The end of summer has arrived and as per every fall we have tons of new and returning students flooding the Stables. I am preparing to step back into teaching as a full-time gig after nearly of year away from the arena rails, and am using my last few days before classes resume to reflect and examine my role as a coach and trainer of riding students. As I have done in the past I look to some of my favorite coaches and teachers for inspiration, and nowadays am drawing inspiration from my own coach Button Baker and my favorite teacher of all time: Yoda :-)
I needed the year off from teaching. I have long felt like I had a pretty good idea of why I was put on this earth, and my purpose is to help kids (and kid-at-hearts) learn how to become more confident and competent human beings. I found the best path for me to accomplish this is through the medium of teaching horseback riding, although if that avenue did not exist I would probably teach ballet, or if push came to shove I’d pull out that English degree and teach out of a classroom. The pandemic changed many things for all of us, and I found myself without students that I had been coaching for years. I was wholly unprepared for how much the lack of interested students to coach would make me question my purpose of teaching, but it did. Thankfully I had other tasks to keep me very busy, such as the running of a multi-faceted small business, and used the year to rediscover my own passion for riding and learning.
But now it’s time to test my mettle and strengthen my vocal chords. I am jumping back into the deep end of teaching and want to brush up on my standards of coaching. I am so excited to have someone coaching me regularly for the first time in 15 years. My lessons with Button Baker are unrelentingly demanding, to the point I usually need a nap pronto after my rides! I cannot count the number of times I have thought that there is truly no way I will be able to make it through one more sitting trot, or canter half pass, or any number of other exercises, and yet refuse to quit until my coach feels I’ve made the needed progress. And lo and behold I survive that last trot, lead change, gazillion transitions exercise. The idea that I cannot accomplish the goals (short- and long-term) doesn’t seem to have crossed her mind, and that absolute assurance makes it very easy for me to excise any doubts that I won’t be fully successful. It is a strange but very comforting and empowering feeling to know that someone is in my corner with a single-minded goal of making my horse and me into the best pair that we can be, period.
As a coach I think that understanding of our role is essential. A coach rarely needs to be a friend. My job with my students is to give the feedback necessary for them to improve, even when that feedback is unflattering. My job is never to let students fester in their comfort zone. There is no growth in comfort zones. My job is to make a student step just outside that zone in a safe and constructive manner, and ride there until that comfort zone line expands to include what I’ve asked them to do. Not everyone likes coaches like me; sometimes they want someone to just listen to them and help them feel better about themselves. I try to help students be better, and let the confidence that arises from those successes boost their feelings of worth.
My job is to stay focussed on helping students become the best rider they can be (and hopefully best person as well). I don’t settle for anything less than their best, which might change from day to day, because I believe that people are capable of incredible feats. I do not accept excuses for mediocre riding when excellent riding is possible. And I have complete faith in my students that they can accomplish the goals I have set. I hope that my students feel like that can always rely on me to forever expect the best of them because I know they can achieve those heights. They may feel pressure to achieve more, which I can’t believe is a bad thing. I believe we should always strive to be the best rider we can be, and it helps to have someone that expects that success. As that favorite teacher of mine says, “Try not. Do or do not. There is no try.”