When I started horse riding I was often thinking
“when am I going to know how to ride?”
Is it going to take me a year?
Or how long does it take to learn how to ride on a horse and more or less know everything?
After three years I had my first competition in Parkour. And even though my mare at the time was not really easy to ride on, it went well. I thought I can already ride quite well.
Then I had another competition in a few months and it all went very different…
Well, maybe I should have wrote it went somewhere else, because quickly after the first jump I ended up with my face in the dirt.
That Parkour was quite short for me.
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I don’t know what was bothering me more, whether it was the fact that I fell and lost the competition, or if I was more bothered because I realized that actually I am not as good of a rider as I thought.
Then it kept changing over time, once I felt like I am a good rider, then I felt like I know nothing… But then it all started settling down and I realized that I already know some stuff, but there is always much to learn.
A lot of people feel the need to compare themselves to others. They want to know that they are better then someone else.
However this comparing doesn’t do you much good. If you just start thinking “oh I am better then that person” then you stop looking for things that, that person might still be better at then you are. Its good to let these thoughts out of your head as much as possible. Just observe what the other person does, and how the horse reacts on it.
You can see whether the other person improves during the riding session, whether it stays the same or you can sometimes even observe people getting worse. Doesn’t matter what it is, its good to observe everyone and always learn. If someone does something and the results are bad, then you know that is not the way, if you see someone getting nice results, try to learn why.
You can learn a lot just observing others, doing what you see working, and avoiding what you see that doesn’t work too well.
But now we got somewhere else then I wanted.
The main thing I wanted to say is that when I stopped comparing myself to others and obsessing about “when am I going to be a good rider already?” all of a sudden I started enjoying horse riding even more. I became OK with the fact that I am never going to know everything or be the greatest, I started enjoying simply just improving over time. Just focus on the horse you are working with, and on the ways you can improve. There is always room for improvement no matter how good you get.
I never got better by thinking how good of a rider I am, I only got better by thinking about how to improve.
