Speaking My Mind

[alobear]

In the fifteen years I rode regularly before I left home, there were, of course, occasions when I did not enjoy my riding lessons. Sometimes, these lessons were still worthwhile and satisfactory because I felt afterwards as if I had learned something. If it was a problem with the horse, I tried to work around it; if it was a problem with me, I endeavoured to give myself a slap upside the head and get on with it. However, when the problem was the instructor, there was little I could do except put up with it and wish I had the courage to say something. These occasions were few and far between in the grand scale of things (otherwise I would have stopped riding altogether), but there were enough of them for me to be frustrated by my lack of strength of character. I always left those lessons more annoyed with myself than anything else, because I had just paid to be miserable for an hour.

Ten years later, I have apparently found that strength of character. Today's lesson was taken by Poppy, the instructor I wrote about in my journal entry of November 12th 2006. Since I didn't know that until I'd already taken Boysie down to the school and mounted up, I decided not to make an issue out of it and see how it went. Ten minutes in, I was ready to call it a day, since all she had done up to that point was yell at us and tell us to hit our horses with our whips. So, instead of my usual silent, fuming endurance, I turned Boysie into the middle and stopped. What followed was extremely interesting.

Poppy came over to find out what the problem was and I told her I didn't want to carry on.

When she asked why, I said, "I ride because it's fun, and I'm afraid I just don't like your teaching style."

She seemed rather surprised and immediately started trying to justify what she'd been doing, and went on to say that things would be more fun once the lesson got going and we started doing canter work.

I said, "It's not about that, and I understand what you were trying to do. I'm just not interested in carrying on with this lesson."

Thinking I was upset and would calm down in a bit, Poppy told me not to get off straight away, but to take a few minutes and join back in with the ride later. It didn't seem worth arguing the point with her at that stage, so I let her get on with the lesson for a bit. She immediately gave everyone a turn at cantering, which doesn't normally happen until the end of a lesson - I don't know whether she was trying to prevent other people from stopping because they weren't having any fun, but it did seem strange.

A few minutes later, Kat was having trouble with her stirrups and came into the centre to sort them out. Since I know Abbey isn't the easiest horse to ride, and that Kat gets on okay with Boysie, I suggested to Poppy that Kat might be better off swapping onto my smaller horse if she was having problems. Poppy instantly took this to mean that my problem was with my horse, and asked me if I wanted to swap onto Abbey. I was pretty sure riding a more difficult horse would not help with the problem, so I said no. Poppy sent Kat back to join the ride and then asked me what I wanted to do. When I said I wanted to get off and go home, she started justifying herself again and trying to change my mind.

At this point, realising that she probably thought I was going to complain about her to the management, I said, perfectly calmly, "I'm not upset or angry. I'm not trying to criticse you, and I'm not going to make any kind of complaint. I don't want to cause any trouble, it's just a personal choice not to carry on with the lesson."

She gave in at this point, clearly not able to figure out what my problem was. That was when she shot herself in the foot. I have no idea why, but she wouldn't let me take Boysie back up to his stable, instead calling for one of the stable girls, Miriam, to come and escort me back. Of course, this meant Miriam wanted to know what had happened, assuming I'd fallen off. I was very careful not to complain - I just said I didn't like Poppy as an instructor and didn't want to carry on with the lesson. I also repeated that I wasn't angry or upset and that I wasn't making any kind of complaint, it was just that I didn't want to ride in Poppy's lesson. I hope this doesn't cause any kind of problem, if Miriam repeats what I said to other people, but if it does it will be entirely Poppy's fault for bringing someone else into the situation.

Miriam is really cool and friendly (she tacked Boysie up for me last week and we had a bit of a chat then), and we got to talking about Dominic, who apparently does historical re-enactments on horseback and jousting, which doesn't surprise me at all.

Anyway, I went home, and felt much better than I would have if I'd stayed and kept my mouth shut. There are only two options for me with Poppy - put up with her, or don't ride in her lessons. Ten years ago, I would automatically have gone with option one but, now, I'm switching to option two. From now on, I'm going to ask when I arrive who's teaching our lesson. If it's Poppy, I'm going to pay my money, say no thanks, and just go home.

Comments

[alobear.livejournal.com]

That's true - I might try asking if I can switch to a hack, though they may not let me at short notice. It's a better option than just going home, though. I like all the other instructors I've had at Trent Park , so hopefully I won't have this problem too often.

It wasn't so much principles, though - it was just that I didn't see the point in paying to be miserable. Hope the rest of you guys managed to have a decent lesson.