I'm taking two months away from my theater life this summer to teach horseback riding at a day camp. I just finished week one, and while I had forgotten why I hate day camps (frequent parent interaction, ugh), I had also forgotten how much I love teaching riding. This seems more than a little silly, because of course I love teaching riding – why else would I apply for a job where I spend two months standing in the sweltering heat? But the thing is, while I know I love teaching riding, the experience is much more visceral than the memory.
My two favorite riders this week were very different from one another. The first was an eight-year-old named Emily, in her second year of riding at camp. She has the same horse this year, a really wonderful horse named Patches who is as reliable as they come. Emily is cheerful and bubbly and one would imagine this is a girl who can’t wait to get back on her horse this summer.
One would be right. Sort of.
Emily is scared of her horse. Of horses in general, really. Her number one fear seems to be interacting with the front of her horse: she doesn’t want Patches to lick her, sniff her, breathe on her, or even look at her. Once she was on her horse, she screamed a little as soon as Patches took a step but also immediately told me, “This is fun!” It was, honest to god, the strangest and funniest combination I’ve come across in a kid. She was distracted for most of the lesson, vacillating wildly between freaking out when Patches turned her head (…while Emily was the one turning her head) and telling me all the things she wanted to do. But we persisted. We didn’t get off the lead rope, but I got her to steer on her own and sit up straight in the saddle, both of which were big accomplishments. When the other riders in the ring asked us if we wanted to play a game, I took the out immediately. This is a kid who will progress at a different pace and at different things, so let’s play a water game and stop pushing for a few minutes.
Just before the end of her lesson, Emily said to me, “I want to stay on this horse forever, but I’m afraid she’ll look at me!”
The other rider, Ally, is on the other end of the spectrum. She’s maybe twelve or thirteen and has been coming to camp and riding the same horse (Dippy) for five years, one of those campers who only gets to ride at camp and looks forward to it for the other ten months of the year. She’s tall, awkward, and gangly – this is a girl who has definitely not gotten control over her own limbs yet – and she has the Frida Kahlo eyebrows with which I am deeply familiar.
I saw Ally twice this week. On day two, I made her stand up in her stirrups and pulled her lower leg around until she understood how it affects your balance. Then I just took her stirrups away entirely. This, somewhat unsurprisingly, had a huge effect – one I didn’t consciously think about before I did it. See, she has these aforementioned legs that are too long for her body. Even with the stirrup leathers on the longest hole, her stirrups were a tad too short. But when you have a girl who is all leg and you take her stirrups away, suddenly the whole balance of her body changes. It was like having a different rider.
When she got off, she said to me, “I’ve ridden Dippy for five years and I love her, but you’re the only instructor I’ve had who teaches me anything.”
You have to teach the rider in front of you.
Different days have different success stories. Some days the victory is getting on your horse. Some days it’s trotting without stirrups or learning how to canter. The range of victories and the paces at which riders achieve them are the addicting part of teaching riding, the part I forgot about. It’s a thrill to be back here, even if only for a few short weeks.
My favorite days, favorite lessons as an instructor are the ones where my riders think I’m crazy. I give them an exercise or a new adjustment to their form and they try it once half-heartedly, fail, and look at me like, can we do something else now? This is too hard. Those are the days I tell my riders, “You can do it. I have faith.”
