Courage and Humility
It’s Spring, what they mean is we’ve just had one day of sunshine. One day where you can discern the shape of people without copious layers of coats, one day without snotty noses or hacking coughs. So really, it’s still winter.
I’ve always had a complex liking of winter. I’ve been known to climb upon my soap box about winter time being about training and learning. As I grow older and even more grey if that’s possible, I’ve come to realize what I really meant was it’s a time to contemplate. Traditionally a time to hibernate and mull over the problems of the year. In my head, that urge to muse is a daily occurrence so winter stillness seems to legitimize it. Time to reflect without anyone wondering why you weren’t out doing something. Maybe it comes from generations of Irish catholic mothers kicking herds of young children outside to play, out from under their industrious feet.
Wherever it comes from, the early setting of the sun means more time to look in rather than out. A useful and in my opinion an essential thing for training. With horses and dressage we spend so much time looking out at where we’re going, where we’re progressing. Are we spending enough time on “how” and “why” we’re doing it? This has reminded me of my Irish heritage of training and horsemanship. That heavy emphasis on “just do it’ already just that phrase conjures a memory of a riding instructor threatening all sorts of bodily harm to cajole me over a cross country fence. I’ve been thinking about this background recently, while coaching at competition, judging at shows and watching a new breed of young rider. Riders who are growing up in a different world than mine and I wonder if it’s even less self reflective. Riders with talent and energy and an admirable determination to make it big, to make it to the top.
I don’t yearn for mindsets passed, it didn’t suit me in training and I’m sure it doesn’t suit them but I do wonder if there’s any space for a balance in this era of ambition? When courage is balanced with humility it’s much harder to fail. Does this age of fame and instant gratification leave space for humility, not modesty which seems the enemy of online living but a humility that springs from a long history of dressage. A sport built upon thousands of years of thought and contemplation. A recognition that others before us have built the road we walk on. By seeing this we gain a new perspective on the search for the top, our view opens up past our arms reach and we are less tempted to grab inwards. A moment to see the knowledge that came before us as being a training tool to help us create the next step. Without it the progress of the training is stunted by reoccurring problems. The difficulty being looking back, looking inwards is so uncomfortable at times its easier to bring summer into winter, tempting to not hibernate, to not reflect. We have to find ways to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Let others, peers, trainers, judges hold us accountable in the most supportive manner and not see it as a personal attack on that inward reaching quest for fame but a chink to open the view back out. A forced but not forceful looking inwards to make sure we carry with us the experience of all those horse people before us.
I’ve always had a complex liking of winter. I’ve been known to climb upon my soap box about winter time being about training and learning. As I grow older and even more grey if that’s possible, I’ve come to realize what I really meant was it’s a time to contemplate. Traditionally a time to hibernate and mull over the problems of the year. In my head, that urge to muse is a daily occurrence so winter stillness seems to legitimize it. Time to reflect without anyone wondering why you weren’t out doing something. Maybe it comes from generations of Irish catholic mothers kicking herds of young children outside to play, out from under their industrious feet.
Wherever it comes from, the early setting of the sun means more time to look in rather than out. A useful and in my opinion an essential thing for training. With horses and dressage we spend so much time looking out at where we’re going, where we’re progressing. Are we spending enough time on “how” and “why” we’re doing it? This has reminded me of my Irish heritage of training and horsemanship. That heavy emphasis on “just do it’ already just that phrase conjures a memory of a riding instructor threatening all sorts of bodily harm to cajole me over a cross country fence. I’ve been thinking about this background recently, while coaching at competition, judging at shows and watching a new breed of young rider. Riders who are growing up in a different world than mine and I wonder if it’s even less self reflective. Riders with talent and energy and an admirable determination to make it big, to make it to the top.
I don’t yearn for mindsets passed, it didn’t suit me in training and I’m sure it doesn’t suit them but I do wonder if there’s any space for a balance in this era of ambition? When courage is balanced with humility it’s much harder to fail. Does this age of fame and instant gratification leave space for humility, not modesty which seems the enemy of online living but a humility that springs from a long history of dressage. A sport built upon thousands of years of thought and contemplation. A recognition that others before us have built the road we walk on. By seeing this we gain a new perspective on the search for the top, our view opens up past our arms reach and we are less tempted to grab inwards. A moment to see the knowledge that came before us as being a training tool to help us create the next step. Without it the progress of the training is stunted by reoccurring problems. The difficulty being looking back, looking inwards is so uncomfortable at times its easier to bring summer into winter, tempting to not hibernate, to not reflect. We have to find ways to be comfortable being uncomfortable. Let others, peers, trainers, judges hold us accountable in the most supportive manner and not see it as a personal attack on that inward reaching quest for fame but a chink to open the view back out. A forced but not forceful looking inwards to make sure we carry with us the experience of all those horse people before us.
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