Or, Perhaps There is Merely a Madness to My Method

Of course I realize that how we do things is not the way that things are done! No, I have no interest in getting with the times or falling into line. The civil rights movement, advances in medical treatment, and the Original Carter Family are the only good things that came from the 20th century and I am still waiting for something good to come of this sorry excuse for a century in which we now find ourselves.

I have come to the conclusion that it is futile to try to teach kids to ride without first teaching them to have confidence in their own abilities. There is nothing about today's modern parenting model that gives a kid the chance to develop confidence. There is everything in today's ideal parenting model that teaches kids that the most important virtue to develop is the willingness to seek (and demand) instant gratification and comfort at all times.

Nothing undercuts a person's shot at happiness as an adult more than being so raised. Living with an untreated anxiety disorder turns one's life into merely an extended period of pre-death. We live in a culture that creates a perfect growing environment for anxiety disorder in kids.

Be kind--be generous--be compassionate--be strong--all these have been replaced with be careful. I do not advocate recklessness for either adults or children. I am very prudent in all of my risk taking. However, I realize that confidence is only gained when kids take prudent risks and succeed, or even better, fail and rise to try again.

This means that before I can teach a kid to ride correctly I first have to teach a kid to believe that he can ride. The only way to believe that is to do it. Yes, I understand the irony of our instructional method. It is all based on the concept that before one can learn to ride one must first ride. It is only after a kid comes to understand that she is not likely to fall off and, most importantly, that it really does not matter if she does, that she can learn proper riding techniques. That is right. A kid best learns to ride only after the kid is convinced that she already knows how to ride.

It is very true that for a long time my little riders only know how to mount up and ride hard behind the horse in front of them. They learn how to stop and turn a horse and how to stay on in most circumstances. In the mean time they learn natural horsemanship and learn how to live in the horse's head. Then they are ready to learn how to ride--how to have hands as light as feathers, how to flow with the horse, and how to anticipate the horse's every movement.

But they cannot learn any of that until they come to believe that they are safe in the saddle. They cannot learn that until they develop confidence in their own skills. They cannot learn that until they understand that they can push themselves beyond the limits of what they think that they can endure. They must come to experience the warm satisfaction of knowing that they can do things that others their age are not able, or are not willing, to try.

Daddy's anvil weighed 85 pounds. When I was five years old I could bend over, grab it, and stand up straight with it in my hands. Many boys twice my age could not do that. Knowing that I could do that did not make me cocky or arrogant. I never recall bragging about it. But I understood that it was a very big deal that I was able to do so.

A kid cannot get that understanding from getting a high score on a video game. A kid cannot get that understanding from winning a trophy for cheer leading.

But a nine year old girl that stays on a horse for 50 miles in one day gets that understanding and it is that nine year old girl that can now be taught how to be not only a great rider, but a great friend and leader for her horse.

And there it is in a nutshell, first a kid is taught to believe that she can ride and then later, sometimes much later, she is taught to ride well.