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| Morning with Una's nose ;) |
I suppose it's time for an update so if you're happy to sit down to some waffling, here we go ;)
If daydreaming was a job, I think I might not be too bad at it. Someone once told me that if you can imagine something, truly see it in your mind's eye, you can make it happen. I quite like that thinking ;)
It does work in my teaching amazingly well although I couldn't tell you how and why. When I look at a horse and rider I like to picture them well ahead of where they are at the time, see how they might move, sit, react to problems and then let that image dictate what I ask them to do in the meantime. I like to have mid-way images too, you know, the kind of in between stage of progress.
It's similar to when I school a horse. If I want to teach something new or go over a particular issue, I picture in my mind how their legs would move, where their weight will go, how they might want to feel and only then ask for movement to happen. If I do it right, it works every time.
Since the beginning of the year I've been more and more thinking ahead to the next steps with the Academy biz. See how it could be in my mind's eye. I think I can make it happen...
Last weekend was the two mad days of the February training camp. It was probably my favourite one to date due to the improvement in all the riders and horses not just throughout the weekend but in their overall training. It's truly a privilege to have this job, I don't think I could ever tire with it as long as it is possible for me to run it better and better. Standing still is never going to be an option.
Figuring out how different people learn and acquire skills is an adventure in itself! Pushing riders out of their comfort zone in order for them to improve is not that dissimilar to pushing a horse to learn a new skill. Both will fight it a little until something makes sense. Contrary to the belief of some of my riders who think I relish their tortures ;) I don't particularly enjoy those stages of learning process.
I much rather see everyone confident in what they do but sadly that's not possible from the word go. Sometimes they trust me enough to give new things a try, sometimes they don't but eventually I hope to find a way for everyone to get where they would like to end up :)
If you teach anything or ever attempted to you might know what I mean.
The May clinic in Poland enters early organisational stages and right now I think my parents are the ones most excited about it all! Organising is not my forte, I love just being in the middle of it all and getting things done but hey ho, someone's got to do the behind the scenes stuff too and yes it all starts two months prior! The one great part is that this time I have my lovely Mum organising it with me rather than doing everything by myself. We've had some fun booking accommodation and transport logistics last week and she amused me today with planning some meals arrangements for the riders ;)
Another thing that happened over the last weekend was arrival of our "life-before-Portugal" in some 18 boxes! It's odd to unpack one's own life from 4 years ago, I spent the last several years with a handful of clothes and similar handful of various possessions and it made me realise I haven't missed many of the ones that arrived. Maybe with an exceptions of my books, I was very pleased to have those back!
Possibly most exciting event of this week and the one that makes me feel about 5 years old again in times when Santa was real, is the puppy choosing day! I don't know how many of you dear readers are dog people but I can't even start to tell you what it means to me to be able to have my own dog again. I still have another 4 weeks of waiting before I can pick my puppy up but I wish the week would just hurry up so I can go and at least meet all the pups in person. Get ready for a lot of photos soon!!
Wx
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