Classical Training: The Psychology of Dressage, Coping with It All

Article from Eurodressage: Classical Training: The Psychology of Dressage, Coping with It All.



"I still remember one of my first ever dressage tests, when my stubborn shetland pony decided he would pick that day, of all days, to refuse to go into canter. I left the arena. I was an 8 year old in tears and my mother said to me, "If you ever leave the arena in that state again, I will give your pony away!"
I never forgot that and still to this day, I slap on a big smile at the final salute, even if on the inside I'm horribly disappointed. The lesson that my mother was trying to highlight was that our sport should be fun and we should remember that we are there to enjoy it. At the end of the day, win, lose, break in the canter, or pig-root over the puddles, you should both, horse and rider, be having fun!
However, while every athlete faces many pressures in their pursuit of success, the sport of dressage is particularly complex, especially given that we are not the only emotional entity in the arena. When a runner loses a race, they can easily reflect and decide what they can improve on, or where they went wrong. A rider can do this to a certain extent, but if your horse suddenly leaps out of the ring for no apparent reason, it is a little more complicated to ask him why he chose that moment to do so. Sometimes we try so hard to do the perfect test, that we forget to ride it, or our horse senses our tension, and won't let us ride it. Whatever the reason, in dressage we face many ups and downs, in and out of the arena.

We have all left a competition frustrated that our best test was marked particularly badly, while the test we thought was a complete shamble put us in first place.  We all know the rather puzzling realization, or self critique, that we seem to be doing worse this week, rather than better. Or that at our last competition we believed we had finally mastered something, only to have it return at a greater degree at the competition following. "

Read the rest of the article here:
http://www.eurodressage.com/equestrian/2012/11/21/classical-training-psychology-dressage-coping-it-all