A Teacher’s Observation
Renee Swanepoel N Dip Equine Studies
SANEF Level 1 Instructor
I
have a little confession to make… I had a riding lesson. And I really enjoyed
it!
Now don’t
get me wrong. In my pursuit of riding excellence I have had many an hour of
work without stirrups, lunge lessons, I still have monthly lessons with my
wonderful Dressage trainer, but I am talking about a good old-fashioned riding
school group lesson. Hopping onto a long suffering and slightly work worn beast
and having a good old romp around with a group of other folks. The kind of lesson I still teach regularly.
While
seemingly unimportant and not very grand in the major scale of things it really
got me thinking. One of my very dear friends is giving up teaching after 16
years and we sat discussing the reasons and the thinking behind her decision. “I
just don’t enjoy it anymore. I cannot think up another exercise for anyone to
do and I just cannot bear another hour in the sun shouting ‘heels down, chin up’
and watching people go round and round endlessly without getting anywhere!” she
told me with a grimace. The sausage factory syndrome – endless hours of
churning out ride after ride and pretending to be very interested in everyone when
in fact all you can think about is how really nice a martini would be under a
tree at that point! You only need to survey any group of riding school ponies
on any given Saturday morning. Half of them look like they are asleep and the
other half look like they wish they were dead! If you look a little closer
sometimes, though, you will notice something else. Happy, giggling 5 year olds
with bags of carrots and curry combs in hand. Teenagers who would otherwise be
in a Mall doing who knows what, happily hanging out with each other, drinking
fruit juice and talking about the latest trends in Showjumping training. Adults
who dreamt of owning their own ponies as youngsters but never had the chance
and can finally live out their dreams of riding and being around horses and
savour every moment.
Whilst
riding around on my weather beaten but very sweet riding school horse, being
put over fences and told to look up and ride circles and all the other things that
I would easily be standing in the middle of the arena shouting away, it
suddenly dawned on me how wonderful it was to be on the pupil end of the deal.
I had honestly never realised how much fun it was. I suddenly realised why so
many people keep coming back week after week for their horsey fix!
Sometimes
as instructors we lose sight of the enjoyment we are gifting other people.
Sure, it is a hard job and we very often never get thanked for standing out in
all weathers trying to help riders become better and have fun. There are people
that we love seeing week after week, and let’s face it, there are some people
that we cringe over when we see them coming, but at the end of the day never
forget that we are giving people something they can never get anywhere else and
they love it so much that they keep coming back for more! We also often get stuck on the competitive riders with their own horse that we forget that there is an entire community of passionate horse-lovers that will never compete or be able to own their own horses but they are just as passionate about their weekly riding lessons!
Coming
up with new ideas can be tough, especially after years of teaching. I often see
how my fellow instructors, and even myself, get caught up in the factory of
pushing out lesson after lesson. Sometimes all it takes is a little bit of
reading, a bit of Googling and you can come up with fresh new ideas that will
be exactly what everyone needs to discover how much fun riding can be.
Sometimes we get caught up in the world of competition and performance and we
forget that there is fun to be had.
I
would like to urge all my fellow instructors out there – never underestimate
how much people enjoy coming to your lessons and even though from where we
stand things can be tough, never forget that the joy of sitting on a horse is
something that should never be taken for granted by anyone!
