I did it!! I'm back from an amazing week in Mineral Wells Texas where I completed my first full 6 day Chris Cox Horsemanship Clinic. I'm not going to lie, it was a tough week. Relearning many basic horsemanship skills was a challenge. It is difficult to unlearn things you have been doing a certain way for so long and start to develop new habits. We learned about how to challenge our horses to relax under pressure. To push them to trust us when things get hard and to follow our leadership. What I didn't expect was that one of the hardest parts of all this was figuring out how to teach myself to be able to relax under pressure. To be able to relax under pressure seems like it would be a good life skill!! Isn't that the problem with life in general right now? The pressures of life can make your mind start to become anxious and even cause you to start to panic. Not only did I have to work this week on relaxing during the stressful parts of the clinic (Chris Cox is one tough coach and expects everyone to give 100%...if that isn't stressful then I don't know what is!), but I had to be able to be calm and relaxed so my horse did the same. The horse can't relax and trust their "person" if you aren't relaxed as well. On day 1 of the clinic, I found that I couldn't calm my mind and relax since I did not know what horse I was going to ride, when I was going to ride, and how well I was going to ride since my turn wasn't until the afternoon. We also learned that fear, which I was definitely experiencing on the first day, is caused by a lack of knowledge. When you don't know what's going to happen, or whether or not you know enough to be able to handle the situation, the fear develops from the "not knowing" and constantly wondering "what if?" By the end of the week I was better able to relax under the pressure since we had worked on gaining the knowledge needed to know that we had the tools to handle all of the "what if" scenarios. That allowed me to relax and enjoy every minute of the trail ride at Chris Cox's new ranch and the final ride of the week chasing the mechanical cow. What a ride!! I hope to be able to keep working on getting myself to relax under pressure and gain more knowledge to handle stressful situations in the future. These were invaluable lessons I took home with me and will use in my life to help make me a better mother, wife, daughter, friend, veterinarian, horsewoman, and person.
Learn from your Mistakes
I've never ridden in a horse show. I have always been afraid to make mistakes and embarrass myself since I don't know all of the horse show rules - and it seems like there are a lot of them! I've joked with a friend of mine that I need a "Horse Show 101" crash course to get me started. I guess this is a perfect example of a time to gain knowledge to get rid of the fear and be able to relax under pressure! I wish I had entered a horse show before this clinic since we did a mock horse show judged by Chris Cox himself. After my ride, I dismounted and the silent judge just said, "Michelle, zero." Now I don't know much about horse shows, but that didn't seem like a good score. Although that was hard to hear, when we reviewed my ride the score was zero because I made mistakes in the pattern (likely since I wasn't relaxed and focused) and had my horse on the wrong lead. My memory, focus, and lead changes are all things I need to work on and identifying where to improve is half the battle. I was able to realize that I felt good about my ride, despite getting a zero, because the areas that I need to improve on I already knew needed some work. I was more afraid that I was going to learn that I was doing something wrong that I thought I was doing correctly....or in other words I was fearful that I didn't have the knowledge I thought I did. But we don't improve unless we identify what we are doing wrong and where we need to improve. Learning from your mistakes is half the battle. We can always work to make things better. Our lives are a work in progress.
Be in the Moment
With all the pressures of the week, the moments that I was able to relax and find clarity were worth all the hard work. We worked on "being in the moment" and that allowed us to not be distracted by other thoughts that may be running through our head. There were many moments that were once in a life time moments and I wanted to soak up every second of them. Despite having a lot to learn and a full schedule, when the opportunity to meet and listen to the legendary Jack Brainard presented itself, we all were "in the moment" since we knew this would be a once in lifetime opportunity. Mr. Brainard just celebrated his 100th birthday and has been gracefully sharing his knowledge of horses and how people interact with them for a lifetime. It was an honor to not only meet him, but to have him share some of these most valuable thoughts, and even get him to autograph his book "If I Were To Train A Horse." All of the moments from this week will live in my memory forever and they have given me many new skills to help me continue to develop my life and horse skills.
Thank you for following me on this ride. I look forward to all our trail rides together in the future as I learn how to navigate this trail ride of life.
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