I'm Part of a Conspiracy

But only in my head! There is so much knocking around in there in the most haphazard way that I hadn't noticed that I'd gladly signed up for a membership without reading the fine print. It's a very secret organization and I've never met the other participants although I do have regular conversations with them. It also turns out none of them exist and I'm having one way conversations. 

 

I can't definitively tell you where the conversations come from but I can say for sure I was all in. Some idea of training/riding that evolved through a conspiracy of ideas given and gifted in the most elusive way. Like any conspiracy theorist it's not until someone challenges these ideas that I realize what fragile ground I was standing on. I'm talking about the inner dialogue that steers my riding and training, usually before and after I mount in the saddle. I've tried to make a practice of challenging the training notions but it's more interesting to see where outside of riding theories the beliefs stem from. 

Looking at my history, there was always an idea perpetuated that if you just work hard enough it will happen. Put the time in and greatness will come. What I see in reality is a lot of very talented horse people stuck in a loop of surviving financially with little payback for that talented effort. I wonder how much rider frustrations comes from feeling short changed. Certainly for me I carry an internal account of the time and effort made over the years. Shouldn't I be better by now isn't an unfamiliar thought. 

Theory is only theory, surely if I study the approaches enough and understand them, practicing them will make the outcome absolute. I was reminded quickly that horses don't always respond theoretically. Now, I spend time trying to make sure clients are educated in the idea that we're rehabbing their horse, not just training it. Horses present us with enough moments to shake off the idea of pure concept but I do have to admit in the back of my brain I am often too slow on board to get out of something that's not working. An inability to move out of hesitation while I internally discuss the theories. 

While teaching I've also noticed there's a certain amount of rehabbing the rider brain that's needed. (Mine included) Accepted beliefs about their bodies or reason for riding, meaning things are or aren't available to them. The conspiracy of horse type persistently grates when I'm told someone must have a particular horse to do a job despite their skills, indeed the flip side of not feeling somethings possible because it's the "wrong type to horse" These teaching moments are great reminders for me too to keep in front of my own reasons for riding and watch that they don't work against me, not always easy. Case in point, convincing pony club mothers that fun and correctness aren't mutually exclusive.  

The honesty of it is this conspiracy doesn't really reach implementation very often but does manifest in how I feel after riding. My default conspiring is against feeling content. It's worth stepping outside my head to check how I genuinely feel. For clients I ask them to step outside their own conspiracy of show results or "actions" to check where their current membership might be becoming all consuming.