You’ve got the championship, the horse you always wanted, moved up a division, or mastered a high level skill. You feel as though nothing will ever hold you back again because you, the winner, are in complete command. Now what?
Riders all too often give up on their “confidence” with the first failure. They think, “Well, that didn’t work. Thinking positively just doesn’t work.” Sure it works, but it’s not magic. The good news? Confidence is yours to have and to keep if you develop it and take care of it properly.
In a sport environment, the consequences of jealousy can be quite costly. Every time you have a jealous thought, you are breaking your focus; you are giving away energy to another competitor and thereby strengthening their advantage. That doesn’t sound like a good idea, does it?
You need that dream picture, that vision in your mind to fuel your training. It inspires you to stretch yourself that much further, to grind through those days when you would much rather be anywhere else than the training ring.
We all love that feeling of strength in our bodies, and the increased energy it brings. The only problem is getting there; we want it now. It’s the same thing with mental fitness, it sounds great, but it seems like such an uphill climb. If you want a jump start, try the following five-week program.
What’s the Antidote? We are inundated with images and stories of shaming these days. Some are humorous, some very hurtful. Shaming is attempting to make someone feel pain and remorse for something they have done – or worse yet, for just being themselves. Shaming and blaming are close cousins.
Researchers at Cummings School of Veterinary Medicine at Tufts University in North Grafton, MA, and at Washburn University in Topeka, KS, recently completed a study funded by the Horses and Humans Research Foundation to investigate the effectiveness of equine facilitated psychotherapy (EFP) in the treatment of posttraumatic stress symptoms in children and teens.
Many horses have some level of separation anxiety. If the anxiety is mild, it may only be annoying or a minor inconvenience. But, if your horse is so herd-bound that her behaviour makes you feel anxious, it may be endangering your and your horse’s safety.
A recent study published in the Autism Research and Treatment Journal showed that children with autism are far less physically active than their non-spectrum peers, although just as physically capable. This finding suggests that children with ASD simply need more exposure to opportunities to engage in physical activity, which all children need in order to set a foundation for a healthy life.
By Lindsay Grice - Falling off hurts! It can shake a rider’s confidence so much that many choose to abandon riding altogether, and it can scare their horse, too.
