Ep 3: Go crazy off the horse

Okay, Brett, we're back again and I have a fresh new Parburyism ready for you. Are you ready to hear it?

Yes.

Today's Parburyism is go crazy off the horse, not on the horse. Go crazy off the horse, not on the horse.

Okay. I wonder what I meant when I said that. What context was that in?

Look, you've said this in a couple of different ways over the years, and it's always around the development of the rider.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

And that we kind of don't want to use the horses as lab rats.

Yeah, that's right.

Which is another. Yeah, another, another way you've put it. So we're talking about going crazy off the horse, not on the horse. So what, what's the first thing that comes to mind for you?

What comes to mind for me there is, is spend time in self improvement, you know, gaining more knowledge, getting fitter, improving skills, you know, coordination. Just, just overall improve yourself. All this. Like, try to narrow down the skills that you need in the saddle. Try and narrow down the fitness level or the optimum, let's say, way you want your body to feel and optimize the knowledge that you have. Of course you've got to be on the horse to get all the feel and, and log in and, and create all that muscle memory, but at least give yourself a chance of getting the knowledge. Not just relying on, you know, lessons and bits and pieces that you're sitting on the horse, but get the knowledge and the fitness level and all those other things, the skill level, off the horse and then save the poor old horse for, you know, being able to ride the horse better when you are a better version of yourself.

I feel like that I'm being taken back in time four or five or more years ago when you and I were talking about putting together what is now performance riders and the gold program and, and dressage breakthrough. So all the, the mentoring, coaching programs that you lead through performance riders, because that's exactly what they're about, right. Is that we don't actually have to learn and we shouldn't learn everything that we need to know when we're on the horse, when we're in the saddle.

Yeah. And too many people, I find, have that old fashioned view of they've got to be on the horse to learn something. Well, that's just rubbish. From all of the people that I've seen engaging with the performance riders programs that we've put out there, not one of them has said they've become a worse rider from engaging in the information We've got, every single one of them has said they have got more clarity. They've. You know how many emails and messages we get where people have adopted new habits, lost weight, gotten fitter, improve their skills off the horse. Like it's endless. I've had so many messages and I know you have as well. Yeah. And not one person's gone, oh, yeah, I did that, but it just left me stagnant.

Yeah.

So the, the evidence is there that we've run this concept over thousands of people and not once has it been proven wrong. So that tells me that this way of thinking is a 100% accurate. The evidence is there. And I just wished more people would actually let go of this old fashioned view and do themselves a favor and, and just try to do some things off the horse. I mean, they don't have to do performance riders. I'm not saying that, I'm just saying just try to think of this, think of it more off the horse. And that applies to every sport. To be totally honest, I know riders in other horse sports that the only second of thought they give to their riding is the moment they put their foot in the stirrup. And that's just some fair on the horse because they're, by the time that person gets to run, get themselves locked in, mentally get the field down pat, feel every element of the horse, all different parts of the horse that they need to work out how to control, it's too late. And what they do is they just gravitate to the easiest correction, which is generally from the hand. Because the hand is what we live every single day of our life with, our hands and our eyes. Of course, when we first get on the horse, it's not, you don't have to be Einstein to work out that we're going to go to our hands and our eyes to fix everything. And great riders in all disciplines will use their body as a tool. They use their feet, they use their legs, they use their seat, they use other parts and they rely on their hands less and less. But there's a certain amount of focus and knowledge and skill acquisition that needs to be gained before you can ride like this. And what I'm trying to suggest is why don't you put effort into being that rider? You want to be off the horse. So when you get on, half the work is done. You just have to now create the muscle memory, but you won't revert back to that. Hands and eyes and just pulling the horse around by the mouth thinking you're getting them to do your whatever sport it is. And that for me is, it's just so important. I know how much I think about things off the horse and I know I wouldn't certainly be the rider that I am trying to be and now if I hadn't put that much time into it. So I just wish, I mean, all I'm trying to do, trying to suggest here is to make yourself better and to give the horse a break and just make sure that that horse is getting the, the best person they can.

I feel like we should just stop the podcast here because I think that what you've just said over the last three or four minutes is absolute gold and there's such a lot of wisdom that we can all take from that. I know I'm going to be listening back to that for sure. You know, it also reminds me of something I mentioned once to Fiona Hargreaves, who works with us in performance riders as a fitness coach for the riders. And I said to her one day, oh, Fi, you know, I get off the horse and I feel so supple and strong and I feel great when I get off the horse compared to when I got on. And she said, well, you've got it wrong there because in all fairness to the horse, you should be doing whatever it takes to feel like that when you step foot in the stirrup, not have the horse do that job for you. Yeah, I thought, how good is that? And that can be as simple as, you know, a good warm up, getting the major muscles firing and whatnot before you get on the horse. So, yeah, I love that, that idea.

Yeah. I mean, if you're riding a number of horses, then of course one horse is going to warm you up for the next one. But yeah, but if you are riding and look, to be honest there, I know myself, I try to do at least some stretches every morning before I ride. Even as basic as they are, it just makes me feel better when I get in the saddle that, that I am able to be, you know, a bit better than I would be if I wasn't doing it. But if you're riding one and you're driving to get on the horse and you're going there to the stables or, or even, you know, getting home from work, just it's only 10 minutes, like something is better than nothing. And I think that's another thing in this instance is doesn't mean you have to go and join a gym, go crazy, do all this extra stuff. I mean, if you do want to do that, good on you. Like that's great, it's great motivation. But just start off by thinking something is better than nothing. What is the thing that I can improve the quickest and the easiest from doing some extras? And I think it's probably a good time, I guess, to talk about the extras because that's what the, the extra skill stuff that you, that, that athletes work on in other sports is called extras. And that means the stuff they do outside of training and we need to think of it as that as well. So what are the things that I'm going to do outside of my normal training of my horse and I, to make me better? And we have to also, I mean this is the, I guess part of the issue is I view this as a sport and I like to think of it as a sport. I like to try to keep myself in a. Here I am in my early 50s, trying to keep, trying to hold on to some sort of idea that I'm an athlete, but you know, trying to think of it as a sport and, and what extras am I doing? So everything that I'm trying to do off the horse, like again, I was at the gym this morning at half past four and, and, and not saying I do that every day either, but, but I, I do it and every morning I wake up and it's like, oh my God, do I have to do this? But it's like, come on extras, get in there, do it, you'll be better for it. So yeah, so when you look at extras, I think it's important to find which is the easiest thing that I can put some time into doing extras and feel that I'm moving the needle, feel that I'm improving. Now whether that be fitness, whether that be stretching, whether that be taking a lead rope into your lounge room and pretending it's a set of reins and bending your elbows and feeling contact, you know, as you wrap it around your feet or whatever it might be, look at it like it's an extra and then, and then go about doing it over and over and over and don't expect it to change straight away because nothing, nothing long lasting will change straight away. But keep doing it, keep getting better and then start feeling, is this skill or is this extra that I'm working on coming through to my writing? And yeah, it's, it's, it's always going to make you better. Every time a rider thinks about riding off the, when they're off the horse, they are improving instantly. They're improving focus, they're improving their decision, decision making process when they're training, they're improving the skills that the horse is going to benefit from. Like, you just will not go backwards. So I just would suggest to everybody to start putting down a little list of extras that you want that you should think you should do. And like I said, this doesn't. Doesn't apply to dressage. It applies to every horse sport.

Yeah, exactly. Okay, so the parvarism we're talking about today is go crazy off the horse, not on the horse. And the context behind that, of course, is that we're talking about rider development and how much we can focus on ourselves as riders and out of the saddle. Brett, what about visualization, especially as it relates to skill acquisition and skill development? You. You have talked a lot in different forums about your experience with visualization. I know, but I think it's worth covering that again. Do you want to give us a little bit of background about that and how. How you've used that to go crazy off the horse?

Yeah, look, it is very. It's a very useful skill. Back when I was young, and my interest at that time was rodeo, specifically saddle bronc riding. This is early 90s. I. There was a book that came around the traps. It was called Psycho Cybernetics, written by Maxwell Maltz. And it was a book that had gotten into the hands of some of the American. The really good American Broncos and the guys from Australia that had traveled abroad. They came back and they bought this book back with them and they handed it to us and us sort of friends and wannabes. And I started reading this book. Now, it was heavy stuff, and I think I only got about three quarters of the way through it, to be honest, but it was really heavy stuff. But what I took from that book was the concept of visualization and the. And that's something that's probably stuck with me ever since I read it. I applied it when I was in rodeo, but I've applied it much more and probably to much more success in equestrian, in dressage. So the idea there is that if you can mentally. And we look, this is. That was early 90s, so it was pretty new stuff then. I mean, everybody knows about visualization today, but if you can visualize it and not only visualize it to be perfect, but visualize it to be not perfect and visualize what could happen and what are you going to do if this happens or if this happens, like practicing scenarios and trying to prepare yourself so that when you have to make a subconscious decision, you are prepared for it. So it's not the conscious decisions it prepares you for, although it saying that it does allow you to practice where you might do like set things up or prepare yourself or think of something, but it's the subconscious that really benefits. Because if you practice it over and over, your mind will start to make those decisions without you even thinking about it. So, and that's where I think if you're going to really bring out the best in yourself, you do need to prepare your subconscious to be able to react quickly. And in dressage, that is in setups, it's in having a 360 degree view of really where you are in the arena, how you're preparing what it looks like, the setups for the movements, of course, doing the movements, being within a movement and thinking about the next movement. The feeling that you, you know, whatever might be one of your weaknesses and where there could be a potential problem, feeling that happen and being able to respond quickly so it doesn't become a disaster. All of these things will benefit from visualization. So the practice of visualization, and it is practice because it requires focus, it requires maximum relaxation. So almost, let's say meditative state. So you can visualize with a lot of, so it's a lot, very vivid the way of visualizing. Because the idea, the true skill in doing a proper job in that is to actually picture yourself in that place, in that time with the same sounds, smells, pictures around you as best you can, the feel and being able to put yourself through what you're about to do as vividly and as sort of realistically as you can and think of best case scenario, worst case and everything in between and just get yourself prepared. And it's not, I mean it's, it's different to positive thinking. Like positive thinking is where you're like, right, I'm going to do this and I'm going to school, I'm going to be great in this, this and I'm, you know, really boosting yourself up. And that's something that is a different skill. Again, this is just preparing yourself for every situation possible.

And I think, you know, you mentioned that we're all aware of visualization now, which I think is true, but I don't think that that many of us are really aware of how to do it in a way that benefits us and our horses the most. And yeah, how to go about doing that. Because even what you were saying there, that visualization is about preparing yourself for the different scenarios that might happen. I think, you know, a really common misconception about visualization can be that you're kind of manifesting an outcome. Like I'm going to visualize myself getting first place and getting a qualifying score or winning a championship. But as you're saying, that's not really very helpful. What is really helpful is visualization, visualizing the process. This is exactly how I'm going to ride. And if my horse spooks or makes a mistake or whatever that, you know, your horse is likely to do, this is what I'll. I will then this, this is the action I will then take. So I think it's a different way of looking at visualization than some people might automatically think of. So that's. I think that's a great tool to have.

Oh, yeah, yeah. Like I was just thinking as you're saying it, but visualizing yourself in first place or visualizing yourself with the metal around your neck is, Is only as useful as what comes in behind that. And then what comes in behind that is the process. And to, to just visualize victories and successes and, and, and happy moments is really let. Just setting yourself up for a disaster. Yeah, it is nice to think about that. But what comes with that is an enormous amount of expectation. And you will fall off a big cliff if you don't think that you, you know, that you've lived up to this expectation.

Exactly, yeah.

Getting your hopes up, all those things, they're. That's not good. So if you do find yourself and look okay, have those thoughts, for sure, that makes it important. That makes it very. That makes what we're aiming to do significant, and it's good to identify the significance. But as soon as you feel yourself going down that path, just get straight out of there and get onto the process and start thinking about the process. What's the actual steps? If I'm stepping up a. A staircase, what's each individual step that I need to think about in order to get this result? And in dressage, thankfully, it's a very structured sport. So therefore, there are a lot of very small steps that make up what appears to be a very seamless and effortless test. And you can't jump three steps at a time. You've got to take one step and really make sure that you're methodical and that the process is clear. And that will require focus. So having the ability to focus at a level where nothing else matters, you can't hear anything. You've almost. It's just you and your horse and the surroundings, close surroundings, and that is it. And nothing else matters on the outside of that. And that takes a lot of Strength, discipline, a lot of discipline to stay focused to that level, and a lot of practice. But you will find that the top performers in dressage are very good at focusing on the right things.

And I mean, visualization in itself is an exercise in focus. It is exactly building that focus. Muscle. And it's that activity of bringing your mind back to what you're wanting to think that is the. Is the work. I know a lot of the time writers will say to me, I'm no good at visualizing because my mind wanders off. I start thinking about what's for dinner or what I need to do at the shops or whatever. But the work is actually in bringing your mind back and focusing on what you have chosen to focus on at that moment. So it's perfect. It's just such a perfect exercise for riding.

It's human nature to wander like that. It's human nature. But like you say, the more you practice it, the stronger the muscle gets. And. And you cannot. You're not born. No one's born with this skill. It's about who's about to. Who's prepared to put in the most amount of work.

Yes. Yeah. Can we talk about how we watch the sport of dressage? So the parvarism we're talking about is going crazy off the horse and not on the horse. Now, often a lot of us riders, you know, we love our sport. We watch the sport. We're spectators of the sport. How can we use that time we spend watching the sport to slightly maybe. How can we tweak that to make it more useful for us rather than watching it and going, wow, amazing horse. How beautiful. Love it. Which is. Which is lovely as well. But what's. What's. Some different ways, Brett, we can watch the sport in order to develop more as riders.

Well, one of the ways that I've done that in the past is rather than sit there with your jaw dropped open thinking how beautiful it is. I. I try to imagine I'm giving them a lesson. So if I'm watching one of those really famous top writers, you know, from Europe or from. From overseas somewhere, one of the things that I'll do is try to think that I'm giving them a lesson. Just in my head, it's just. Just me thinking, right, okay, if I was giving this writer a lesson right now, what would I be saying? And. And I'm not doing that to pretend that I know everything. I'm checking what I would be suggesting and what they're doing and trying to work out exactly what the Difference is, so, so if I was saying, you know, more energy and they're making, you know, more of a half alter, whatever it might be, it's helping me train my eye to, to, to, to understand exactly what feel they're looking for, rather than just looking at, as a, as a broad picture, appreciating it for what it is, which is obviously beautiful, you're getting, you're making yourself go into the nuts and bolts a bit more. And again, it just gives. You look at it through a different lens and I think you definitely get more out of it when you do. Hypothetically, give that writer a lesson.

I know Emma Winett, who's a trainer in performance writers, always says, if you're going to a master class, you must take a notepad and a pen and not chat and write down notes.

Absolutely. You know, and the reason for that, not only is it, it's diligent, you know, to take those notes down. It makes you. We all know the science that's behind jotting things down and that the stickability of that information in your mind, but also it does, it does make you dissect things a little more. And it's very important. I think, in those bit, in those situations, like a master class is you. You're really getting a snippet of what someone's system is all about. Like, that's. They're not giving you the whole system, their training system, they're giving you some of the bits and pieces that they think are important. Oftentimes those bits and pieces will relate to the rider and the horse they're working with at the time, so not necessarily to every horse and rider. So it's important that when you do jot down these pieces of information, you put that information in the context of how it was given. So what was the rider doing when the guest presenters saying, sit forward, was the rider leaning back and try to jot down the notes according to the context of what it's given? Because anything in this sport taken out of context will send you on a tangent.

Yeah.

And you've got to make sure that the information you're jotting down that you place importance on firstly relates to you and it's something that you need to work on. Secondly, it fits with your underlying philosophy on the way you want to engage in the sport and who you want to be as a rider and a trainer and, and that. That they're important rather than just jot down a piece of information which, taken the wrong way, will be detrimental. And unfortunately, that happens more times Than not. Like I, I know and I, and I know that the guest presenters, the, the, the, the famous guys that are doing the master classes, they would be mortified to think that someone's taken that the wrong way. But they're stuck out in the middle of the arena just giving that information on the day, trying to get it to land on 3000 people's ears and, and hoping that it goes into the right place in that each one of those person's system. So, you know, they'd be mortified to think it goes the wrong way. But oftentimes I'll hear the chatter when you come, when the people, when, when riders will come back from the master classes. And I'll say, what was the focus of the guest presenter? This, this and this. Okay, right. Oh, that's great. And now you notice straight away that they're applying things and it probably doesn't need to apply and the poor horse has to put up with it. So.

Yeah, that's such a great point. That is such a great point. And you know, I always, as it happens after master classes that all of us writers hop on media and we all share our big takeaways from the masterclass. But you're so right, like, there's context behind every single one of those little catchy quotes. Yeah, I love that. That's a really great reminder. And then if we take those notes and note down, well, what was, what was happening with that particular horse and rider at the time, maybe we can make better use of that piece of information.

Yeah, yeah, great point. You know, I think, I think here in Australia, we often have a lot of interaction with Carl and Charlotte and Gareth Hughes. So three really, really top international writers, all from England. So it'd be fair to say that a lot of our more modern Australian writing is, is quite English focused. And that's a great thing. Very good thing. And you know, I think Australia, in Australia, we are lucky because we have an opportunity to almost create our own style by taking things like what Carl and Charlotte and Gareth are bringing to Australia and then also what we've learned in the past from, from the, the more sort of traditional German styles and trying to blend our own, our own system and uniquely, uniquely make it Australian. And I think there's an opportunity there for us to be very good at our own system. And it's important that we actually create a system that we don't. What's the word? Sort of want to follow all the time. I think it's important that we definitely need to create our own system, own it and fine tune it and get better at it. Because what the horse benefits from is consistency. And if we're riding around with someone else's voice in our heads going on about their system and then we're mismatching it with our own system, then I think it's all always going to be. You'll always, there'll always be a disconnect. I think I went on a slight tangent.

That's what we call a PAB tangent.

Yeah, I was going to say that was a tangent. I felt like a tangent about half another podcast. I might as well finish it.

Okay, the final thought I'd love to discuss with you about this PAB ism of going crazy off the horse and not on the horse is. Well, why is that important to you in the first place? I mean, we, you mentioned a little bit like we don't want the horse to have to put up with everything, you know, all the experiments that we're going on ourselves in our rider development. But in practical terms, why is that important? Is it, you know, do you want shorter rides on your horse? Do you want fewer miles on the horse's legs? What, what is it? Brett?

One of the important things of training a horse to, to have minimal resistance in its way of going and, and in doing the dressage movements is to not train it to resist in the first place. So if we can, if we can avoid bad kilometers, bad miles by being better ourselves, like just being a better version of ourselves, then we then don't click up the muscle mem like click up the kilometers. That creates the muscle memory in the horse to resist what we're asking and it's better. The best way to fix a problem is not have the problem in the first place. And that would be the most important thing. I think if you can train and we're always going to have problems, don't get me wrong, we're always going to have problems. Horses are going to dish up problems because they, it's just they've trying to, they're trying to make it as easy as they can for themselves. But if you can limit the miles to good quality kilometers, good quality miles under saddle with a rider that's fully focused, with a rider that's in great shape, with a rider that's really knowledgeable, their body's feeling, their head's thinking, they clock up good quality kilometers, you'll find that you'll get through the levels in the sport quicker. You'll enjoy it more like you'll enjoy the sport more because you, you will be more successful, you will feel like you're progressing in a better way, a more sustainable way, possibly quicker, and you will enjoy it more. The thing about enjoying it is it's expensive, right? It's, it's. This is an expensive sport we've chosen, so we owe it to ourselves to. To be better. Like, if we're going to spend the money, let's just go that little bit extra length and try to get the skills that are going to help us to be more successful and enjoy it.

Well, I absolutely love where these conversations go. We start off with, you know, tiny little quote that you've said of paburyism and it just opens up this whole world of opportunity for discussion. So really fascinating. Thank you very much.

My pleasure. I don't know if it was everything that you were expecting, but we got there in the end.

It was great. We got there and I look forward to talking to you next time with a new Parburyism.

Thanks, Nat.