Cob Jockey

For a few weeks now, I've been tossing this thought around in my mind that "Connor is not the horse I will get 'there' with."

Now, before you start thinking that I'm abandoning my goals for me and this horse, that's not it at all.  That statement isn't even really about Connor.  This is about reframing the way I think about riding to be more sustainable and healthy for both of us.


All my life, I've never known how to operate without pressuring myself.  In my workouts, in my sports, in school, in my job.  There's no one chasing me with a stick, but I push myself anyway, even if I don't really know why.

No one chasing me but my own inner voice.

About a month ago, I was listening to an NPR story about a TED talk by Simone Giertz, who has become famous for inventing useless machines.  She talked about how it started with her being curious about mechanical engineering, something she had no training in.  But along the way, she realized that playing at it was helping her get over her fear of failure, because even if she succeeded and the machine worked, it was also still a failure, because a robot that brushes your teeth for you is not going to set the world on fire.  She was doing it because it was fun.

Simone Giertz

I started thinking about how Simone's story relates to my own life - I, too, once dropped to a lower math class because I was going to get a B instead of an A+ in high school.  And here I am pushing myself to be good in a sport that I've only been doing for a couple years, on a horse that is learning right along with me. 

Somewhere along the way, I stopped feeling like I could explore and experiment and goof off with Connor.  Even though I don't compare myself to others, I thought there was a timeline I had to be on, and not aligning with it was failing.  And as much as I truly enjoy Dressage, it's not as much fun when your type-A brain feels like you're not "getting there" or "taking this horse as far as he'd be able to go with someone else".

Me, my sister and our cousin Katie on Festus sometime around 1996

My rides lately have been playful instead of work, while still being productive.  Full of "I wonder what would happen if..." and not "I must make progress on shoulder in this week".  "I wonder how softly I can ask for..." and not "I'm going to be disappointed if we don't get to school _____ today"

Because the moment I stopped thinking of us as needing to get somewhere, I started having fun again.  And making progress again.  And clearly, I'm not the only one with these thoughts in my head.

Serious productivity happening right here /s

Maybe Connor is the horse I get my bronze on.  Maybe he isn't.  Maybe we race through Second Level in a single season or maybe we spend five years here.  One way or another, acknowledging that I don't have all the answers, that we're both learning together, and that maybe failing isn't the worst thing in the world if we're both having fun has been so good for my brain.