Why do I think I should know things?
At a dressage clinic a couple years ago, the instructor, Cindy Ishoy, was pondering about the time it takes to learn dressage. “I think it probably takes about three lifetimes,” she said. Mind you, Cindy is an Olympic medalist and strong international competitor - and she is convinced that there is so much to learn, we need a few lifetimes to properly learn dressage.
I started to lease Slimer, a cheeky Anglo-Arabian who belonged to my first wonderful trainer, Pat Fitzgerald, in middle school. (Slimer’s official name was Grey Spirit, but Pat’s son nicknamed him Slimer from the Ghostbuster movie and it stuck. In fact, Slimer was a particularly apt name due to his proclivity for sliming everyone he met and his impish personality, which led him to rubbing multiple people off on walls or jump standards or whatever he could find. I once fell off him five times in one day. He was an excellent teacher.) He was one of the few horses I rode who properly knew more than me, and I was convinced that together, we would climb the levels of dressage. I figured it would take me about one year per level, so we would be hitting the Grand Prix right when I was in college. Reasonable, right?
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA. I am so funny.
That’s not to say it can’t be done. There are many people who can easily bring horses to FEI levels by the time the horse is eight or nine. There are many riders who ride Grand Prix by their 20s. There are people who can climb the levels straight away as they’re learning. There are even people who do that without access to good training and teaching. I think most of the time, people who can stay on such a straightforward path have:
a super program with lots of good help
a super horse that has already been there
super innate ability
a super work ethic and/or a lifestyle that lets them devote a great deal of time and energy to dressage
Most likely, they have some combination of the above. And that is great and wonderful! Good systems, trainers, horses, abilities, and work ethics are lovely and can not only help people progress easily, but they can make the entire process fun and joyful.
For me, the path has been less straightforward. If you can imagine it, I did not, in fact, make it to Grand Prix with Slimer by the time I was 20. In fact, shortly after I started leasing him, he went lame and I found my horse kicks elsewhere (luckily, by becoming Pat’s working student and getting experience with dozens of horses and students). I still have not shown at the Grand Prix level. I have not had the chance to ride horses that are more educated than me.
So why do I have thoughts that tell me I should already know what I’m doing, even though I haven’t done this before? As I’m learning new movements, getting deeper understandings of topics, and refining the feelings of what I’m looking for, why do I expect that I should know everything already?
It’s not because I think I know everything - nothing could be farther from the truth. The more I learn, the more uncertain I am about things. Maybe it’s just because I have high expectations for myself. If it makes sense logically, it should magically be cemented into my head and body, right away. When it’s not, I find myself surprised and frustrated and sometimes dejected with myself. I should just know it. I should just do it by now.
Maybe it’s the last vestiges of that middle school kid who had unreasonable expectations for herself. Maybe it’s the current culture that pushes the idea that life should be sparkling and easy and that we can probably learn how to make it so by watching a video or looking at an instagram post. You mean we can’t all just read an article and know how to do something immediately? Shocker. (But seriously - we are bombarded with messages that tell us it should be that way!)
Or maybe it’s just the grand idea that we should have it all figured out and optimized. When we think we should all know what we’re doing, there’s not much space for not knowing and uncertainty, ambiguity and growth. We are a people who wants to know what we’re doing and have clear, black-and-white answers for every question that might arise. Even when we have incomplete information, our brains are busily crafting stories to create a coherent narrative of the world.
When I have patience with myself, when I let go of external timelines and focus on the work at hand and what the horse and I need, things feel so much better. Lighter. Manageable. I have an easier time staying in a beginner’s mind, open to new ideas and new feelings. I have less judgment for just about everything and everyone. Most importantly, I have less judgment for myself. Suddenly, there is space, including space for the challenges and learning and unlearning.
The patience we give to others and to our horses, we must also give to ourselves.