10/08/2025
Trying to ride without mistakes creates rigidity and ineffectiveness, don’t be afraid to feel, experiment, and maybe fail - the most learning happens in beginner’s mind like a child and from our mistakes we learn and grow, just trust it’s part of the process of pursuing any art or craft 🙌
When we were young riders,
failure didn’t matter.
We bounced off ponies,
missed diagonals,
forgot tests,
and laughed it off like dust brushed from boots.
Falling wasn’t shame,
it was how we learned to sit taller.
Mistakes weren’t verdicts,
they were invitations.
But as we grew,
the arena became quieter,
the judges sterner,
the scores heavier.
Failure became something to fear,
as if a crooked halt could measure the size of our worth.
Yet dressage has always known better.
It knows that collection only exists
because you’ve practiced the moment it fell apart.
That harmony is born from a thousand quiet
conversations that didn’t go as planned.
Children know it.
Horses know it.
They don’t carry shame in the stumble.
They carry on.
Maybe the lesson isn’t to ride without mistakes.
Maybe it’s to ride the way we once did,
with joy that failure was never the enemy,
only the proof we’re still moving forward.
Because in dressage,
the only real failure
is never daring to ask the question of yourself
or your horse at all.
