Why do people carry on when petrified?

No example in mind - its just my latest 'interest' area. It was bought up from the Jon Pitts thing I went to when he mentioned that only in horse riding has he seen such total nervousness and terror but people wanting to ride while everything in their bodies and minds was screaming don't do it.

This got me thinking about WHY do people do it? What pushes them to want to be so determined? Why push yourself to do something when your are so fearful?

This has also led me to wonder why if people feel like this they do not get more professional help? There are hundreds of different methods now that can help you overcome your fears and there will be a method which will work for you. Are we perhaps not setting up enough of a culture in this and do trainers not encourage it perhaps enough? I believe confidence can be developed but to ultimately make progress one needs to learn the tools to help the brain.

I also think Horse riding is an odd culture. We are distinctly mocking if people choose to do Parelli or similar and not ride their horse but actually I have come round to thinking recently that this is a better way of horse ownership than sitting on a flight animal and be shaking with fear. The mini marvels sort of had me thinking about this as well as the working of miniature horses in long reins was intricate and their could be a whole competition format set up which is intricate and involved but without the need to ever ride.

I have also been thinking a lot lately about the impact of learning to ride as an adult compared to a child and the effect this has on nerves and fear. Finally Cortez's point about the safety culture thing has given me something more to go and ponder about!

Anyway a lot of thinking and as usual HHO is a very good tool for sounding out thinking and though I perhaps come across a little blunt its because I want to get people thinking and try and understand what makes people tick because as someone who occasionally teaches its very useful to have additional tools in the box!
 
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Hmm, I can see the empathy point - I have a very good friend who's nerve is gone - but where I do get a bit testy is when the rider's fear is discomfiting the horse. I own a lovely horse which has been effectively ruined by nervous riders; the slightest movement or wobble in the saddle and he's a spooking, bolting, quivering mess. And he's been beaten from the ground, presumably by some "trainer" punishing him for a rider fall. I see multitudes of frightened, grabby, tense riders: I see none of them riding effectively or well.
 
Haven't read through other replies yet, so apologies if I am repeating something that has already been covered.

In my experience, the riders who suffer the most with nerves or even pure fear are amateur women. I think often they are mismatched with their equine partners, and/or are just pushing themselves out if their comfort zone because of pressure to, whether real or imagined ;-)
I could be being controversial here, but the women that find themselves in this situation will often carry on battling through it as they struggle to make rational decisions without allowing emotions to cloud the issue. For many riders, their horse is the partner they has chosen, and to admit defeat and move the horse on to a more suitable home would be seen to them to be letting the horse down.

Male riders are much more likely to be competitive, rather than ride as a hobby, so are less likely to let their emotions rule the decision making. The majority of female leisure riders I think enjoy the horse care aspect just as much as the actual riding, but don't feel that it is right to keep a horse purely as a pet - which I'm sure is partly influenced by the running costs of horses, and party influenced by general opinion of horsey people 'why have a horse if you don't ride it?!'

Maybe with the introduction of horse agility and other unmounted horse sports, there will be less green and queasy riders spotted out and about!

Garbled post I know, not sure whether I am making sense as daren't re-read as I am posing on my phone and likely to lose the whole lot!
 
xMoodyMarex said:
I think I must be mad haha, as I find that being absolutly petfified about doing something, makes me want to just get on with it even more! :p around year ago, I was petrified of riding through open fields (due to many many bad experiences!) However I just had to get on with it, as no menage to use instead. For a few months I just hacked on the roads, and avoided fields completly..this just led to the fear getting so out of proportion though and I got fed up of getting so nervous all the time at the thought of riding in an open field...even the thought of it was bad enough! I decided to just throw myself in at the deep end, and just do it...it didn't turn out anywhere near as bad as I'd been thinking it would. Now a few months down the line (with a different horse) I happily walk, trot, canter, gallop and jump the odd log through open fields on my own and in company...something I thought would take a very very long time! I owe my current horse the world...she's brought all my confidence back, and much much more.
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Just wanted to elaborate on my previous post, as I've realised I've worded it strangely and it has come across how I didn't intend it to (should teach me not to post when half asleep and not concentrating lol) when I say 'being petrified about doing something makes me want to just get on with it' I mean that , the situation will just play on my mind for days, weeks or even months if I let it, so I just find that forcing myself to do it makes the situation seem a lot less nerve wrecking than I had been imagining it to be- it's definatly not as simple as just 'forcing myself to do it' though, as I'm sure many of you will understand, but I just find the quicker I nip the fear in the bud the easier it comes when I finally make myself do it...if that makes sense :) If I had witnessed or known of someone who'd unfortunatly had a very serious accident, then I think this would really make me think twice about things, and definatly make it harder to overcome times when feeling very nervous about doing something
 
Cortez said:
Hmm, I can see the empathy point - I have a very good friend who's nerve is gone - but where I do get a bit testy is when the rider's fear is discomfiting the horse. I own a lovely horse which has been effectively ruined by nervous riders; the slightest movement or wobble in the saddle and he's a spooking, bolting, quivering mess. And he's been beaten from the ground, presumably by some "trainer" punishing him for a rider fall. I see multitudes of frightened, grabby, tense riders: I see none of them riding effectively or well.
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Conversely, I see your point too - in fact I totally agree :D Frightened riders can and do damage horses all the time, and I hate seeing horses' mouths being hung onto by jockeys worrying about what they have chosen to ask their horse to do (normally jumping...)

One point I would make in this regard, though, is that quite often, in my experience, this is being done by riders who haven't acknowledged their fear and would probably classify themselves as "a bit nervous"... Many, many poor horses at the lower levels of BE are being strangled by their nervous riders, yet if you asked these riders to fill in a questionnaire, I think few of them would tick the "absolutely terrified" box :o But these riders are potentially just as/more damaging than those who are so frightened they will never go out of walk.

I also think Bounty has a point about the mismatched combinations - the Truly Terrified are only a real problem when they are matched with a totally unsuitable mount, in which case the vicious circle can commence :rolleyes:
 
Following a very serious accident I had to build my confidence up again. I have taken it in small steps - gone back to trot poles and building my way back up to where I was before my accident (jumping 90cm/1m) - I went a whole year and didn't jump at all though - spent the time hacking out and doing dressage just to build my confidence in general and then started back at basics with pole work - I had a stage of not being able to canter into a jump - would happily trot round 70cm but wouldn't canter it - but that was fine, we trotted but we had fun. Now I'm past that and we lowered the height to 50cm and took it from there - we are getting there and ever time I come away from a lesson having done it well, I feel brilliant :D

I don't feel scare anymore - I am enjoying my lessons again so I'm glad I pushed myself through the fear. I refuse to let my fear control me - to me that would be giving up and that's not me - many years ago a RI told me I was a very determined little rider - words that have stuck with me over the years.
 
Have to disagree with you about the sharks - scare me absolutely senseless but been swimming with tiger sharks...now saving for a nice holiday to go swimming with great whites ;)
 
So I'm a complete wuss as a rider, especially when it comes to jumping and hacking. I don't have a horse at the moment due to uni commitments, but I fully intend to get one as soon as I can, and when I do I fully intend to face the things that I'm scared of.

It might be completely nuts, but every time I get on a horse I'm frustrated with myself. I'm a competent rider, I'm an intelligent person, I've never had a bad fall; there is absolutely no reason why I should be scared, yet I am. I know I am perfectly capable of doing the things I am scared of, and I desperately want to do them! I also want to prove the people who bullied me for being scared as a kid wrong!

However, I think other people who have posted on here have a massive point, particularly with regards to rider/horse mismatch. It was a series of rider/horse mismatches that terrified me in the first place, so I'm going to be very, very careful when I set out to find my next horse.
 
The converse of fear is confidence. I think that it might be more constructive to frame this in terms of building confidence. Most of the positive stories of overcoming fear on this thread seem to me to be about building confidence. Taking small steps to build confidence is what most of the professional help on offer would do - be it NLP or cognitive behavioral therapy et al - which is what some of the posters have instinctively done. It is so eloquently described by EI and TD. So I am not convinced by the original poster's assertion that professional help would be any better.

The complicating factor is that horses are sentient and can pick up on fear or confidence, although probably less than is usually attributed to them.

Bad riding, e.g hanging onto or strangling a horse is not good either through fear or poor riding skills. But building the confidence of horse and rider through small repeated steps which for me only equates to the scales of training in dressage, moving up levels in show jumping or whatever the particular discipline.

I would assume the petrified people the poster refers to probably need to drop back a step. I do think the horse world can be a hard place, perhaps illustrated by some responses to the thread where is kind of frowned upon to admit that you need to drop back a level or is you are not competing at the highest level the horse or you can manage you have in some way failed. Do you know what the horse probably doesn't care two hoots what level it competes at (even your well bred competition one!!). On the flip side how many times have I seen overconfident riders miss out the confidence building for the horse, give it a really bad experience by banging it in on a murderous stride or rush a sensitive one and end up with something that says no or melts down.
 
Actually, I think the REAL issue here is poor teaching of riders; people buying horses before they are ready to ride without an instructor; equally poor training of horses and overhorsing, especially with first and novice level horses; not getting regular instruction.
 
1t34 said:
I would assume the petrified people the poster refers to probably need to drop back a step. I do think the horse world can be a hard place, perhaps illustrated by some responses to the thread where is kind of frowned upon to admit that you need to drop back a level or is you are not competing at the highest level the horse or you can manage you have in some way failed. Do you know what the horse probably doesn't care two hoots what level it competes at (even your well bred competition one!!). On the flip side how many times have I seen overconfident riders miss out the confidence building for the horse, give it a really bad experience by banging it in on a murderous stride or rush a sensitive one and end up with something that says no or melts down.
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Umm, where has anyone said that? Where on this thread, or anywhere else, has anyone said that someone else is a failure for taking a step back/down. I haven't read anything of the sort. I'm sure we would all rather see a horse and rider having fun and looking good together at a lower level, than the opposite when the confidence is undermined because the questions are bigger... I agree, the horse doesn't go into the ring and think 'oh no, this is soooo infra dig, these are only 80cms, I should be doing huge fences...!'
I have known horses who required bigger fences to make them respect them more and to back them off, who actually became far more rideable the bigger the fences were, but obviously that isn't the sort of horse to pair with a very nervous rider whose comfort zone is far lower than the horse's!

AEMJ said:
Have to disagree with you about the sharks - scare me absolutely senseless but been swimming with tiger sharks...now saving for a nice holiday to go swimming with great whites ;)
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You're far braver than me then, I hope I'll die very happily of old age or something, never having been in the water with any of the big 3, thanks very much! ;) ;)
 
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kerilli said:
Umm, where has anyone said that? Where on this thread, or anywhere else, has anyone said that someone else is a failure for taking a step back/down. I haven't read anything of the sort. I'm sure we would all rather see a horse and rider having fun and looking good together at a lower level, than the opposite when the confidence is undermined because the questions are bigger... I agree, the horse doesn't go into the ring and think 'oh no, this is soooo infra dig, these are only 80cms, I should be doing huge fences...!'
I have known horses who required bigger fences to make them respect them more and to back them off, who actually became far more rideable the bigger the fences were, but obviously that isn't the sort of horse to pair with a very nervous rider whose comfort zone is far lower than the horse's!
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I suppose what I was trying to say was the language used at times tends to imply this, just my observation.

Whilst I too know horses that require a bigger fence to back them off, it can also lead to difficulties later on such as carefulness.

I do also reiterate my point that I have observed as much damage done by a gung ho attitude to a horse scaring the pants off it, by not recognizing that building confidence is as much for the horse as it is the rider.
 
kerilli said:
I know of a couple of PC instructors who don't like the effect that body protectors have had on kids who are learning to ride. They're often a bit too big (growing space) and hinder movement, and the kids are aware of them etc so it affects their attitudee.
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Personally I hate Body Protectors on small children, 9 times out of ten when they fall off, it's the BP that has hurt them! Nearly every kid that wears one tips forwards. Hate the ruddy things!

TableDancer said:
I think these days most people would view miniTD as a pretty gutsy rider. However, I remember a period in her life when she was INCREDIBLY nervous: she was very little and had actually given up riding, at her own request for a period. She decided she wanted to start again :rolleyes:, I had sold her pony so insisted she went to a friend's riding school for lessons for a period to prove to me she was serious before we considered buying another. The first lesson, she stood on the mounting block for about 20 minutes trying to summon up the courage to put her foot in the stirrup, she was completely green. It got better, but she remained quite frightened for several months. The only thing I would say is that SHE was always adamant she wanted to do it - I too fail to understand parents who push frightened kids. But even then, doesn't WFP maintain that he was a dreadfully nervous rider as a child, and was pushed by his mother?
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I used to sit and cry before my lessons as a kid. I was crying out of frustration because I WANTED to ride but it terrified me. I mean really terrified, i would fake illness to get out of it halfway. A lot of it was to do with being a fairly sticky small jockey despite not having the balls to go with it, so I got put on lots of naughty ponies and staying on them whilst they misbehaved gave me plenty of time to think about how much it would have hurt had I actually hit the deck. Being on the floor before you know what's happened has huge advantages, believe me! I always saw the worst scenario, so was in a state of constant worry.
My parents never once pushed me, they found me another riding school, they let me take time out and they found me safe ponies.
Couldn't possibly tell you why I was so desperate to ride, but 22 years later I still am, so it must have been fairly deep seated. I am still no a 'ballsy' rider, but in a more sensible 'I dont mind falling off, but i dont want to die' way. Now riding a 'naughty' horse is more likely to make me feel proud that I stayed on/managed to keep it from misbehaving, although I do get that slightly weak-at-the-knees feeling after!

I teach a lot of very nervous kids now, some get a fright and give up, some keep going despite bursting into tears every week and I can't think of any of them that have pushy parents. So the only difference must be some 'need' to be around horses and I guess as a kids with no access to horses that has to be a riding lesson.

Whatever it is, even as a former nervous wreck, I can't understand it!
 
I was born into a very horsey family, and was plonked on the family Shetland before I could walk! Always nervy on ponies at the best of time, I went through a 'my parents might love me less if I dont ride anymore' phase which of course was ridiculous and in my head, but resulted in me literally shaking with fear before every competition and nearly always resulting in me ending up on the floor!
In the end, studies and uni beckoned, but I still make a cracking groom/camcorder-er!
A couple of years ago, got convinced to hack out with little brother one new years day with me on his old ex-advanced eventer and him on the baby, having been told that horse was a complete donkey and never done anything wild ever...not long after, horse decides its a bronco and I'm getting X-rays taken!! Message received: am staying on the ground!
 
I used to ride with a friend overseas. Horses and teaching were incredibly good quality.

I doubt my friend would have ever done more than one hack as she was absolutely petrified most of the time. We mostly did flat work, then she came back from holiday and decided she wanted to learn to jump. So they sorted out jumping. Again, she was absolutely petrified - not just scared or lacking a bit of confidence. And they were really really good with her - pointed out she didn't have to do it. She did.

The reason why she rode every weekend was because her "mum cares more about her horse then any of us". She wanted to jump because having got to the point where on a very safe horse, she was happy to do low level dressage stuff/ hack for a couple of hours, the stakes had been upped and now she needed to be able to jump. Her aim was to get good enough so on her next visit home, she could go jumping on her mothers horse.
So sometimes, there is an underlying reason for continuing when petrified that she would never have been able to articulate but was observed by all of us.
 
Because you have two choices. You can live your life being scared and avoiding things that scare you or you can just try to confront your fears and get on with it.

I have known people over the years who are to scared to ride but wouldn't dream of telling anyone they are scared. This frustrates me. I have always been open and honest about being scared of my horse whenever I have been. Its taken me a long time to conquer my fears with regards to hacking down a certain lane, or jumping at a certain height, but rather than take the easy way out and not bother to confront them I have taken small steps every week, until I have got to the place I want to be at. Its not easy being scared, and I have had a hypnotherapist help me and done lots of work at home. I am very proud of myself for doing all of this although this goes over the top of most peoples heads. I don't have the help of an instructor as I'd rather spend my money getting away for the day and competing. I am a very independent person insomuch as i have always gone out and competed by myself, I don't have any friends who would offer to come and help me or go with me to a show and the same with my riding, I would love to have someone sit with me for half an hour one weekend and help me but unless I ask (and that is the very last resort when I am really desperate because I am scared people will say no) I will ask someone. I have had someone come to a handful of times over the years , but its very rare for me to have help.

You have to grit your teeth and get on with things or spend your life not accomplishing all that you could and want to accomplish. Simples. :)
 
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Fascinating thread!

I kind of feel that because I *could* do something, I *should* do it, and if I *don't* do it, then I'm somehow backing away from an invisible challenge that only I can see... Can't articulate it any more clearly than this!

Dr - I don't get nervous cos I'll either **** it up or I won't, & either way, no-one's likely to die.
SJ - I *do* get nervous, and the thing that worries me is 'missing' to a fence. It worries me quite a lot, & gets worse the bigger the jumps.
XC, hacking alone, hunting - I have no interest in any of these & am quite happy to rule them out permanently without feeling at all wet.

T x
 
Interesting topic. I know a petrified child who continues to ride. Partly because mummy insists, partly because if you get the poor kid away from mummy & able to relax, she actually loves it & is pretty confident, as she is in every other area of her life. With her, its started as being petrified of getting it wrong, & as a result she is so tense I've seen her fall for no valid reason, so its a vicious circle. And I've had experience with kids who've had temporary fear because of a one off incident, but their own desire to continue has made them do it.
I think cortez has a point re health & safety. Nowadays, so many kids only ride very safe ponies, so when they move up, or an accident happens, its a sudden shock to have that first fall. Plus I agree re bps. I've seen kids who have no idea how to fall land like bricks. Which is fine from a small pony in trot, when you're wearing a bp & landing on soft ground. But dangerous in a normal falling scenario. Plus, the lack of experience on more mischievous ponies/ doing more exciting stuff means they don't learn how to stick.
I do wonder if sometimes scared people continue for the adrenaline rush that comes after. My 7yr old is very confident, to the point that given the chance, she'd try things she isn't actually ready for. In summer, she was jumping my 14.2 round a little course at home, biggest fence 2'9. My fault, I'd left a 3'3 wide spread up near the edge. Daughter missed her line, turned & accidently pointed her at the 3'3. But with one short stride & at an angle, pony being a sweetie did it anyway, & because of the approach ended up really launching, so it was more like jumping a much bigger, wider fence. Daughter was taken by suprise, fence much bigger than she's used to, ended up sat on ponies neck. She was clearly shaken up, & I suggested popping a x pole & finishing. After the x pole, daughter said she wanted to jump the 3'3 again, but properly, because it was fun that it was a bit scary. So I do wonder if for some its a buzz to be scared, similar to people who get scared by horror films but still watch?
 
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