“Why train if there are no competitions?” or “I’m finding it so hard to stay motivated without anything to work towards”, are statements I’ve heard a lot since Covid-19 has arrived in Australia.
As much as I love competing and I miss having a set schedule with championships, interstate trips, and big goals in place, I am absolutely enjoying riding and training my team of horses right now.
Without competitions, the immediate pressure to be able to perform a mistake-free test is taken off and there is more room to try new moves, experiment with unfamiliar “buttons” and really focus on getting the basics right.
“Success isn't always about greatness. It's about consistency. Consistent hard work leads to success. Greatness will come.”
Dwayne Johnson (“The Rock”)
It’s been said that practice makes perfect. I believe this is not always true. Practice on its own simply makes you a practitioner. Practicing without correction or focus on making it “perfect”, could mean that you are just repeating incorrect aids and reconfirming mistakes.
It is a continuous perfect practice that makes you and your horse perfect.
For that, I believe you need a trainer, coach, or mentor, “eyes on the ground” to keep you on the right track. Infrequent practice, however, makes you stay the same (at best), or get worse (more likely).
In the yoga sutra’s, an ancient Yogic text, Patanjali states, that practice depends on the three main elements.
you have to practice for a long period of time;
your practice must not be interrupted—you must do it regularly;
you must do your practice with love and respect.
I believe this makes as much sense applied to our yoga practice, as it does to our riding. Only through consistent and regular training with our hearts and mind in the right place, can we achieve success.
My personal upside to Covid-19 is the discovery of online video lessons. Additionally, to my lessons with my amazing coach Robert Harrison-Schmerglatt who thankfully lives around the corner, I am now also training with another coach a bit further away… Since the beginning of August, I’ve been having remote lessons with international Dressage judge and trainer Christoph Hess, who is based in Warendorf, Germany. I am amazed at how well the lessons via Viber video call work and just love being able to learn from someone so close to the international Top Dressage scene.
At least in NSW, it seems as if competitions may be on the horizon again soon, and Ollie (Sir Oktagonal) and I are entered in the Canberra COVID Classic in November. It’ll be great to see how well all our training has paid off then and to finally see some good mates again back out competing…
Stay safe and keep riding.
Namaste,
Anna
PS: Additionally, to our practice in the saddle, visualization is a great tool to utilize for your perfect practice (more about this topic in another blog post).
Namasté
Anna