11/17/2025
This is true. We want to have fun, but we must also consider safety and the welfare of our horses.
Fun crusher
As a teacher, my number one job is to keep my student safe. The second is their horse's wellbeing. Usually, hopefully, these two goals are accomplished together.
So when I listen to their goals and desires, this comes forefront in my mind. Sometimes their goals and desires are nowhere near my priority of their safety.
I work hard not to step on toes or hurt feelings, but sometimes making sure the student is safe means curbing their desires, which can of course feel like rejection. It's important for the student to understand here that they are not being rejected but actually deeply valued - enough to rise above maintaining your money, your adoration, and any other thing that is significantly less valuable than your life and you as a person.
If a student can understand this is not rejection but being called up - if they can adjust their goals and learn to internally align with what will serve them best - they can begin the road to developing the basic building blocks to get to their new goals, preserving their safety and horse's wellbeing, and of course, develop finesse and get results sometime through that process too.
But a lot of it will be tedious. Practicing techniques, making mistakes, and sometimes even being correcting is not super pleasant. It requires some tenacity, some resilience, and some self reflection sometimes.
I think it's important to understand sometimes it isn't all fun, and it's ok to be bored. It's ok to not love every second. As long as you can find a way to give yourself permission to be human for a minute, I find students come back to the process so much more readily -
if they get bogged down in shame or denial that it MUST be enjoyable, they struggle. I think some of this is a messaging that you MUST enjoy the journey - and I think this is a well meaning message. But If it must always be joyful, pleasant, and fun, we are unable to continue when our horse struggles in a moment of problem solving, or is a little tired, or we struggle, or feel ashamed, or whatever the case.
I know teachers have to make a living, and we cant afford to lose students - but if they are constantly placated and given the fun, can they be blamed for being confused when that doesn't happen? In an environment where the beginning to end is rarely shown honestly, where struggles are not shared, and where students are shamed for making mistakes, it's obvious the climate is not conducive to the real work of practicing scales, and sometimes not having fun - to make sure our goals are aligned with what we really need and not what we want
