Welcome to You Got This Equestrian Confidence Series by Hayley at Red Bear Equestrian.
This week I am chatting with Sue from Coach Connolly, chatting about Sue’s journey and sharing with you some real-life stories, hints and tips to build your confidence as a rider and equestrian.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Confident rider, confident horse.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Welcome to You Got This Equestrian Confidence Series by Hayley at Red Bear Equestrian.
This week I am sharing some things you can try now to improve you confidence with your horse or pony.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Confident rider, confident horse.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Welcome to You Got This Equestrian Confidence Series by Hayley at Red Bear Equestrian.
When it comes to equestrian confidence and horse rider confidence, it is something which is so easily dented, after it has taken so long to build.
Yet we often don’t appreciate how long this takes and expect too much, too soon.
It doesn’t matter if you are the most experienced rider or a total novice, confidence issues can strike anyone at any time. In fact some of the top riders have spoken over the last two years about their confidence issues.
Lack of confidence is no fun and can be super frustrating.
I want to share 8 top tips that you can start using now, so how can you start to build your rider confidence:
1 Get the basics right.Make sure you are comfortable and have a safe hat, body pro, and footwear that all meet safety standards. Plus tack which is checked regularly and is comfortable for both you and your horse. This makes a difference to how confident you feel while riding.
2 Improve your fitness and balance. Building up your stamina, flexibility and core will help you feel more in control and aligned when riding. When you can communicate your aids properly and confidently you will feel in control and more confident.
3 Get the bond back. Going back to basics can really help click here to check out a blog I wrote with some great tips on this.
4Remember it’s your journey and no one else’s. Also remember to stop using comparisons to not get started. They wouldn’t do this, they will judge me, what will they say, they will be watching……………does it really matter? Will they really? Or is it just in your head? We create stories in our head that we believe but often they are not reality.
5 Just get started. All too often we can talk ourselves out of even starting, just taking that first step. We can come up with a million reasons. Often as they say the first step is the hardest but equally after taking it you often won’t look back, no matter how small you will have achieved something. Just take small steps forward each day.
6 Get off and take a break. There is nothing wrong with stopping and getting off. We can sometimes make a situation worse with our own energy, as we get anxious and worried, we project this onto our horses. Making situations worse. By getting off and being able to take a breather, walk, whatever you need, then get back on when you are ready. It breaks the cycle.
7Celebrate your success. Keep a record of your rides, it could be written, videos or photos. Our minds create a perspective and situation that we perceive as real. However it isn’t always. We can create how we think our rides went. Those huge bucks (that weren’t), the bad jump (that wasn’t), the dressage test that you messed up (but did not really). Having that record helps you see the reality. Plus it allows you to celebrate what went well rather than what went wrong. We often concentrate on the negatives despite there being so many positives, so find a way to focus more on your positives.
8 Get help. Asking for help can be hard but it can be a huge benefit. No matter if it is an instructor or a friend for moral support, having the help, advice, listening ear, even just someone to keep you accountable is the thing you need. Someone else’s perspective often helps realign our own.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Confident rider, confident horse. Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Confident rider, confident horse.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Welcome to You Got This Equestrian Confidence Series by Hayley at Red Bear Equestrian.
This week I am sharing a tip you can try this weekend.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Confident rider, confident horse. Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
There has been so much talk of mindset during this rider confidence series so far. I wanted to share with you the reason that all of the mindset tips, tricks, hacks, and advice, are all so important.
Mindset is more than just a trendy phrase.
Your brain is effectively the most powerful supercomputer, it is made up of over 100 billion neurons. It processes the information that it receives and sends messages back to the body.
Reprogramming of your mindset works because your subconscious is moldable. It believes what your conscious mind tells it is reality. True or not.
The beliefs that we hold are nothing more than a series of physiological rules made up of the stories we tell ourselves, our environments, those around us, what we see, hear, and experience.
What has impacted your beliefs around your riding? It can be useful to grab a pen and paper and start writing down all your thoughts and breaking these down, reflect on them.
We as humans need logical sense which is why we create these beliefs.
However we can also change these, by rewriting the stories we tell ourselves.
When we have negative beliefs, feelings, stories around our equestrian experience our subconscious brain tries to protect us from this potential danger. It seeks out validation that these beliefs are true. Finding ways to embed these further, if your subconscious can stop you from riding, then there is no danger.
Think about if you have a bad start to the day, one bad thing happens, and you have heard so many times that bad things come in threes, so you start to tell yourself this is just one of three things. You start to look for the other two. Before you know it you find them. Not because bad things come in threes but because your subconscious was looking for them to validate and make true what it believes.
This is why visualisation and meditations are great as they support you to create a new narrative.
It takes 21 days of consistency to create a new habit.
When the time is right for you to create a new belief system, start by rewriting the story you tell yourself, looking for evidence of this as the truth. What can you start to tell yourself, see, hear, experience, remembering the positives and focussing there, record a visualisation to play to yourself of your new story.
Then keep going for 21 days consistently.
Best of all this isn’t just something that works for adults, it works for children as well.
In fact it is often easier for children as they haven’t had all of the external influences that adults have. They have a better imagination. They are able to be more in the moment.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
This week I wanted to share with you a blog I wrote last summer, however one that gets visited time and time again especially this time of year.
With Summer Holidays in full swing it can be hard to think of ideas to keep riding fun and focused (and safe) when they are riding more than normal.
Ponies suddenly get so much more love and attention, I think ours are ready to pack their bags and escape, haha.
With this in mind I have pulled together our top 7 mounted games to play while horse riding, as schooling can get boring, hacking is not always possible and as much as my daughter has decided cantering and jumping are great fun there is only so much her pony can do and with how dry it is this year her favourite activity of cantering through stubble fields is not an option. We need to care for their joints and jumping daily or work on hard ground is not great for their joints.
So here goes, they are all easy to set up and most importantly fun.
1 – Bending – Super simple but races round bending poles or cones in different gaits. I often use a timer or spots on the floor which need to be hit and there is a prize at the end (an ice lolly usually works well).
2 – Simon Says – Just like the unmounted versions but I use a mix of horsey tasks for example touch your ponies bum, touch your toes, ride one handed, stop, ride to the fence, trot to the cone, round the world, trot, touch ponies ears, touch your head, etc.
3 – Sponge and Buckets – Set up two buckets either on small tables or hung on fences, fill one with water. Give your child a sponge and get them to use the sponge to move the water from one bucket to another. They can do this against the clock or against a friend or just to see how much water they can move.
4 – Red and Green – Great game for if they have another friend who is also riding with them. Green means go, Red means stop. When you shout Red the last one to stop is out.
5 – Fetch – Set up some items attached to a fence, on cones etc and when you shout an item the child has to ride to it, pick it up and then ride to an empty bucket or basket and place it in there. This can be timed or against someone else.
6 – Egg and Spoon – Just like a traditional egg and spoon race but on horse back, however you can adapt this and use a shallow basket or bowl with a ball for younger children or a cup of water for older ones, you can even ask them to trot, making it harder to not spill the water.
7 – £5 Challenge – I loved this as a child. Place £5 under your bum/thigh/knee and try keep it there while you walk/trot or canter. Keep it there and you get to keep it. This is also a lot of fun (and a lot harder) bareback.
I hope you have the most amazing summer of riding fun, make sure you tag us in some of your pictures @redbearequestrian we may even pick our favourite and send them and their pony a special treat.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Safety is so important when it comes to riding activities. You know your child’s ability best so adapt the activity to them and ensure they don’t get too excited and start pulling on the ponies mouth or kicking a bit to hard. It is easy to get excited and competitive but these games should be fun for the ponies too. Also ensure that all safety equipment is worn and is checked prior to being worn, hats, body protectors, gloves and boots are all essential kit for our safety and should be checked for signs of wear, damage and also for a good fit.
Join us while we talk equestrian and rider confidence alongside hearing loss and the impact this has.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
This one is a short one, but one I would love you to take action on this weekend.
We concentrate a lot on our confidence and how to build it, but what about our horses confidence?
So before you ride, after you ride, instead of or even while you are riding, take some time to work on your horses confidence.
Set up some scary obstacles, tarpaulins, umbrellas, halloween or christmas decorations, balloons, wood to walk over, footballs, radios playing music, whistles, mirrors, flags, let your imagination run wild.
You do not need anything special, just get creative.
Then allow time, you cannot rush your horse with this. They need to be allowed to explore and be reassured to build true confidence.
Supporting our horses to build their confidence helps us to build our confidence.
When we believe our horses wont spook, worry or similar we ride with a different attitude, that attitude breeds even more confidence in our horses which in turn effects us more.
Making this part of your routine, just five minutes three times a week, makes such a difference.
I would love to see some pictures of what you and your horses get up to, please share on social media and tag us @redbearequestrian
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
I am so excited to be compiling some of the top tips that our followers shared with us as well as the tips that we use ourselves.
Think of your confidence like a muscle. When you first start a new sport or take up exercise, your muscles are still, sore, they ache. However with small steps it improves and gets easier. Some days are better than others, some days you will over do it. Your confidence is the same. It requires small steps, time, patience and the acceptance that there will be good days and not so good days.
Keep a diary. We often do not see our own success and progress. Simply as we focus on the negative. Keeping a note of our rides means you can look back and see how far you have come, celebrate the wins, no matter how small. When we see progress we are spurred on to do more.
Keeping on the topic of seeing progress, so many of those featured in the You Got This series so far have talked about the power of video. Filming your rides and lessons means you can watch them back and not only learn from them but see what went well. Again we often focus on the negative, rather than all the positives, when you watch it back often you see it wasn’t as bad as you thought, and again celebrate that, celebrate your wins.
Take the pressure away. Sometimes a week off either riding, in hand work, hacking, schooling, whatever it might be is just what you both need to reset. Then restart slowly. There is nothing wrong with a week of grooming and bond building.
Breath! Honestly its the first thing to go wrong when you are worried or panicked. Practice taking slow deep breaths, when you regulate your breathing it also has a calming effect on your horse. If you find this really hard, try singing or talking or telling your horse a story. This forces you to regulate your breathing. It really does work. i have many times been seen riding around singing away or talking about what has happened in my day (yes to my horse).
Phone a friend. Is there someone who could walk out with you, just be there, be on the end of a lunge line? Often just the reassurance of someone there (the right kind of person) helps us calm and also gives us someone to talk to, regulating our breathing.
Remember the sayings you always heard when you first started. “Heels Down”, “Back Straight”, Boobs Out”, Don’t Look Down”, “Shoulders” “Point your hips where you are turning”…. all of those and more. Position does help. Easier said than done sometimes, but the right position helps us feel more in control and our horses to feel calmer.
Try some ground work. It is a great way to build a bond, learn new skills, try out seeing scary things and teach you to relax. We wrote a blog on this previously here.
Rides or any work with your horses do not have to last an hour! They can be 10 mins. Small, tiny steps, break it down and take it slowly. Ending each time on a high for you both. If that means riding to the end of the road and back, once around the arena and working up from there. Do it. There are no rules.
Don’t rule out additional support. No matter if that is an instructor (and try a few until you connect with the right one), a trainer or a course that specialise in confidence building, hypnotherapy, mindset work, EFT (Emotional Freedom Technique). There are so many options out there. Asking for help is not a weakness it is a strength.
Horse rider confidence and equestrian confidence needs to be spoken about more, I am excited to bring you, You Got This Equestrian where we discuss real topics and give real tips that work for real riders.
Join me every week for more inspirational stories, hints and tips to support your equestrian confidence journey.
