Right? Wrong? ...or just DIFFERENT...

A friend of mine asked me a question yesterday about something her riding instructor told her. It was sort of off the wall and my first response was to tell her ….. yeah, she’s nuts. That’s not anywhere near right. …but I stopped and changed my thought process a bit. ….and I thought my answer to her would be a good subject for the blog today. :o)

As I sat here thinking how wrong that instructor was, I reflected back to when my daughters were taking riding lessons. …from the many, MANY different trainers we had our horses with over time. I remember Krystle telling me – "But Mom, Carol said to do it this way but Abbie says to do it this way and then Deb told me something totally different. Which way is right?" Dani had the same problem …. Stephie told her one thing and Sheena told her another. How are they going to know who is right and who is wrong?? Who do they follow?

I learned a loooong time ago in dealing with horses that there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ way. There is just ‘different’. ….and no two people teach or train the same way. No two people ride the same way. Like no two people think the same way. That’s what makes trainers lives so hard. They have to try to teach that horse to respond to different people the same way….. and everybody is different.

We took our horses to lots of different trainers over the last 20 years and I learned real fast that I need to just sit back, shut up, and watch. There weren’t too many times that I was disappointed with what resulted but there were a lot of times I was very confused by the ‘process’ and wondered what the heck they were doing to my horse. Very few times did we actually pull a horse out because the trainer was nuts. Almost always the horse came out very well after a few months with that person. …. But everybody approached training that horse differently. …and by standing back and watching I have learned a lot. I have also learned that every horse is different and there’s no manual that gives you all the answers so the more knowledge you gather over your journey working with these animals, the more effective you are.

SO ….. going back to my friend’s question and Krystle and Dani’s question … how do you know what is right? Who do you listen to? I told them all …. When you are with a trainer or any teacher, you need to do what they tell you to do. Cut and dry. The person you are with at the time is absolutely right. That's who you listen to. Try to understand as much as they’re telling you. Try to absorb all the information they give you. Ask question but NEVER question their knowledge or insinuate that they aren’t doing something right. NEVER say to a trainer that another trainer told you to do it another way. When you are with someone and have asked them to teach you what they know ….. shut up and listen to what they are telling you and do what they say the best way you can. This is what they’ve learned in their lifetime. It may not be what your other teacher learned in his or her lifetime. This one had different experiences and has learned to do things differently. You continue to learn as much as you can from that person and whenever possible you go out and find other clinics or instructors to learn from them as well.

In the end you put everything you’ve learned together and you now have even MORE information than they individually each have. You put it all together and do what works for you. If you close your mind to different ways to doing things then you get stuck in your riding ability, and in life in general. If you open yourself up to other ideas then you become even more powerful and are able to store that information in your memory until you may need it someday. It may not be something you use right now today – but someday you may come across a horse that isn’t responding to anything you try …. And you pull out this tactic you learned years before at a clinic somewhere that at the time you thought was pretty off the wall…… and you find that it works.

So my advice to my friend and my advice at all times to my daughters was -- You always, ALWAYS respect your teacher/trainer/or judge. No matter how nuts their instructions or decisions are. You learn as much as you can from them, be grateful that they are kind enough to tell you what they know, and when it’s time and you’re ready …..thank them and move onto the next teacher so you can continue to learn even more.

I still think the things that instructor told my friend were a little ‘wacky’ …but you know what – if the end result after a few months of riding is that my friend can stay on that horse and make it walk, trot, and canter on cue and not jerk the horse or herself around …. Then she did it. It wasn’t how I would have gone about teaching someone, but if the end result is the same then who am I to say that her technique isn’t ‘right’.

I think in this life if more people would realize that there are a lot of things out there where there is no ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ …. there’s just ‘different’. Then everyone would get along a lot better.