Are you ever surprised when you see a video of your horse?

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_jetset_

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After a really crap couple of months where I have felt so demotivated, a DVD dropped through my door on Saturday of one of the test riding sessions at the BD Camp. I put it on expecting to see some really horrendous moments.

I remember that during the test there had been some really horrendous moments
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This was not helped by our performance at the Summer Regionals where we just bombed out and this severely affected my confidence in both my ability and in Grace's too... I didn't know whether to just put the DVD away and not watch it until that confidence had rebuilt itself a little
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The DVD started and I sat down with a huge cup of tea ready to cringe and analyse every bad moment (I know... glutton for punishment comes to mind). But, I was pleasantly surprised. Yes, there were some moments when it looked a bit yuck, but Grace looked in a much better carriage than it had felt, she was using herself well and she looked like the kind of horse I would go and view if I saw that video on Horse Quest or Horse Deals.

This is what surprised me most to be honest; she looked like a dressage horse!

I am my own worst critic, but I am also my horses' worst critic too. I am guilty for putting them known and being possibly over critical of their abilities. With Hannah, I know she is a 65% horse but she tries and is now ready to go and do a Medium test to see how we fair at that level (both me and her). However, with Grace I just seem to be very negative about what we can achieve together, perhaps because of all of the setbacks, but I think a lack of consistency is partly to blame too.

Is anyone else like this, or have you been like this in the past?

Unfortunately, I cannot put the DVD onto here, I think it is copyrighted, but I will try tonight to see whether I could get a clip of it on.

So, my question is... can it feel a lot worse than it looks???
 
Yes!
I often come out of a test thinking that was crap only to receive a really positive mark and comments. Also watching the DVD back usually always shows it wasnt as bad as I thought.
Equally pictures... take yesterdays - urghhh!! I need work lol
 
Yes, it can feel worse than it looks! I'am often plesently suprised when I see a video of me and my horse. Yes there are still bits that looks as bad as they felt but on the whole I often end up enjoying watching me and my horse work, even when at the time of riding him I felt very demoralised and like we'd done a bad job.

I too am my worst critic, and my horses worst critic. I'm still quite young (19) and have a very difficult horse, he could of been a very nice little showjumper but spent most of his younger life being allowed to go into fences too fast and in a horrible style. It has taken me a long time to get him out of this way of thinking and it's still not perfect. In reality we have come on 200% in the last 6 months (since we moved yards and changed istructors) but when i'm having a lesson and it goes a bit wrong I end up feeling like we have gone back to sqaure one and over exagerate quite how bad he has gone in comparison to how he was last year. I hope the waffle I have just wrote made sense lol x
 
It always feels worse than it looks, I have seen videos of me riding my horse and others and wondered if it was from the same session it looked that different. Not to mention getting dressage sheets back to find a very good mark when it had all gone to pot.
Now I try go in with the mentality of if it feels cr@p I am doing it properly!
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You see I always think the pictures look as bad as it felt... Take the Regionals for example. I look at the pictures that friends (and husband) took of the Regionals and I just cringe
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She looks terrible, really really awful
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But in the video, she looked much more uphill, forwards and smoothe throughout
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As I say, she looks like a horse I would go an look at...

PnO... It makes complete sense. There have been times I have come away from lessons in floods of tears on the drive back thinking I am useless and we are never ever going to improve. But I have never felt the way I did when we drove home from the Regionals
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I felt so let down, both by my horse and by myself!
 
It always feels worse than it looks, and I'm sure some of that is down to your heightened awareness when you're nervous, blowing things out of proportion. There'll always be something to improve on but you still need to allow yourself a couple of "I did that well" moments when you have them.
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Just thought... how about the other way around too?

For example, I competed Han this weekend and felt the second test was much more fluid and correct than the first and yet got 5% less. Unfortunately I did not video it but that would be a case of it obviously looking worse than it felt?
 
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Just thought... how about the other way around too?

For example, I competed Han this weekend and felt the second test was much more fluid and correct than the first and yet got 5% less. Unfortunately I did not video it but that would be a case of it obviously looking worse than it felt?

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In that case it could have been something minor which dragged every mark down - for example you not being accurate enough, or her being a little deep, or not quite in front of the leg, or her neck not being as long as it could have been etc. I often find on those tests where it felt great but the mark wasn't amazing that when I watch back the video, it is one thing which I've got consistently wrong which drops every movement by a mark or so - usually not forwards enough in my case!
 
Yes I have a dvd of Jenny in the BN at Richmond. At the time she felt like she was going far too fast. She bucked (felt huge) and landed disunited which felt like it went on for ages. When I watched the dvd she was just in a good forward rhythm, the buck was tiny and she was only disunited for about 2 strides and she actually looked great!
 
[ QUOTE ]
Just thought... how about the other way around too?

For example, I competed Han this weekend and felt the second test was much more fluid and correct than the first and yet got 5% less. Unfortunately I did not video it but that would be a case of it obviously looking worse than it felt?

[/ QUOTE ]

or was it a different judge?

I am always pleasantly surprised when I watch videos of myself and mum alwasy says to me, see you can ride! Wish it felt like that lol!

I think you're like me! Over analytical and try to do too much so when you're riding you are constantly trying to make it perfect which gives you the feeling of it not going so well!

I'm riding a little guy at the moment who has a lovely basic trot and canter so I am forcing myself not to do anything to him, to just let him be and it feels amazing
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Going to try it on my boys when they're back from sick leave..... well unless I end up on the floor! lol!
 
Yes... different judge in 2nd test.

Next time will see if I can take someone with me to video, as perhaps I need a bit more faith in me and the horse which I am lacking at the moment.

It is good to know other people feel the same way when faced with this situation.
 
Ages ago when Axel was 4 I did a prelim on him which was videoed, when the dvd came through the door there was a pic of a horse and rider on the envelope which looked really good, I gave it a cursory glance and thought 'I wish I looked like that' well surprise surprise when I looked closer it was me!! I've never been so pleased in my life!! (I must have a very boring life!)
 
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Ages ago when Axel was 4 I did a prelim on him which was videoed, when the dvd came through the door there was a pic of a horse and rider on the envelope which looked really good, I gave it a cursory glance and thought 'I wish I looked like that' well surprise surprise when I looked closer it was me!! I've never been so pleased in my life!! (I must have a very boring life!)

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not quite the same but my friend had a photo on her wall, part covered up by another photo and I was raving about how slim and toned this girls legs were... etc etc etc. My friend pulled the photo down and went "It's you"
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I was SO shocked!
 
All the time, did a dressage comp on BH monday, I felt i was much too tense and horse felt like he wanted to explode. A friend had videoed it for me and when I watched it back horse was moving forward beautifully, lovely swinging trot steps and I wasn't hanging on for grim death. I did ask him if he was sure he had filmed the right horse as it didn't look like it had felt,
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I do wonder if when nervous we only pick up on negative rather than positive feelings.
 
Always feels worse than it looks!!! Anyone who comes to events with me hates talking to me after the dressage because i always always always complain about how horrible it felt and what went wrong, it never looks as bad. In fact it normally looks pretty good on video and generally gets fairly good marks. Perhaps it just shows up how much i really don't know!!!
 
ive felt it both way round.
like at the weekend we did a nice enough test, got comments of hocks trailing on the test sheet and 65% which i was diappointed with.
got the pics back and her hocks are the least trailing hocks ive ever seen!lol.
 
I'm always pleasantly surprised when I watch videos back, a lot of the time I feel like I'm all over the place (especially jumping) but watching the dvd I appear to be sitting really quietly with the horse going nicely.

Photos now can be misleading, it's easy to catch a horse at a moment that is very unflattering or vice versa!
 
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Ages ago when Axel was 4 I did a prelim on him which was videoed, when the dvd came through the door there was a pic of a horse and rider on the envelope which looked really good, I gave it a cursory glance and thought 'I wish I looked like that' well surprise surprise when I looked closer it was me!! I've never been so pleased in my life!! (I must have a very boring life!)

[/ QUOTE ]

not quite the same but my friend had a photo on her wall, part covered up by another photo and I was raving about how slim and toned this girls legs were... etc etc etc. My friend pulled the photo down and went "It's you"
blush.gif
grin.gif

I was SO shocked!

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I bet you were pleased, I'd have been delighted lol!
 
I bought the RMAS Draghunt video,and was rather amazed at my horse.I had seen stills of him jumping through the season . One set of photos showed me falling off after a largish hedge with a drop after it.I was a bit annoyed with myself as the photos look like I kind of flopped over my horses sholder and then followed some rather unflattering pictures of me doing a backward somersault. Well I looked at the video for the first time last week.OMG, The big horse must have thought he was "Superhorse"!! He just lept up and out into space.I was relieved to see that I didnt look too bad, right up until the point where he plummets at the ground like a dart. This was definately non survivable. The video also told a completely different story to the stills.I hadnt realised they were a tenth of a second apart.My ungainly floundering fall was actually rather a good tuck and roll with me sitting up and muttering,as "superhorse" disappears in the distance.Total time about a second and a half.
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oh i definitely think its never as bad as it feels....when i ride i feel terribly messy and all over the place but when i watch a video i don't think its that bad (don't get me wrong i'm still untidy but its nowhere near as bad as i think
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i think when you are like me and a bit negative about your ability you start thinking negative thoughts and that makes it feel worse than it is....i like to be videod every now and then to remind self that i'm not totally useless- and is VERY useful to video stressage tests as its usually totally obvious where you have lost marks when you think its gone well....
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