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| Morning rides are the best (except that it's been a bit cold so TC has been a bit up) |
But Tracey lessons are really hard for me, mentally, especially when I haven't taken one in a long time. I've told Kate (who also rides with her) that I've never been a better rider since starting to ride with Tracey, but I've never felt worse about my riding.
It's not that Tracey is mean, it's that she's thorough. She's not the kind of trainer to say "hey I can see you're having trouble with this, let's work on it later and do something else" or the kind of trainer who is your own personal cheerleader. She is honest, and not afraid of saying anything to her students. She is detailed and persistent. She knows exactly what she wants you to do and she will not let up until you do it. Even if it's hard. Especially if it's hard. She's no stranger to keeping someone on a circle or on a specific exercise for an entire lesson. I've had lessons where we've barely left the walk.
She's kind of rubbed off on me. And you can see it in my teaching. I've become more detailed, more demanding. I've not shied away from making someone push through the hard stuff and not letting them have a second to rest. I'm still maybe a bit too nice/cheerleader-ish, but I like being that way. I still try to be very honest, even if it risks me losing clients (mostly because I don't need them now). I don't like catering to people, but I do like being nice. I love what it has done to my teaching and my riding. I don't think I'd be able to ride TC very well without all of the knowledge I have gained from riding with Tracey.
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| But... why not? |
But the lessons can really get to me. I can feel this pull between KNOWING that I'm a Grand Prix rider, knowing that I trained my own horse to the level in weekly lessons, knowing that people actually think I'm good enough to pay to say words to while they are riding... and yet feeling like I can barely sit on my horse correctly. Even just her sheer knowledge is intimidating and makes me feel like I don't know what I'm talking about.
When I'm in weekly lessons, I embrace this. I love feeling like there's so much more to learn. I love the effect she has on my riding and my horses' ways of going. I was going down such an unfortunate path with Rico and she cleared a better path ahead of me, then kicked me down it and it kind of hurt.
When I only see her once every couple of months, it can be demoralizing. When the lessons are close together, my confidence doesn't grow too much and I don't stray off her path too much. The lessons are still hard, but it's more building on concepts and she relaxes because she knows she doesn't have to stuff everything she wants to say in. I know this feeling well- the way I teach regular lessons is very different from the way I teach clinics. When the lessons are far apart though, I get a bit confident because I do know how to train horses and TC is very trainable, so we make progress, but down a mostly parallel path that slowly grows away from hers. So when I see her, she has to yank me back, pivot me, and push me forward again. That kind of deflates me for a few days.
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| He always wants to hang out with the horses in turnout near the road |
So the good news is that since the lesson on Saturday, I've been able to mostly recreate what she's having me do. I feel like I really understand what she was getting at. And as such, I can feel the changes in my position and in the way TC is going. I also am not too concerned for the show this weekend. Well, I mean I'm REALLY concerned because I'm worried that he'll be a dingbat. But other than that, not too concerned. I picked these tests because they're very doable for us. And I'm fairly decent at applying new things in the show ring with a moment's notice.
But the bad news is that I'm still recovering from the lesson in my confidence. And that just means more lessons. So this weekend I'm showing (and if the show goes bad tomorrow, I'm scratching and getting a lesson on Sunday). Next weekend I'm in DC. The weekend after I have the ability to start weekly lessons if I want. I haven't decided when TC's winter break will start, and how long it will be, but it's good to know that I can do a few extra lessons this fall if I want them.
in a way she kinda of reminds me of lessons with one of my eventing coaches (who i never seen any more, sob). the lessons were hard and were often spent focusing on exposing my and the horse's weaknesses so we could go about filling them in. his basic philosophy was that the lessons should be designed to challenge us, otherwise how are we to learn to get better? conceptually it makes sense but in reality it can end up feeling like a grind. it was worth it tho and i definitely notice now that i don't have that aspect in my current program.
ReplyDeleteI have had that same feeling riding with Johanna from Spain. During the clinic I feel like I'm learning so much and making such strides and then after I deflate and think that I just suck so much. And it's not that she's mean- she's just thorough and detail oriented and it's amazing. Having access to regular lessons is helping me loads.
ReplyDeleteOh I know this feeling, and it sucks. I'd come into a lesson really proud of how far we'd developed and get kicked back down to fill in holes and actually climb the ladder the right way. So helpful, but kinda hurt.
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