, keep up that core stability work and it will help you a lot.  So relax, enjoy the process of learning, be patient with your body (sadly, we never get it as easy as it was when we were 18), ask lots of questions, and love the horses!

 I would suggest that you invest in some private Pilates lessons to develop core stability.  You don't have that yet in the saddle and it's actually harder to learn there.  Learn it really well unmounted and then take that knowledge and skill to the mounted work.

 Good luck to you!  :)

Hello Discouraged, First you may consider having your ears checked for a balance problem.  Once that question is answered, you may just need to re-think the mental picture you have of yourself as you ride.  You state that you might like to trail ride.  That is a great way to learn to relax IF YOU HAVE A CALM, WELL TRAINED HORSE.  I am 66 yrs. old and have ridden most of my adult life.  You would probably benefit from reading the book Thinking Riding by Molly Sivewright.   You are most welcome to email me if I may be of further help.  My email address is karenarab@earthlink.net.  My husband and I raise and train Arabian horses.  We have helped people with problem horses many times.  I pray you will have better times under saddle.

Respectfully,

Karen Davis

Thanks again for the thoughtful replies.  Yes, when I was riding every day I didn't have such a student-focused trainer (she was more interested in my horse than in me,) so I didn't work on these basics.  I'm trying to do three times a week a little more often, now that the weather's nice. 

And I agree that Pilates would probably help.  I've tried Pilates in the past (bor-ring!) and have told people often that planks and other core exercises are really helpful for riding.  With a 2 year old, a full time job, a five-days-a-week exercise class, and the riding I do, I don't know if I can manage to fit in Pilates classes too, but I CAN be a little more dedicated to the Pilates-style core work we do in my boot camp--maybe struggle a little harder to hold positions longer, and the like.  Normally I bag out sooner than I maybe COULD. 

With the starting over and over thing, it makes me wonder how anybody every learns this stuff.  Now, I had more interruptions than most people because I never had any money growing up, but plenty of people stop for the winter and don't seem to have such problems.  I think I'll go eat worms.

Luckily, when I was 18 I was much less fit and more nervous than I am now, so I don't hearken back to wishing I rode that way, as some people do.  But by the same token, I don't have the memory of what that felt like to refer to, either.  I did the math for the whole 10,000 hours until muscle memory thing.  I hope that isn't right because riding twice a week it'll take me a hundred years to reach 10,000 hours in the saddle, so maybe I really SHOULDN'T bother.  :P  Just kidding.

Hey, thanks!  That ear problem thing is an out-of-the-box idea!  I have always enjoyed trail riding, but my former horse was too hot for me to enjoy in that way. I got tired of sticking to a bolting horse, and that was even before I had my baby and I thought I was riding pretty well.  The trail rides I had on calmer and better-bombproofed horses have been fun, and we have a really extensive trail network nearby.

LPC:

My question is, is this how long it takes to learn to ride?  Am I innately just bad at this?  Is it always this hard for this long, and this slow?

I know EXACTLY how you feel. I started riding five years ago, and rode once a week. I remember watching other people ride, who rode the exact amount of time I did, and advancing so much faster than me. I remember thinking Is there something wrong with me? Why am I not becoming a better rider! It especially got frustrating when some other students started riding a year and a half after me, and started cantering on their second or third month, and they'd look at me like How come it took you a whole year to learn to canter? So the truth is, you're not alone. It's hard to feel like you're being 'left behind' in the learning process, but some people are just natural riders and others are not. I am not a natural rider, and it took me forever to learn to post, to canter correctly, to have quiet hands, and to keep my heels down. I only learned to post correctly last year, and I am now on my sixth year of riding! But the most important thing is to stick with it. Don't compare yourself with others, compare yourself with your status the year before. You are improving in little steps, though the may be hard to see. You are always improving. I still struggle to sit a horse correctly. I believe I have the record of the most falls at my barn, though my riding instructor pointed something very helpful. She says I fall off so much because I'm constantly pushing myself to see how far I can go. That's an encouraging thought if you ask me! So don't be too discouraged. You will learn, it just takes time. Time and lots and lots of determination. Though you may be an English rider, I'm gonna say it anyways. Cowgirl up partner! :)

-GC

I disagree with Solaris in that it DOES take muscle to have great stability and balance! If you don't have good core strength, the muscles have to work hard to keep you balanced in an upright position. With toned muscles, they don't have to work at all....your body just does it with "positive" tension, like a dancer!

 I would suggest that you drop out of the five-day-a-week exercise class or cut it to two or three days so that you can fit Pilates in.  And I do mean private Pilates to get the right pointers.  A group class isn't going to help you as much.

And I'm at a loss to understand the "boring" part of doing Pilates.  What's boring about it to you?  It can be quite challenging and there are many details to master.  It's not about holding a pose; it's about moving with control with a mind-body connection.  You have to engage your brain to do Pilates correctly.  If you're bored, I think perhaps you've checked out mentally and you have no idea what your body parts are doing of their own accord since you're not in charge!  :)

I just did a Pilates for Riders clinic this past weekend and every single person in the clinic (10) enjoyed it immensely.

 Try slightly tucking your pelvis (tail tucked under like a scared dog) or bringing your hips closer to your bottom ribs while scooping your abs.  Breathe into your lower back ribs.  Engage the pelvic floor.  Leave your butt muscles SOFT!  Just this much can be quite challenging as many people find it difficult to tuck the pelvis and leave the butt soft.  Or engage the pelvic floor (10% Kegel) and still leave the butt soft.  Now put all three together and see if you can do it.

First off, your horse will significantly relax.  Second, you will become more stable.  If your legs were all over the place, particularly out behind you while you kept falling forward, the pelvic tuck will be nearly miraculous for you.