#aaes

After week 3 of flatting I told myself that I needed to speak up and ask to jump, otherwise its going to make me more anxious after more than a month of not jumping at all. I dropped hints but ultimately wussed out. I thought that she got the hint when she had me ride in a jump saddle last week, but after 30 min of flatting, I realized that we weren’t going to jump. When she was ready to end the lesson, I mustered up enough courage to beg her to let me trot a cross rail that was already set up. She let me. It was bumbly and awkward and I honestly didn’t feel that great afterwards because 1. I was afraid she was going to be mad that I asked so forthrightly 2. I didn’t like how unstable I felt over a stupid X.  So yeah, really getting at my two main fears/obstacles in riding : upsetting my trainer/being a “bad” student and my riding getting worse and worse every year that I continue to pursue higher education. I was a little teary but I walked out the horse and she didn’t say anything to me.

My lesson this week, she asked me if I wanted to do a full jumping lesson. I said yes. She put me on the steadiest horse she has (not a schoolmaster by any means, but a solid BN horse). We trotted an X fine. She then told me to canter a course using the existing jumps in the arena (short turns/rollbacks, all 2′3″ ish with big box fillers/tires/etc.). This immediately made me nervous, but I don’t say anything. Though, it shows, I think, as I can’t even pick up/keep a good canter on this strung out ottb. We focus on the canter alone. I eventually solidify the canter, but she has already reevaluated the lesson. She lowers some of the jumps to Xs and says something along the lines of “lets just trot today because I really want you to be solid...I’m all about the basics...etc.” I trot the new course 3 times, working in her critiques. She now says to trot the first jump, canter the rest, and add the 2′3″ super skinny vertical at the end. I was able to do it and the last jump felt really good...good impulsion, perfect spot, my eq felt like good old times. We end on that note and I thank her.

I can’t stop thinking about it though, because it was just 100% good on her part. Like she didn’t get mad at me for asking straight up if I could jump something, because she decided not to interpret it as me challenging her or insulting her training. It was a polite and reasonable request so she honored it. And she saw that I wasn’t happy with the result. She remembered this the next week and asked if I wanted to try again (because how would she know why I was upset when I said nothing to her...I could have been really scared and didn’t want to try again and she would have honored that too I think). She was able to see that I was struggling with her first exercise, so instead of getting mad at me, she reset her expectations, worked me from the bottom up, and still was able to find a good way to end a lesson that could have easily been a discouraging failure. 

What is Re-Entry Engineering?

C O N T E N T S:

KEY TOPICS

This program is part of a larger initiative to increase the STEM (science, technology, engineering and math) talent pipeline driven by the Society of Women Engineers and iRelaunch, a career re-entry firm.(More…)

POSSIBLY USEFUL

“In the same way that financial services companies have embraced re-entry internship programs as a vehicle for successfully reintegrating top…