REMINDER: THIS IS A BLOG. BLOGS ARE PLACES FOR RAMBLING THOUGHTS AND DISCUSSIONS. THESE ARE RAMBLING THOUGHTS THAT MIGHT LEAD TO A DISCUSSION.
(so don't get all sensitive)
I included this heading because this is a tough topic to talk about without someone feeling like these types of conversations"attack" beginner riders. No one should ever "attack" a beginner rider, because we all were one at some point, and we should all remember that. However, in my years of horse rescue and trying to pair good adoptive matches, I've found again and again that beginners are the hardest type of horse person to help out, and it frequently doesn't matter how nicely you try. And despite owning horses for over 30 years, I'm still not quite sure why that is.
What confuses me the most about some riders is the apparent inability to recognize when one thing does not look like the other things they are seeing.
I'm the first to admit I'm not a very good rider and lord knows I'm not a confident rider. I've been riding near my whole life and I still place myself as a lower level intermediate rider. I take lessons every week. I will need lessons until the day I die, and even then I'm sure I'll still suck. I am watching and learning from everyone around me, ALWAYS. Sometimes that watching is because I see someone doing something that for me is hard, but for them looks effortless. That's something I want to learn, so I study them and ask questions. Sometimes I learn because I see someone do something I don't ever want to do, so I make a note of that, too. I've always done this and I don't think I will ever stop doing this. I'm not sure I could if I tried.
So, that being said, why does it seem like so many beginners fail to look around and recognize when one thing in the picture is different?
If your saddle looks like this sitting on your horse:
But all your friends saddles look like this sitting on their horses... Don't you wonder why? Wouldn't you ask once you noticed that more than a couple saddles didn't fit like yours? And, if you go riding in a group and everyone else looks like these folks on their horses:
But you look like this...
or this......
Don't you wonder why? And wouldn't you want to try to fix it? The same thing if you take a short canter with your trail buddies, and they are sitting deep and secure in their saddles looking nice and relaxed, while you fly all about your mount slamming up and down and narrowly escaping death with every stride... ---------------------->
Wouldn't you begin to notice that one thing here is not like the other? And wouldn't, naturally, you want to find out WHY?
This isn't about giving anyone advice. It's about why some people fail to look around and NOTICE. If my horse looks like a hairy Yak, and yours gleams like a shiny new penny... I'm going to ask you WHY, or at least HOW yours looks different than mine.
So, for discussion... is the issue that beginners don't know what they should be noticing, or is it that they simply truly do not recognize the one thing that is different? And how do we get that to change?
I'm assuming part of this phenomenon is how one person sees this:
When the reality is this:
And, just for fun, some guys think they look like this:
And we're all wincing because we see this:
