Some of my best confidence tips
Firstly what is confidence? What does it mean to lack confidence in horse riding? Confidence is having trust in yourself or others in a situation but really when riding horses it is all about self -confidence. When riding horses and ponies and suffering from a lack of confidence, it often means you are either too scared to do something because you are listening to a fear in the back of your mind or you don't trust yourself, your pony or sometimes your instructor.
Ever since falling off for the first time, I have been a less confident rider. I always doubt myself, feel like I can’t do it and like I am not improving or getting any further. It took me a year to overcome this and this is how I did it:
Repeat this to yourself “I CAN DO IT!”
One of my favourite instructors of all time - who unfortunately left my riding school - put me on my favourite pony and the one who I trusted and said, one day when I felt like I couldn’t do it anymore, “Repeat this after me: YOU CAN DO IT!”
These words worked wonders. She made me repeat it constantly in my head as well as saying it out loud, every beat of the walk and every time I rose out of the saddle when I eventually tried trotting again. After consistent practise and working with this, I began to enjoy riding again and the fog of fear started to clear. It made me feel like I could do it instead of I can't do it.
Little but often
If you have what I would call an “ok” confidence level meaning you can do it, but you always have the nagging negative doubts of what might happen even though they aren’t or haven’t, then pushing yourself to do something a little past the security banister to boost your mentality and will prove to you that ‘YOU CAN DO IT!’ It might be that do a slightly longer period of trot or will push to get the trot going faster and more lengthened to prove that they are not going to go flying into the distance then this is a good way!
Have a good instructor
Having an instructor that is able to guide you through your fog of fear. Riding with someone you trust or are able to talk to about what might be going on in you head is so important if you want to figure your way through your large problem. Riding with an instructor who may be good and has had lots of experience isn’t the best when you feel scared to talk to them and share you honest thoughts and feelings.
Ride a horse/ pony you trust
With a lot of riding schools, you are able to leave them a message of a pony request. Riding a pony, you trust and have confidence in that they will help get you out of your problem is a massive factor. It may seem obvious, but it is true! If you lost confidence on your own horse then ride them still but also see if it is possible to have a lesson or two on a more calm pony, might be at a local riding facility or your friends schoolmaster.
Please remember that everybody is different. There are so many other good resources other than my blog. Please don’t rush this process as it is timely. Believe in yourself. Have faith and hang on in there. I’ll leave some links of videos that I watched down below also.
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Thank you all for reading! Hope this helps! Bye for now!
The Equestrian Blogger
Instagram: @the.equestrian.blogger
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