Regaining Your Confidence in the Saddle

Most riders have, or will have to, overcome the fear obstacle at some point in their riding career. A “healthy fear” or “respect” for the 1000 lb animal that you are sitting on is common, but when that fear begins to become debilitating it starts to be an issue. Whether it be from being involved in/seeing a riding accident, or from being new to/returning to riding, or due to age/health problems, the fear of loss of control and physical harm is not uncommon. And simply saying “just suck it up and get back on” doesn't work. After overcoming my own riding fears from an accident a few years ago, I have since been working to help several clients conquer their fears as well. Here are some tips on ways to help regain your confidence in the saddle:

Ask yourself some questions – are your fears truly justified? Identify what it is that you are afraid of. Is your horse suited to you? Should you consider sending your horse to a trainer while you take some lessons on a schooling horse? Working through your fear on the same horse that caused it is very difficult. A lack of confidence in yourself degrades your horse's confidence. We have all heard about “The Cycle” – for example, your horse sees something in the distance and stops to stare. You tense up and clutch the reins while searching for what your horse is looking at. Your horse feels you tense up and now thinks that his fears are justified, so he starts to dance around. You get more tense …the cycle continues - both of you feed off each other's energy and spin each other up into disaster. Your horse needs to know you are calm. You cannot fake it with your horse – horses are very sensitive and can read your body language. They can feel every shift of weight in the saddle.

Discuss your fear with someone you trust. They can help support you, offer suggestions, assist you in any riding exercises and help you find a suitable horse if necessary. Remember, most riders have dealt with fear at some point – they should not be judgemental and tell you to “just get over it”. If you can find a riding instructor who can help you configure a plan to help you progress through your fear (but who will not let you use it as an excuse), they can be helpful in reaching your goal.

Find your comfort level. In the beginning, some people can only handle driving out to the barn and cleaning their tack. Others only feel comfortable standing in the paddock with their horse, or grooming their horse, or riding only at a walk. Discover where/what it is for you, and work at this level until you are bored.

Develop a groundwork program and work on it with your horse. Often people's fear stems from them being afraid of losing control of their horse – developing a safe, confident, respectful relationship with your horse on the ground will help you to be more confident in the saddle. With the help of a trainer you can begin to “bombproof” your horse on the ground and introduce your horse to many of the scary obstacles that may have caused your confidence to degrade in the first place. Teach your horse that you are a good leader and a safe place to be.

Once you do begin riding again, work to develop a secure independent seat. The best way to do this is by riding bareback or on a bareback pad. You can have someone else lead your horse while you ride – teach yourself to relax and move with your horse. When we tense up in the saddle, we go into a fetal position which makes it very easy for us to fall off. Work on developing a very solid “whoa” cue with your horse. And do exercises that keep you thinking – do not just ride around in endless circles, this will give you too much time to think! Do hundreds of transitions, patterns, poles, grids etc.

Use all of your safety equipment - proper helmet, boots, safety stirrups, safety vests, grab straps for your saddle and so on. Knowing you are less likely to get injured if you do happen to fall off will help to increase your confidence.

Do not focus on the negative – use positive imagery. We have a tendancy to replay a negative action or situation over and over again in our minds, so that is what we usually end up with. When we panic we usually think about the worst case scenario (ie. My horse is going to spook and bolt). If you think about the most positive outcome, chances are you will get it! This triggers our body to mimic what we need to do to get the positive response.

Reprogram the way you think. Yes, it is possible! There are many excellent books and CDs out there on self-hypnosis and NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) and other emotional freedom techniques. Use positive imagery and language to change the results you get. Do not say “I can't” or “I don't” – your body will believe you really “can't”. Rather than saying “I can't canter, I'm a terrible rider” say something like “Today I worked on transitions and patterns at the trot because I know that will lead to success at the canter”. Replace the negatives with positives. You can also use triggers and anchors to help reprogram your responses. Our mind associates mental images with responses from our body. For example, if you imagine biting into a juicy sour lemon, you are going to start to salivate even though you are not actually eating a lemon (trigger). Or when a song reminds you of something/someone (anchor). We have positive and negative anchors and triggers. An example of a negative trigger/anchor would be – we begin to ride a horse down a familiar trail where we had a previous fall and we begin to get anxious. Or we hear a sound that our horse spooked at in the past, and we begin to tense up even though our horse shows no sign of spooking at it now. Below is an example of a way to anchor relaxation into your ride. You may also want to look into the Emotional Freedom Technique (www.emofree.com).

Centering & Grounding Process (Doris. J Worcester, The Performance Edge)

Purpose: To center and ground your body and to relax and focus your mind prior to riding.

•  After mounting your horse, settle into your saddle and find that spot on your horse's back where you feel deeply connected. Sit for a moment and feel what it feels like to be deeply connected with your horse.

•  In this connected place on your horse, begin to use the relaxation breathing technique: imagine 1000 candles on a birthday cake. You begin to blow all of the candles out with a long, long out breath through pursed lips. After blowing the candles out, take a normal sized in breath. Blow the candles out two more times in this manner.

•  As you blow the candles out, state a positive affirmation in your mind with each out breath. For example, you may say: “I am relaxed and calm” or “I am ready and alert” or “I am confident and competent”. Come up with an affirmation that really resonates with you.

•  As you state your affirmation, get all your sense involved – make sure you really see, feel, hear and smell what it is like to be “relaxed and calm”, or “ready and alert”, or “confident and competent”.

•  At the peak of the feeling, squeeze the reins in each hand between the thumb and forefinger to anchor this peak experience. This will make it easier and more automatic to create this peak state in the future by simply squeezing your reins.

•  After you have completed the process, pat your horse and begin your ride.

The Relaxation Breath (Reverse Breathing) (Epstein, Gerald, M.D. Healing Visualizations, New York: Bantam Books)

Purpose: To create a state of relaxation before competition and performance; to enhance your visualization skills.

Tell yourself to become quiet and relaxed. Breathe rhythmically, in through the nose and out through the mouth. Imagine a very large birthday cake with 1000 candles on it. You are to blow the candles out in one long, slow, smooth out-breath. Begin with the OUT BREATH: visualize the birthday cake with 1000 candles. Instruct yourself the breathe out three times. SLOWLY, and smoothly blow out all the candles with your long out-breath. Then take a normal sized IN BREATH. Repeat blowing out the candles two more times, always starting with the long, slow out-breath and ending with a normal in-breath that is not labored or exaggerated.

Breathing out longer than breathing in stimulates the major quieting nerve in the body – the vagus. Originating at the base of the brain, in the medulla, this nerve extends down through the next and sends branches to the lungs, heart and intestinal tract. Under the influence of the longer out-breath, the vagus plays a role in lowering blood pressure, slowing the pulse, heart rate and muscular contractions of the intestinal tract, and reducing respiratory rate. When these functions are quiet you are more relaxed and your attention and focus are more fully available for your riding performance as well as for your imagery work.

Exhalation over inhalation is stressed because breathing to quiet the body begins with an outbreath, not and inbreath. The usual way of in-out breathing stimulates us by exciting our sympathetic or excitatory nervous system and the adrenal medulla which secretes adrenaline. Out-breathing on the other hand, stimulates the parasympathetic nervous system and the vagus nerve, which helps the body quiet down and relax.