Confidence is Key? (video)

Firewell

Firewell

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Hi,

Who else suffers from self confidence jumping and how do you deal with it?

Im having a bit of a problem and it is entirely self created... me.

I'm lucky in that my horse is stoic and never stops. I'm the only one who has ever really ridden him over jumps and he is so genuine it breaks my heart sometimes. The problem is I am terrified of letting him down. Im scared stupid of putting him off!! If he ever stopped (he has never ever stopped in his life and I know as I taught him) I would be mortified!!! Me ruining him or actually causing him to doubt himself is my biggest fear in life (apart from ghosts ;) ). Of course this fear is really hindering my/our progress. The more we achieve the bigger the sense of loss if it all goes wrong affects me.

I know i'm silly and Im being like a mytr, I want to stop it but i'm struggling with getting back to the basics of just having fun. If we have the odd stop who cares?! Its about enjoying ourselves right?

Now of course i'm worried that he's picking up on my self doubts and that will be affecting him aggghhhhh!!

I did some pole work today and I got a couple wrong strides off a corner which caused him to reach for the poles and nearly trip. I was so cross with myself and I know it transmitted to him and now i'm worried he thought I was cross with him!!!

I see other people riding and I think how good they are. They make mistakes and their horses cope but I still think they could do a better job with my horse then me because they are confident and don't worry.

How can I stop this cycle? I know I need to see it as fun but its not fun when I feel like this but I don't wan't to give up either. I go from thinking yeeha we could do an intro with our eyes shut tomorrow! To looking at cobs on the internet and thinking how stress free life would be if I had a horse that could only hack.

I think the difference between myself and say a professional rider is their ability to distance their emotions. I don't want to be a professional rider but I do want to be able to reach mine and my horses potential without fear. I put excessive amounts of pressure on myself. Its not about big jumps either.. Its not about jumping 4ft or winning a BE event, Its about being PERFECT, its about knowing we can do it (whatever it maybe) so giving myself grief if we don't achieve perfection.

Just to make this thread slightly more interesting here is a video of a clinic I went to last w/e. Now I'm going to have lessons with this guy to help but does anyone have any thoughts? You can see from the Vid that I am short into the first two fences (me being all cautious and controlling!) we are lush over the next few, then I screw up the last one and I think 'go deep' and my horse thinks 'stand off' and it ends up with annialation. The battery on the camera runs out but in RL we came round again, I was all nervous and pulling but my horse goes deep and pops over then 3rd time we hit it pretty much ok.



That was only his 2nd time over a water tray and hes only 5, how brave is he ;)

I guess i'm looking for reassurance or the fact i'm not alone. (No harsh CC, advice welcome but i'm going to have lessons so sure technicalities will be sorted out then ;) ). Any self-depreciating perfectionists out there? What do think to take the pressure off?
 
Firstly you are not alone!! I think most people feel like this. You know I have my own demons but you look like you aren't doing anything horrific at all :D I think horses cope with far more than we appreciate (look at my poor lad :p ) and that we overthink things far too much as people. Having a good instructor will help you tenfold and give you tge confidence that you are on the right track but you look good to me!
 
I have jumped courses in floods of tears I get so freaked sometimes- once I'm in an arena on my own I just occasionally get this sense of "got to keep going at all costs" so panic as soon as something doesn't go the way I planned and then panic because there's another fence and I rode the last fence badly and my horse might be worried that I'll do the same again and... breath!!

I learnt, after a while, that my horse was a forgiving soul who would let me off a c*ck up as long as I forgave myself and moved on. I made myself think of the course in terms of individual fences which were entirely unrelated. So if I messed up fence 2, it sucked but fence 3 was a new start. And I also spent a while learning the amazing technique of sitting still and keeping my leg on- not kicking, but also not hooking. As soon as I started taking a pull after a bit of a wobble, things would get worse and worse. So I practised sitting still and looking over the fence and squeezing with my legs. You feel like you're doing something, but in reality all you're doing is saying "I'm here".

In the vid, you look fine. Babies are hard to ride and you're doing an amazing job with him.

One last thing- I found that one thing with my confidence was ignoring what everyone else could be saying about me. The phrase "Sod them all" fits perfectly with a canter rhythm, so I chanted that as I went round.
 
Leg-end thank you :)

Lolo, 'sod them all', I love it, its brilliant!!! Im going to have that in my head all the time now :D. I should sit still more and not worry, he's more then capable of sorting us out over the jumps we are doing. Thanks :)
 
I think you're brain works like mine :D I know exactly how you feel. The thing thats bothering me at the moment is that because im so rusty having only just getting back into riding, im putting so much pressure on myself to be as good as I used to be and to get it perfect. When we (read as I) get it right, its great and it feels how it used to be, but when we get it wrong, its so frustrating as I feel im letting Shrimp down and its always the bad bits we remember!
So, at the moment, im trying to keep it low key and fun. Im staying within my comfort zone (no bigger than 1m) untill I get back into the swing of things and I have to keep telling myself to be more realistic! Yes we used to jump 1.10/1.20 without batting an eyelid but that was then and this is now.

FWIW, I think you look good in the video. It looks confident and flowing and I think you're nit-picking too much :P Yeh the last was a bit of a fluff but it happens and you jumped it fine after. I think you've done really well with him, he's turning into a lovely horse :) (And no im not saying that because im biased towards ginger tbs :p )
 
Firstly you are definitely not alone!

I am like you and looking for perfection all of the time which makes me extremely self-critical which means I sometimes freeze up when riding and do nothing rather than risk doing something wrong.

My huge turning point was finding a trainer I really clicked with. I have had lots of lessons and clinics with high profile people and just never clicked and at one EHOA clinic last year spent most of the lesson in floods of tears in the middle of the arena convinced I was cr*p and ruining my horse :(

Honestly, once you find a trainer who gets this and you click with it all becomes so much easier.
My last lesson was going brilliantly until I saw a totally different stride to Millie and we absolutely ballooned the fence in pretty awful style- instead of getting upset about what I had done, I laughed when we finally landed and came straight round again without worrying :)

And, btw I didn't think you were at all short into the 2nd fence and it was a pretty perfect take off spot- not always as comfortable to sit to as the longer shots but more correct :)
 
How horrible would it be if there was always someone behind you critising your every move, finding fault with everything you did, always picking up on the negative and never acknowledging the things you have done well? Pecking away at your self confidence until you have little self belief and begin to question every little thing you did?

That would be awful right?

That's what you are doing to yourself.

Those people that you see at shows that you think look really good, are probably riding round thinking how good everyone else looks. The ones you see jump a perfect round, probably come out thinking "totally screwed up fence 4, my turn to 6 was rubbish and my canter into the double was wrong". How about the people that look at you and think "crikey she looks good on that smart chestnut" ?

Good constructive analysis of your performance and training is always helpful, there is always stuff to learn. When it becomes obsessive, crippling and demotivating you have got to find a way of pulling out the positives otherwise you will have no confidence to train your horse. He needs you! He doesn't always care that your not right to everything, but what he does care about is that your leg is always on, your there to support him and you pat him when he does well. Your developing a partnership which is far more important than getting your horse right to something because it is what will get you out of trouble when you need it.

Stop being so hard on yourself!
 
Thank you to you all for your well thought out responses, they mean a lot.

Its actually really reassuring to know i'm not alone in sometimes feeling like this! Even though I realistically (sp?) know I cant be the only one who worries about letting themselves and their horse down sometimes it takes other people to say it for it to sink in. It's nice to know that it can be overcome too :)

icestationzebra I think you are so right, i'm pretty sure my horse doesnt mind if we have the odd blunder, I think he is more concerned that i'm happy with him. Im always happy with him, I need to be more happy with myself too :)

Thanks :)
 
I know exactly how u feel! At my local satbles I used to ride a horse scared of poles jumps fence anything that was in his way! So I just pretend it was fine and he was fine but he refused then galloped round so I was scared silly after that! Now training a nine yr old Newbie who has hardly been rode I'm scared stiff but just think:
if he refuses or anything its not the end of the world. We all fall of so take it in your stride and live on. All you have to do is think, it had to happen sometime and that time was today and judgeing by the way you described your horse you'll be fine. Live it up and go out there and JUMP!
 
Nothing inspirational to add except you are not alone! I regularly have moments with my youngster where I think 'what AM I doing owning this horse?!'
Have you ever thought about sports psychology sessions though? A friend of mine had some sessions after a bit of a XC blip eventing, and it totally sorted her out and she won her next three events!
 
You definitely aren't alone! But look at it this way - getting it 100% perfect every time isn't actually that helpful to your horse in the long run. Of course you want to avoid socking him in the gob/dumping him in to the bottom of a fence, but you aren't doing any of these heinous things! You're giving him a nice ride, and at the same time he is learning what he needs to do to get safely over the fence. When my mare was 4, and learning to jump, my very experienced trainer kept shouting at me "do less" and "let her figure it out". The jumps were naturally tiny but the last thing she wanted me to do was to place her at the right spot, as I kept trying to. As the jumps get bigger and more solid, your horse needs to know how to fix it if you've mis-judged the approach (which, of course, happens to everyone once in a while, even Pros).

I've posted on a similar-ish thread here recently about my last horse, who is now in a BHS exam training centre. His one (and perhaps only!) great skill was to come to a fence in a perfect unaltered rhythm, da-dum, da-dum, da-dum and taught me so much about sitting and waiting for the fence. Riding babies can be tricky; they wobble, leave legs, lurch over fences, and it can feel like you are doing it all wrong. Might be worth trying to get the odd session on a more experienced horse. I don't mean to teach you as such, as I seem to recall you've had plenty other horses; but just that it can knock your confidence a bit if a youngster is all you are riding, and it would be nice for you maybe to ride something that knows what it's doing, take the pressure off a bit? It can be tiring riding a youngster all the time, sometimes it's nice to get on something that has buttons that work, every time you press them :)
 
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