By Carol Moffatt
This article received first place in the 2025 GMO Newsletter Awards for general interest articles for GMOs with 75-174 members. It appeared in the St. Louis Area Dressage Society newsletter, Hoof Prints, March 2025.
I was clearing up some SLADS secretary paperwork and came across my notes from the speaker at the awards banquet. I didn’t think I’d taken down much, but upon inspection I saw that my notes were fairly comprehensive and, well, revealing.
Those of you in attendance may recall that the subject of the speech was goal setting with an emphasis on how to change unwanted habits. She instructed us to choose a habit we’d like to change and guided us through the steps to achieve that. I chose something rather mundane: my habit to nap after returning home from mornings at the barn. I chose it because I had been feeling I could be accomplishing more. I mean, I arrive home from the barn, eat lunch sitting on the sofa watching television, get cozy and fall asleep for anywhere from half an hour to a couple hours. By then it would be time to pick up the grands from school who would be with us until dinner. Generally, I am a morning person and lack the energy/motivation to be productive in the evenings. I have hobbies. Heaps of fabric I could be sewing. Yarn I could be crocheting. A room that needs painting. A garden which needs tending. When in casual conversation or mentioning it at my annual physical I’ve expressed regret for this schedule, but I’d be told that in my late 70’s and hard as I work at the barn, especially in the hot months, I deserved a nice nap.
Suffice to say that I was inspired by the awards banquet exercise to change my ways and I’m much happier with my level of productivity. What, however, does my success with improving my time management have to do with dressage? Well, I wondered, if I could improve a mundane time management habit, could I also change a bad riding habit? The one which was particularly annoying for me was the inability to consistently keep my weight balanced in the saddle. I wasn’t stretching down my left leg for a secure feel in that stirrup causing me to carry more weight on the right. By making a point of it, I could start out well, but before long my foot would be jiggling, especially if I had to use that leg to push my horse over or on bends/circles. I was frustrated that my trainer, Heather, a few times during a lesson, had to counsel me to stop to reposition my saddle which would have shifted to the right (eye roll emoji, ha!). Trainers have only so much time with us. At some point we have to learn to self-correct. At some point it is on us! So, what to do?
The awards banquet speaker advised us that any habit, for us riders, a movement, an aid, can be broken down into small steps. When I was trying to break my nap habit, the first thing I did was to stop eating lunch on the sofa and eat it instead sitting at the kitchen table. I know, novel idea. Something I learned in yoga practice, but had failed to transfer to riding, is to scan my body for tension. I sat in the saddle at a halt, feet resting evenly in the stirrups, hips weighted evenly in the saddle and analyzed my body for any tense muscles, releasing them as I found them, then doing another scan to feel if I had re-tensed anything. When I was satisfied that I was balanced and relaxed, I moved off into a walk constantly scanning my body for any tension. I discovered that the first recurrence of tension was in my left thigh which would cause my heel to come up, resulting in a domino effect eventually throwing more weight to my right hip. I walked down the long side of the arena thinking of nothing but relaxing that thigh and feeling the heel come down, thereby achieving proper weight in the stirrup, evenly balanced with the weight in the right stirrup. When I could get down the long side without having to make a correction, I started circles. Whoops! Amazing how that change in movement put me back in my tense position. I gradually advanced to doing serpentines across the ring so that I was constantly having to feel what was happening when bending in both directions. Releasing that tension at all gaits is becoming a new habit. For a while it was all I was thinking about which made lessons interesting, but although I remain conscious of it, I can now maintain the balance even while being instructed to think about other things. In today’s lesson, Heather did not have to tell me to reposition my saddle one time!
I’m not telling any of you something you don’t know when I say that dressage is hard work. It’s especially difficult when you feel like you have plateaued and, despite lessons, reading, or observing the pros, you just can’t seem to progress. Or, as you seem to progress, there’s something which is distracting or confidence robbing. I’m thinking about what I should work on next, and I hope I am encouraging you to identify something that is holding you back, maybe something having nothing to do with riding, break it down, and step by step, turn it into something positive.
Excellent!