Today things started to click. I was actually able to get Gracie to move where I wanted her to to and to trot when I asked her! After three horseback riding lessons, I’m excited about my progress—and even more importantly, I really enjoyed my lesson.
Learning to ride a horse is a major goal of mine for 2009. I found a wonderful instructor, Denise, through Elizabeth, a volunteer and donor I interact a lot with at work. She and her husband have several horses that are stabled on their property at home. Elizabeth is a total horse person—she spends summers at her second home in Idaho, with the horses. I told Elizabeth about my plans to learn to ride and asked if she knew of a good instructor. She immediately suggested Denise. (Ask and you shall receive.) When I contacted Denise and she told me she worked at the “Beverly Hillbilly” stable at Coto de Caza (vs. the much larger Beverly Hills stable), I knew she would be a good match for me.
Today was lesson number three, my second session with Gracie. (Last week was Billy Joe Bob on a trail ride.) She is a beautiful quarter horse—chestnut colored with a white stripe down her nose. She is gentle and sweet and very patient with novices like me. I felt at ease with Gracie the first time I met her. Today I groomed her and walked her on her lead into the arena for our lesson then back to her stall at the end of the day. (Heck, if you were watching, you might have thought I actually knew what I was doing. The whole idea of “acting as if” can actually work!)
I love the feeling of competency that’s growing as I spend more time around the horses and learn to ride. I’m setting my fears aside—fear of the horses, fear of failure, fear of looking like a fool—to be in the moment, feel myself, feel the horse and to just go for it. I was really surprised today with how well I did riding Gracie around the arena and getting her to go from a walk to a trot and back to a walk again. We even did figure eights in the arena to test my ability to get her to move where I wanted her to go. I must say, we did pretty well for a first try. And Denise, my instructor, complimented me on my riding form and acknowledged that I had come a long way since my first lesson. She must know how much I appreciate praise, maybe even more so than Gracie!
Tags: fear, grace, horseback riding, horses
You are going to be out of goals by June! go you