2 riding lessons under my belt and some thoughts on fear...

Sunday I had my second riding lesson on Savy with Alisha. Originally, we were supposed to do more ground work this week, but after I told her that I had tried to ride on Tuesday and it was a horrible experience, she decided that we needed to have another under saddle lesson to trump the bad experience for both Savy and me.

Last Tuesday, I decided to get on Savy and do some of the work I learned with Alisha the Sunday before. It was not good. Savy was being a jerk and I wasn't sure how to combat it so I would over correct and confuse him, we were having a lot of communication problems. It finally got to the point where I was so frusterated that I felt defeated. I made sure we did one last lap of the arena without fighting and I got off early.

Driving home, all I could think about was wondering if I was in over my head. Was I really a good enough rider, good enough horse person to handle this horse. Yes, I love him dearly, but what if I wasn't enough to help him. Then I read one of my favorite blogs, Green 'n Green = Black n' Blue and she was talking about getting dumped by her horse. She was having the same thoughts about her green OTTB Denali. I realized that our relationship with our horses is kind of like any other relationship we have: some days are good, some days are bad (ok really bad) but we can't just give up on them because you have one bad day.

I know how far Savy and I have come since I bought him a year ago. He has taugh me so much and I have been forced to become a better horse-woman because of him. I need to get rid of this fear of being inadequate (which really is a constant theme in my life) and become confident in who I am and what I can do - what we can do together.

My lesson on Sunday went so much better. Alisha helped me to work on some correction issues and I could already see a difference in how Savy and I were working together, even after only 3 rides, though it wasn't perfect by any means. I told her about my fear of not being good enough and she looked at me and said, "If I didn't think you were a good enough rider to do this, I wouldn't have you up there right now." It's nice to have someone else reaffirm what I had been hoping was true. I can do this.