Confessions Of A Riding Instructor

I didn’t think I was going into the service industry when I became a professional equestrian. In the very beginning, it was hard coming to that realization. I thought I did this to ride, train, and continue learning about horses, and although that is a part of this business, it only makes up part if it. To be honest, I didn’t think I wanted to be an instructor. I didn’t see myself as a teacher, a coach, or a mentor, and to be very honest again, the thing that changed that was the need to pay my bills. Beggars can’t be choosers, and when I was getting started, I had to take whatever work I could get. To my great surprise, I enjoyed teaching much more than I expected. I was excited to share the things I learned and excited to see my clients grow in their riding and understanding. In a funny way, it made the blood, sweat, and tears I had put in to acquiring the skills I have today, even more worth while. Now maybe I could save someone else some of the blood and most of the tears it took for me to get here.

“Teaching well is a more selfless act than I realized. It requires me to put myself in someone else’s boots on a daily basis.”

For me, teaching is relationship building. My clients are long term, and I work to cultivate that relationship. I am not in this for one or two lessons or one winter in Florida, I am in this for the long-haul. I am here through the wins, the loses, the falls, the light-bulb moments, the fear, the meltdowns, the anger, the gratitude, and the joy. To be a good teacher, or a good coach, you have to be good at managing the bad. It’s easy to be good at your job when things are going smoothly, when horses and riders are happy, winning, and singing your praises. It’s hard to be good at this when things are going badly. Not only do you have to manage your own emotions because of unhappy clients, sick horses, and difficult sales, but you also need to do it such a way that you can still help and manage your clients. Anger and impatience have no place in the barn, at home or in the show ring, but we are all human so that requires real effort and work. As an instructor my first job is to regulate emotions in myself, and then in the horses, and then in my clients.   

Teaching well is a more selfless act than I realized. It requires me to put myself in someone else’s boots on a daily basis. I have to remember what it’s like not to know. I have to remember not feeling the moment of the canter depart. I have remember when I was so nervous to ride while other people watched that I would almost throw up.  Teaching my clients requires me to ask myself how I can make my instructions clearer, use different words, try a different approach, and always improve. There was a point, early on in my teaching career, that I had a moment of realization: to do this well, I had to take my ego out of it. My students are not reflections of me, they have their own dreams and demons. My job as an instructor is to help them achieve their goals and battle their demons, not impose my own. And I can tell you, I know many, many trainers and that’s not a common sentiment. Most trainers want clients that have the money to buy better horses, the bravery to jump bigger courses, and the reverence not to ask too many questions. That’s the downside to this job, there are things that you do that are best for your student or best for the horse, and they are not necessarily what’s best for you, your status, or your finances. I am different because I had a mentor who taught differently, and I took what I learned from her and ran with it. Now I hope to do that for someone else.