photo by Alex McCarthy on Unsplash
Stories & Inspiration
Why am I not riding? – Part 3
Here is a story I heard from a mindset and motivation coach: one of his clients wanted to implement the habit of running every morning.
The coach told him: “When you get up in the morning, put your running shoes on and take them off again without even leaving the house.” So, the only thing his client committed to was that tiny and ridiculously doable action. But he had to fully commit to do that. After a few days of doing it, the client thought: “Now that I have my shoes on, I can at least walk around the block.”, and from there he kept adding to this new habit until he ran every morning.
Morale of the story: bring the threshold to get started down as low as possible.The prep work to ride a horse will always be much more complex than putting the running shoes on, but on days that are difficult, you could simplify as much as possible, e.g. just groom the area where the saddle goes, put the saddle on, and just commit to getting on for a 10 minute walk ride. And you can be totally fine with leaving it at this, but on some days you might feel like doing more, now that you are up there already. You have made it easy for yourself to commit to something very doable, so that you can enjoy riding your horse more often.
P.S. The exercises of the Online Rider Balance Bootcamp are based on this idea of keeping the exercises very simple and doable, so that it’s easy to commit, especially when you start seeing the results.
Here are a just a few examples of what the Rider Balance Bootcamp has done for my clients:
- Liz had stopped riding because she felt that her balance had deteriorated so much with ageing that she didn’t feel safe riding. After only two weeks of the Bootcamp, she was able to balance on her right foot, something that she hadn’t been able to do for as long as she could remember. She now feels optimistic that she will be able to get back on a horse.
- After a car accident a few years ago, a 59-year old rider had felt dizzy and nauseous when riding. After only 10 days of doing the exercises from the Bootcamp, she did a 2-hour trail ride without getting nauseous.
- After the Bootcamp, Chrissy felt much more balanced in the left-lead canter that she had previously been struggling with.
- Lola felt safe and confident when she had to balance on the curb getting out of her car in a tight parking spot. That might not sound like much, but maintaining and even gaining more confidence in the way you are moving on the ground will not just improve your quality of life but also your riding.
With age, balance deteriorates IF we don’t do anything about it. Are you wondering why you don’t feel as confident in the saddle anymore as you did when you were younger? Balance is probably a part of this. Here is the good news: There are some very simple exercises that can get your brain on board for better balance. Exercises that you don’t have to get the running shoes out for.
These exercises include eye and tongue movements (who would have thought…)
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