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Private Practice of Susan B McIntyre
Qualifications: Adv.Dip.Hip., Dip.Pers.Dev., Cert.Couns. M.N.C.H, M.I.S.M.A., M.A.P.H.P.

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Site last updated July 2007

Article 5 - A Mind to Ride – Mind over Matter by Sue McIntyre MNCH (Acc); MISMA

“Before something happens in the external world, it must first happen in the internal world”

This is an article for all those riders like me whose confidence ebbs and flows and whose battle with their 'nerves' seems endless. I am not qualified to comment on the physical aspects of riding but I do have qualifications in hypnotherapy, counselling and coaching which can help me to make some sense of what happens under the rider's hat when riding. It’s the part that generates either your confidence or your anxieties, depending largely on how you use it!

First of all, there is absolutely nothing wrong with feeling nervous on a horse. Lots of people feel nervous in situations which some riders might perceive as being much safer - think dentists, lifts, heights, motorways etc.! So resist the temptation to beat yourself up about it. Ask yourself instead whether feeling nervous actually improves your chances of survival on horseback. In most situations it does not because fear severely limits both the choice and speed of your responses. As human beings our primitive survival mechanism means that we tend to respond to danger with our own particular version of 'fight', 'flight' or 'freeze'. We all know that these sorts of responses together with innumerable variations of the foetal crouch do not actually help. So what might help?

Working within your personal comfort zone helps. Very simply there are three areas in which we can operate and they are the comfort zone, the stretch zone and the over-stretch zone. The basic principle is that we need to work mostly in the comfort zone, occasionally in the stretch zone and never in the over-stretch zone! (The same applies to your horse). In practical terms this means that if you only feel reasonably safe walking your horse in a quiet lane knowing that you could just about cope with the odd shy - do that! And keep on doing that until the odd shy seems nothing at all and one fine and sunny morning (no wind of course!) you suddenly decide that perhaps you could trot after all. Your comfort zone has then increased to incorporate the odd shy and your stretch zone has then become a trot. In my experience, the biggest destroyer of confidence is too many stretches - too many falls, too many near misses, perhaps even the odd rear and the next thing you know, you are over stretched and all your hard-won confidence has evaporated into the ether.

Except that it hasn't really, its just that your subconscious mind has imprinted lots of 'negative' experiences and each time these are triggered, you feel scared and when you feel scared, you stop actually riding your horse and become a rather ineffective passenger. Its useful to think of memories like mini-films stored in your mind. Each time our senses supply information to our brain, the information is matched against our store of films primarily to ascertain whether the sum of the information equals a threat to our survival. So if you have an experience on your horse which your brain interprets as 'threatening', each time either the same or sufficiently similar information is passed to your brain it is likely to activate the 'survival response' I mentioned earlier. When you are afraid, your attention becomes very focused and it is often difficult to pay attention to anything other than the object of your fear. The combination of these factors can result in a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I think it also helps to have some understanding of how the mind works. Most authorities agree that there are basically two parts to your mind. As an Hypnotherapist I tend to think of the "conscious" mind (situated on the left side of your brain) that deals with logical, rational thought and sophisticated language and the "subconscious" mind (situated on the right side of your brain), which basically deals with all the rest! The subconscious mind understands language in images (pictures) and stores all your memories, intuitions and conditioned responses (habits?). It is also very significant that the subconscious mind has no way of differentiating between what is real and what is imagined. The conscious mind has your willpower; the subconscious mind your imagination. Imagination is much more powerful than willpower and this is important so just in case you don't believe me, I'll prove it to you!

Just imagine that I have laid a very ordinary plank (like a floorboard) on your field and I ask you to walk along it. Could you? Chances are that you could manage that quite happily. Now I take exactly the same plank and suspend it thousands of feet in the air between two skyscrapers. Are you happy to walk it now? If not, why not? It’s exactly the same plank! Because of your imagination. It would not matter how much willpower and logic you applied, in your mind's eye you would probably see yourself wobbling and falling off.

So it can be helpful to keep a check on your imagination. I know that it can be very easy to get caught up in the "what if" syndrome. Remember that your subconscious mind has no way of knowing whether the images and mini-films you are creating are real or imagined. "What if he runs out?" "What if he bolts?" "What if he bucks?" No wonder you feel scared if your horse has already bucked 20 times and then bolted off down the beach - without you even getting him out of the stable! As far as your subconscious mind is concerned, the worst has just happened and your body and mind are reacting accordingly. Beware particularly of doing this sort of thing when you get "stretched" on a ride. I rode down a drove with a friend last Saturday and when we turned to retrace our tracks, the horses became quite excited. My imagination began to run riot and before I knew it, we had galloped off, jumped a six-foot gate and fallen in the ditch etc.etc.etc! Scary or what?

Thankfully, the imagination works the other way around as well. I think it was Linford Christie who said that he never ran a race he had not run many times before. He meant of course that he ran it through in his mind in the way in which he hoped to run it when he competed. Hypnotherapists call this 'positive future pacing'. Muhammad Ali was a great advocate of the technique. Set yourself realistic goals and imagine yourself achieving them. Pay particular attention to the detail of what you will see, hear and feel when you get where you want to be. If you have a problem with this, experiment with riding 'as if' - you are brave, Mary King (or William Fox-Pitt!), an apparently fearless friend or whatever.

These techniques together with a lot of encouragement from my instructors and friends, have helped keep me in the saddle (literally) and keep me riding - through four riding holidays, through numerous fun rides and long-distance hacks, over the odd jump or two and in several local dressage competitions. I even won a dressage class once! Magic.

I wouldn't mind betting that the overwhelming difference between you and more confident riders is only the way in which you use what's under your hat. Enjoy your riding.

Links to other articles:

1. Stress Management Skills by Sue McIntyre - click here.

2. A Mind to Ride - for Stress-free Competitions by Sue McIntyre- click here.

3. A Mind to Ride - In Search of Magic by Sue McIntyre - click here.

4. World Cup Show Jumping - Bordeaux February 2005 - click here.

6. - A Mind to Ride - Resourceful Riding by Sue McIntyre Published in The Hypnotherapy Journal - click here.