Tracking your rides in horseback riding is a great way to document goals and progress. Keep a training log to reinforce positive thought with advice from a sport psychologist in this video on horseback riding techniques.
Hi I'm Tonya Johnston. I'm a Sport Psychology Consultant and it's my job to help riders be psychologically prepared and mentally tough. In this segment we're going to talk about tracking your rides. Tracking your rides after they happen can be a very valuable way to build confidence, track your goals and create a book of confidence for yourself that will follow you for your entire riding career. By keeping a log after your rides, you can look at how did I prepare today, because you want to know what kinds of preparation have led to your most successful rides. Did I have a snack on the way to the barn? Did I listen to a certain song? Was I sure to get there a little bit early so that I had time to decompress from the traffic that I always face when I'm driving or commuting to the barn? These kinds of details are good for you to know. Another valuable piece of tracking your rides has to do with following your goals. Goal accomplishment is something you really want to keep a handle on because it can add to your confidence over time. As you see improvements in your own riding, having a really consistent way of looking at that can be helpful and can give you confidence when you go to your horse shows. Using your log to also look at okay here are some of the solutions that came up today, maybe the ride wasn't that good. Maybe I had a day that everything was just a little bit off, but boy did a light bulb go off for me as far as, you know what? When I start my horse maybe before my lesson started or I was just hacking and I rode on the buckle for five minutes today, he just went right to work when I picked up the reins five minutes later. Maybe that's a good cue for you. Maybe that's something good for you to know. So that's something that you would want to track. But also if there was a mistake that day you might have had a light bulb moment of a good solution. You want to be sure to write that down so that you're more apt to remember it. Tracking your rides is a really valuable thing to do at horse shows as well. You can be writing down the course you jumped, where you were successful and what you want to improve. So if you go to a horse show that's four days long, you'll be learning things and being sure to come to the ring the next day with more information. Tracking your rides is something that you can do on your own. It can be simple and short and can really go a long way to enhancing your performance in the ring.
Specialty: Sports Psychology
