Ep 11: There are no bad rides

Oftentimes, performers and actors and stage performers will often say that a bad rehearsal makes for a good performance. And it's not what you're learning to do, it's what you're learning not to do.

From performanceriders.com this is the Parbury Podcast. I'm Nat Foxen, and each episode I challenge World equestrian Games top 10 dressage writer Brett Parbury to explain and discuss what I call a pabraism. That's a pearl of wisdom I've written down over the years of working together in our writers programs. Brett doesn't know what today's pavrism is. Let's get into it. Hi, Brett. Are you pumped for your Parburyism for this episode?

Yeah, I'm ready to go.

Okay, this one is. It's a short one. There are no bad rides. Controversy alert.

Ding, ding, ding, ding.

Ring the controversy bell. There are no bad rides.

Look, that's probably something I said after, you know, a few back to back good rides. But, but in saying that, look, you, you do, you can't help. We can't help but get a bit disappointed when we have a bit of a bad day, bad training session, whatever. But when the emotion of it is all you know is all settled down and you're back and you really think about it, there's only bad decisions. Like, there's really no bad ride because even when the horses aren't going great, it's. It's still opportunities to train the boundaries, if that makes sense. So, so the bad ride only can be made worse by us by overcorrecting, overdoing, you know, tuning them. Tuning. Sort of doing the tune up with the horse. That's too much, making the horse afraid or whatever. And I think it's that sort of info as I get older and, you know, spend a lot of time doing this. The. That's the info you draw upon when you feel stuff's not going well because you can very easily go down on a tangent or down a rabbit hole when you think, oh my goodness, this is not going very well and I need to get this horse to listen to me and all these things. Sometimes it's just worth accepting today's not the day. And today's a day when I need to go backwards a few steps and I need to retrain some good fundamentals. And if you can get yourself into that mindset and accept the fact that the horse is not responding to your aids as well as they may have done in the past, it actually works out better in the end.

So what do you think writers mean when they're talking about a bad ride? And how do you look at that differently?

Well, the, The, the, the wiser me. The, the older wiser me thinks that it's a little bit like you hear oftentimes performers and actors and, you know, stage performers will often say that a bad rehearsal makes. And basically what that means is when you're making mistakes and, And I'll just relate this the horse in a second. It's not what you're learning to do, it's what you're learning not to do. So it's when you're making mistakes and you're correcting it and working your way through, you're working it. You're learning all the boundaries. It's the same with the horse. Like, the only reason the horse is giving you a bad ride is because they are pressing on all of the boundaries. So in the system that we have in performance riders, we talk about frame feed and pace. It's the horse pushing on all of the boundaries of the aids and, and testing, testing the aids and testing how they can do it easier and, and not respond. That's what's making for what feels like the bad ride. But it's actually the opportunity to reconfirm to the horse, know, don't push the, don't push through this aid. Listen to this. And, and it's up to us at that point to strip it back to the basics and deal with the. Where the horse is wanting to push out or, or, or test the aid, deal with that individually and, and show the horse. No, no, this is the boundary, and that's a boundary, and that's a boundary. And, And a good ride is really only when a horse is responding to all of these aids and boundaries and understanding where the boundaries are. The bad ride is the horse pressing against all the boundaries and testing, testing the aids and testing the tolerance and everything. So, so the bad ride actually leads to the good ride. And it's taken a lot of time and wisdom to come up to sort of think of that and make myself go down that path. When I feel this all happening, you think, ah, this is great, because it's this ride that leads to the good ride. In the end.

I mean, I suppose humans being humans, ideally we have a little mixture in the ride right where we do have the horses pushing the boundaries and giving us those training opportunities. But we also have glimpses of ease and flow that give us a little boost of confidence to, you know, take further.

Yeah. And we also have this mindset that every Ride needs to be better than the last and progressive. And it's not actually that, that way like it's, they have got a much more, a much different brain to us. Like it's so different to us. And, and you might be training something really tricky the day before and then on the next day you're finding that you can't even do the basics. Well, that doesn't mean you're going backwards. As a matter of fact, you actually by re establishing good basics in the horse for the day or, or just identifying what the horse is giving you on that day and schooling that particularly will take you, then it keeps you going forward. What will take you backwards is getting frustrated and, and doing an over correcting and being, and running out of tools because you are frustrated. That will take you backwards. You know, you start to cause some uncertainty in the horse or some, some worry, fear or that will take you backwards. But if you stick on a really fun, fundamentally like really good fundamentals and you don't mind the fact you feel like you're, you're doing something that you've done 10,000 times before, clearly on this day you need to do it again, you'll find that you will, you will contribute to the development rather than take away from the development. And I think it's, that's where human nature, we need to ignore our human nature and just go, no, no, no, I know exactly what's happening here. My horse is testing the, the foundation of my training. I need to come back and just reconfirm the foundation and not feel like I'm doing anything else other than that today or tomorrow or whatever. It might even be a period. It might not just be one ride, it might be a period the horse is going through. Oftentimes when you're training flying changes on a dressage horse, the horse will get a little rattled mentally and some of those, some of those fundamentals in the training will go out the window. So in and around that same period you might find that you are losing some of your other stuff, some of the other work you've got in the horse and you'd be like, why, why is this happening? You know? Well, it's just that the horse is uncertain. They're learning something new and all you need to do is just keep the work really simple and you'll find that it'll all calm down in, you know, shortly after and, and the horse hasn't forgotten anything. It's just, they've just become a bit uncertain, a little bit rattled by the changes. And yeah, and, and that's where you'll find that less is more.

I've got a couple of light bulb moments from what you were saying just then. One is that training is not linear. You know, progression is not just getting that bit better every day. Like it is sort of going to go up and down and we're at the whim of whatever the horse is giving us that day. And the other thing was that it's important for us riders not to take offense when the horse is pushing the boundaries. And I think that's really easy to do as a writer to, to get on. And you think, God, I already did this yesterday and like you said the day before, and I've done this 10 days in a RO, so. And he's still giving me this reaction. And we can get quite offended and emotional about that.

Yeah. And that. And, and emotion is the enemy of a calm mind. And, and at that moment we've all gotten emotional because it, you know, it's, it can be frustrating. It can be very frustrating. And the idea there is to just understand it for what it is. And it is the horse testing the limits and the boundaries and the, and the, and that means they're testing the aids, testing, you know, staying on the bit, staying in front of your leg, in your half halt. You know, that they're not running away after running away on you, that they're only one half halt away from, you know, a collected pace, that they're on those aids. So that's sort of the sweet spot that we create by general training and general attention to the fundamentals is this way of going where the horse feels like they are almost in the box underneath us, where we can let some, some of the aids off. And it's, it's a sweet spot where they're in self carriage and they're going by themselves and they're in balance and they're adjustable. So that's, it's almost like when they're going like that, they know where the boundaries are. They are not leaning against our hand and when they're not trying to slow down and stop and they're not falling out through the shoulders and they're in this space underneath us where it's balanced and it's nice and, and then, then we decide, okay, we'll do some more training, we'll add some more knowledge here and start to increase what we expect and put them into different positions and perhaps ask for changes. Well, then it's. Then when the horse tests that place where they're underneath us, where they start testing, I want to push out through this shoulder. I want to lean through my, onto the contact here or I want to, I want to get behind the rider. That testing of the boundaries there is what then can translate through to us as, oh, my horse feels awful having such a bad ride. Well then they're screaming out for a reek for a re establishing and a reconfirming of the basics that put them in that nice place in the first place, that nice sweet spot in the first place. So that's what they're screaming out for. They're not screaming out for us to get frustrated. They're not screaming out for us to get worried and depressed about the fact that we didn't feel like we went forward and did advanced ourselves today. They're telling us there, I'm testing the boundaries here. I don't thoroughly believe that I need to be in this place where I've got to carry myself and work using my body. I'm going to try to make it a bit easier for myself. And that's. We've got to identify that, know exactly what it is when we see it. Not get caught up in the emotion, not get caught up in a tangent. Just come back two steps and establish those good fundamentals in our training. Get them back in that sweet spot and, and then get them and then do it again and keep chipping away. You know, it is, I always say this, but it is such a sport of development where you just chip away at building knowledge and the only way you can do that in a dressage horse is through repetition.

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Today is there are no bad rides. And I suppose the extended version of that is what you think are bad rides maybe aren't so bad. They might be training opportunities. So don't get too worried about it. But Brett, what in that case would be an actual bad ride for you? You know, you've mentioned a few things like we're over correcting, we're getting emotional about things. Let's dig down into that. That when we're reflecting on our ride, you know, what if we can sort of what are the red flags for? We need to perhaps Work, work a bit harder on ourselves. How we rode today.

Yeah, I think generally the bad rides for me come when I'm, I'm losing. I, I'm not riding with the awareness that I'd love to ride with. Like some days I'm just not as good as others and I think we're all like that and I think you could actually track that along. To all sports people just don't, can't perform at their best at every, every day, every time, every time they train or perform. So it's human nature not to be at your best, not to have the level of focus that you need sometimes or the awareness. So generally that will happen then now it's up to me to identify what is the problem. See, you know, at the end of the day I've got the brain in this equation. The horse has got the instincts and they've got, you know, their brain. But I'm the one that knows what dressage is meant to be be. So I've got to try and use my brain to identify what, what is the problem here. So you know, I've maybe not riding with the awareness. I'm letting a shot, the shoulders fall out which then learns, then ends up with the horse just losing a little bit of balance, wanting to get onto the shoulders a little bit more because they can't keep their shoulders up and be in self carriage with their shoulders up and more weight back to their hind legs. So when I'm letting the shoulder fall out, for example on, on corners and circles and in general training, the first thing that's going to happen is the shoulder is going to go onto the ground quicker which means that they're not, the horse is not getting up off the ground, then they're going to end up a little stronger in the reins and they're not going to feel like they're as easy to maneuver through the shoulders and as easy to tip back on the hind leg and get them to carry on the hind leg. And that would be probably the first one that if I don't identify and get that to happen or the horse is not responding to it, that has this chain of events which you'll end up feeling it'll feel awful. And then if I chase that correction in the wrong way because I'm not thinking properly and not tracing that problem back to the source where the, where it came from, actually just going on my feeling and sometimes feel is not good, sometimes feel will take us down the wrong path. And this is a great example of this. If I just Chase my feel of, oh, horses in my reins, like a bit stronger than I wanted or a bit more resistant. Then all of a sudden I'm starting to do too much with my hands and with my. And with the bit. Rather than getting the shoulders a bit squarer, getting the shoulders in front of the hind leg, making the half halt, keeping the horse going in front of me and just being very thorough in getting my horse to, to be in a good balanced position where they can carry themselves and then dealing with it and then, and then going from there. And then also if the horse doesn't want to stay back on the hind leg, you know, they obviously want to test that out and you know, whether they're sore there or whether they are not tolerant of it on that day, then there'll be other things that'll turn up there, like the horses will want to, you know, push off the hind leg and get on the shoulders, get a bit tight in their back. All of those little challenges when you're training with young horses that will. Can lead you on a tangent. I hope I'm not talking myself around circles here, but can lead you on a tangent rather than going, oh, no, this is the problem, this is what I'll do. I'll do more transitions, I'll do, I'll slow things down. I can't be wanting to do the tricky stuff today. I'm just going to come back and do the basics. And you generally find that it's, it's by being thorough on the basics, you set yourself up for future, future development rather than just feeling like semi good on that day, if that makes sense.

And I feel like really the thread running through everything you just said was focus.

That's enormous. I mean, focus and, and awareness, you know, and you can't be fully aware without focus, but that is enormous. And, and I do think that a lot, like a lot of riders, me included, we can ride with way more focus and we just, we owe it to the horses to ride with more focus and, and more thinking. Like think, actually think while we're riding and be a, be a thinking rider and rather than just a reactionary rider who's reacting to just, just feel alone, not actually thinking about the mechanics and thinking about the balance and thinking about themselves. Yeah, sorry.

Even in a really basic way, thinking about what you would like to work on that day. Like that have been that simple so that you don't get caught up in, you know, going down tangents, reacting to what the horse is giving. You have something that you're Going to work on. Be proactive.

Yeah. And like, sometimes you'll often hear, and I think I've probably even said this over the years. Oh, well, I had a plan and I was going out there to ride and all of a sudden the horse just, you know, I couldn't do it. So I end up. I ended up doing this. Well, that can be a tangent. That can be an excuse for a tangent. Like so. So for example, I said, okay, I want to work on Trot today. And I get out to the arena.

And.

I'm just not feeling it. The horse is not feeling it. Well, that's the day to actually try and work on it and try and work on why. Why am I not feeling it? Like, why can't. How can I slow this down and really work through this? Clearly this is not as solid in my mind as I thought it was. And how can I break it down even further to understand what is going wrong here and fix it and work on this skill and.

Exactly. Yeah.

Not just sort of cherry picking what feels great every day.

Well, that's right. I mean, we'd all just write our party tricks every single day of the week in that case.

Yeah. And, you know, we train for a reason and the training is to improve us, and then the horse will improve with that. And you know, it's sort of. So much of this is. Is us. It's all us to be and what's.

Called performance riders for a reason, Brett.

Yeah, exactly. And it is all. It is us. You know, we have to be responsible for the good and the bad days. And, and sometimes on the bad days, it's just about minimizing the damage. Yeah, I was gonna say because we can create some damage that's. That's takes a long time to repair if we don't use our heads on the bad days.

Let me flip this coin for a moment and ask you about the, the, the good rides. If we are a rider who day in, day out is having what we might call a good ride or an easy ride, nothing goes wrong. There are no resistances.

Well, they don't happen.

So does it come to a point, though, that a rider might need to say to themselves, perhaps I'm not asking enough questions here?

Yeah, I think so. Like, I mean, this is where I think we have to keep being aware that we are involved in a sport of development. And like any athlete develops, we have to develop our horses. And, and in that same time, we develop, we have to develop as an athlete and a trainer and, you know, let's Call it the coach of the horse. We have to develop. So. So without chipping away at the. At the harder things, or let's even say the more uncomfortable things, neither you nor your horse will develop. And if we just ride around feeling, Getting it to feel good every day, you tend to find that you just end up repeating the same thing over and over. So. And then you don't. Then you don't grow. So you. We definitely need to work on the things that don't feel great and work on the stuff that's out of our comfort zone and then try to debunk it as we go. So, you know, fine. Change can appear, whatever. Try something, make a mistake. The horse won't get offended, by the way, unless we be unfair to them, they won't get offended. And. And then try to figure out what do I need to do? And that. That's a really important part. So without falling off the cliff, you never really know where the boundaries are.

Yes, exactly.

So you've got it. You've got to do that. And don't worry, like, the horse won't hold it against you. It's only if you made it unfair or you didn't sort of give them some idea it was coming, like preparation, but they definitely won't hold it against you. And. And then you train through it and you find out what happens when this happens. Oh, wow, that happens. Now I'm going to train through it.

Well, I think you really flipped the script for us today on bad rides. And I think it's a really important conversation to having and to hear because we all get into that situation where we get so worried. You know, we get on the horse, it doesn't feel so good. We get so worried about it, and we think the whole thing's derailed. And I think you've really helped us realize that, you know, progression is. Isn't just a straight line. There's going to. You're going to feel like there's ups and downs and you're going to feel like you're going backwards, but you're really not. And how we can look at these bad rides, so to speak, as training opportunities and just part of the process.

Yeah, I was just thinking, like, the more experienced the rider, the more the rider has been around or coach has been around the traps and up and, you know, up the highs and lows, the less you'll find they get worried about the. The bad stuff. And that's for a reason, because they know that it can comes and it goes and. Yeah. And just what we said today. If you stick to that and keep calm in your mind and work through it, you'll find that you'll. You'll just consolidate the horse to be more confident as opposed to getting yourself in a fluster and perhaps getting your horse in a fluster as well. Yeah.

Yeah. Awesome. Thank you so much, Brett, for today's conversation.

No trouble. That's great.