Confidently sitting a spook

Sweaty palms before you get on, butterflies in your stomach at the thought of a spook ... and avoiding riding if the situation and environment are not absolutely perfect ...

... is a feeling no rider likes.

We call it ‘I’ve lost my confidence.’

But contrary to what many riders think, this ‘loss of confidence’ cannot be entirely chucked up to a weak mental game or a few bad experiences.

This feeling of fear, in many cases, is our brain’s physical reaction to a body that doesn’t feel ready for ‘fight or flight.’

Let me explain:

“You can’t regulate your psychology until you regulate your physiology” Mark Divine

Imagine you are on an exciting adventure tour in the jungle and encounter a bridge over a raging river. The bridge looks sturdy, so you take a few steps ... and all of sudden the bridge starts to move and shake. Your nervous system immediately goes into flight and panic mode.

Now imagine that same scenario ... but this time the bridge is a solid, stone bridge and does not move one iota when you step onto it. Your brain says: uhhh that feels safe and you confidently stride across.

It is too simplistic to say that we still have a primitive brain, but we can with certainty say that the brain reacts to certain stimuli with a fight or flight response.

There are certain physical issues that have our brain on high alert all the time anyway, but this of course goes into overdrive when we are in the saddle:

• Lack of range of motion at the neck (can’t turn the head past enough and easily enough – scary stuff to our primal brain)
• An instability in the spine, hips or SI joint (all of these body parts are of course essential, but the SI joint in particular is a weight bearing joint – instability in these areas make our brain super vigilant and looking for danger)
• The anticipation of pain – we are no different than horses in this respect: when we are not in the saddle, we tend to avoid movements that may strike the pain ... but in the saddle there is no way to do that, especially not in a ‘spooky’ situation.

We sometimes forget that everything happens in the brain – and that our bodies send important messages up to the brain (thru various different avenues) all the Sometimes we forget that everything happens in the brain. And that the brain receives messages (in all sorts of ways) from our bodies all the time. Messages that either say: danger or safe. In order to feel safe, the brain needs to know that the body is ‘ready to go’ in case of danger.

‘Safe’ or: as safe as possible to our human brain is stable and upright against the forces of gravity. It means: our soft tissue is in an easy ready state and can react quickly and efficiently.

When we are seated on a horse, the brain and nervous system need to feel that the body is stable and ready for action in this way.

And contrary to popular belief it has little to do with strength – or at least the way most people think of strength. A person can be strong (as in: able to hold a plank for a long time, for example) and yet have a body that is not naturally stable and agile enough to feel safe to the brain.

So, if a rider is having that dreaded feeling of “I feel like I’ve lost my confidence” the first thing to check is: is this body stable and agile enough to handle sudden movements (like a little spook).

You definitely need both: a stable and agile body AND a good mental game.

But trying to talk yourself out of not feeling confident will never work as long as your body/brain has a really good reason for knowing it is not.

The fastest way to feel naturally steady in the saddle again, is to re-train your body in a way that restores a natural sense of balance and stability.

The best way to do that is to NOT fall into the “I need more core strength” trap and instead identify the misalignment-against-gravity issues, and movement dysfunctions that are underlying the stiffness, lack of range of motion, lack of stability and (therefore) lack of confidence issues.

Incidentally, these are most likely the same issues that are causing discomfort or even pain ... in my book that is a win!

This goes back to the fact that everything happens in the brain – discomfort and pain might be your body’s way of telling you it doesn’t feel balanced and easy against gravity (and even less so when seated on a horse!)

All of the above (stiffness, lack of range of motion, lack of stability, misalignment-against-gravity issues) cause a dynamic that keeps the body stuck moving and reacting in a certain way. This is why the next step has to be to ‘retrain’ the body back into natural ease of movement, because that is what real stability and strength in the saddle are all about.

If you do this correctly it should feel like this:

Remember what I said before: 

Sweaty palms before you get on, butterflies in your stomach at the thought of a spook ... and avoiding riding if the situation and environment are not absolutely perfect ...

... is a feeling no rider likes.

That is exactly how Jane felt about riding her lovely OTTB before she worked with us:

Yesterday I rode my fabulous redheaded nearly 24 year old OTTB in the brisk wind and learned something very valuable: I can still sit an exuberant jump in the air followed by 3 bucks. What I found different and exciting is that it didn't freak me out. I lived in the moment, acknowledged that he was having a great time and I was doing a great job staying balanced in the saddle and we just went on with our workout. I could not imagine being so calm and balanced without this program. Thank you all so much!! Jane

When the body functions in good alignment, feels freedom of movement and feels intrinsically stable – that is the best recipe for comfort and confidence in the saddle.

If you are interested in getting our help to reset and retrain your body in a way that will allow you to feel naturally and easily stable and confident in the saddle, that is one of the main outcomes we help riders achieve in our program.

In helping riders achieve that we are also able to help them have more fun with their horses and live up to their riding potential (the potential that was previously buried underneath stubborn stiffness, crookedness and aches).

Please be warned: the side effects are: alleviate pain, eliminate brain fog, sleep better ... and rediscover all the other things in life that most people compromise on because their bodies don’t feel well enough to do them.

What is so awesome about our program is that it get’s to the root cause of what is causing your body to “feel unhappy” and then helps you retrain it in a logical, systematic way.