Epiphanies

Today I had an epiphany. A really annoying epiphany, as I have known the theory behind it for years and today I managed to try it out in practice. I managed to raise my eyes and look where I was going, instead of looking at my beautiful horse.

One of the first things you learn in riding, is "don't look down". I myself, use this term almost every lesson I give. My trainers also say it to me really often.

It is said that in riding you end up at the place you look. This means that if you look down at your horse and the horse stumbles, you will fall off.

Another thing with looking where you going is that it helps your posture. Since the head is a rather heavy thing, keeping it placed on top of the spine helps your balance.

Other great things about looking where you're going are that you'll see the wall, you'll see other equipages coming, and you can more easily plan your ride.

Back to my epiphany. Today was dressage lesson time and Nemah was in quite a chaotic state due to snow melting and sliding off the arena roof. I had to struggle to get Nemah to listen to me, and my body to do what I wanted it to. My cold did not help either.

I decided to try to fix my eyes on the spot where I wanted to go. To my surprise Nemah started to listen and I finally could feel where she put her feet and how I needed to make my hips move to make her work properly and more slowly.

Everything just fell in place when I decided to stop looking at my beautiful horse. Sadly my lesson was over right after this moment. I will however keep the feeling of how riding should feel: the way it feels when I remember to look where I am going.