Category: Training

Keeping yourself safe and happy with your horse

Posted on by Jane Pike

You may have seen my posts about a training clinic that I attended with my lovely horse Dee on Facebook- did I mention how much I love him? Anyway! Ellie O’Brien from Finesse Equestrian Training hosted the clinic, and I sat down with her to have a chat about something we are both passionate about- how to keep yourself safe and happy with your horses.

I hope you enjoy it, we would love to know your thoughts! xx Jane

The links mentioned in the video:

Finesse Equestrian: www.finesse-equestrian.com

JoyRide: www.confidentrider.club

Rider Q&A: Dealing with nerves in the warm up ring

Posted on by Jane Pike

QUESTION: Hi Jane, I find warming up in a busy area (particularly showjumping) quite off putting! Any ideas on how to calm nerves as obviously it’s a situation that I cannot avoid or change!

The beauty of competition and the situation that you are describing is that you know that it is coming, and as a result, you can plan for it in advance. There are two strands that I would pay attention to in this instance; the first is how to create a mental fitness plan that will fortify you against the pressures and distractions created by the competition environment. The second is developing awareness and understanding of the breath so you can consciously work with it to effectively manage nerves and anxiety.

Managing the warm up ring is obviously not something that is within our control; the only thing thatis within our control is what is going on inside our heads. When we immerse ourselves in a competitive environment, the emotions, pressures and distractions of everything around us becomes interspersed with what is going on inside our minds. When these two forces combine, any number of potential scenarios can result. Depending on our mental skills base, what manifests on the outside would be anxiety, fear, or loss of focus- or it could be confidence and clarity. It all comes down to the ability to consistently direct your focus in a way that empowers you and have the mental strength and skills that will enable you to harness the energy and use it to your advantage.

In order to do this, we need to develop a mental training plan that builds the muscles of our mind in the same way that we pay attention to our physical preparation. Just as you would visit the gym, or hire a personal trainer to create optimal physical fitness, creating the type of mental strength we need to deal effectively with competition requires some pre-training and pre-planning. You get out what you put in. Expecting to ride and perform at your optimum without training your mental muscles means that you are launching off an unstable foundation; sometimes it will work and sometimes it won’t.

Secondly, working with and consciously controlling your breath will yield instantaneous results if you are dealing with an acute bout of nerves! Whenever we are experiencing a stress response, we are in what is known as sympathetic dominance- our nervous system flicks into fight or flight mode and we experienced an array of physical and mental symptoms as a result (a nervous tummy, dry mouth, sweaty palms to name a few!). The inhalation portion of the breath is linked to our sympathetic nervous system, whilst the exhalation is linked to the parasympathetic nervous system. Consequently, we want to work with a breath that allows us to move into parasympathetic arousal- meaning we need to focus primarily on the exhalation.

The 1:2 breath ratio is one of my favourite techniques that I share with riders. In practical terms this means that if you have an inhalation of 4 counts, you want your exhalation to be 8 counts. If you have an inhalation of 6 counts, your exhalation will be 12 counts. You are doubling the length of your inhalation comparative to your exhalation. You can use this breath technique as part of a pre-warm up ritual, or as a means to redirect your focus and calm your nerves in the warm up ring.

Good luck!

xx Jane

How to change your thinking so you come out winning!

Posted on by Jane Pike

A curly question that I get asked a lot is what do successful riders have that others don’t? What is it about them that allows them to change their thinking on a less than average day and come out on top?

First up, we need to get our head around what the notion of success actually is. Success itself is a very subjective term and can only be defined on an individual basis; as a consequence, lets move forward on the understanding that success is the ability to move towards or create a desired result, regardless of what that result may actually be.

To me, successful riders are not those who have a special gift, or a secret skill that separates them from others. Instead, they have mastered a very specific but most excellent skill to have and that is the ability to control their emotional state.

State is a combination of your psychological and physiological condition and something that we manifest as an outward representation of our internal world. For example, if you are currently feeling nervous, then you are in a nervous state. The same can be said for confidence; when you are feeling supremely confident, you are in a confident state.

How we respond or behave at any moment in time in based on the state of our mind and body. So with this knowledge, how do we then go about managing our state so that we can consistently move towards our desired outcome? It boils down to two things; the ability to consciously direct our focus, and to use our body in such a way that supports a positive psychology.

Focus is the pivot point on which you formulate your idea of the world and of events that are happening to you. It is your focus that determines your outcomes, and as a result your ability to direct your focus consistently towards positive and empowering meanings means that it is the ultimate determinant of your success and happiness.

Essentially whatever you choose to focus on you give meaning too, and as soon as you assign meaning you assign power. Experience only becomes positive or negative once you assign meaning, and the meaning that you assign is a direct result of your focus. Meaning either lifts you up and drives you forward, or brings you down. The real skill then lies in your ability to continually control and direct your focus and to put every situation and event into an empowering context.

The more that you can direct your focus in a way that continually concentrates on the solution as opposed to the problem, the more that you continue to search for empowering meanings, the more successful you will be. The reality is, what you focus on becomes what you feel, whether it’s true or not.

The second sphere of influence is your body. Every emotional state that you move through is mirrored in your body, most obviously in your posture and your breath. Whilst your state of mind has a direct impact on your body, you can also use your body to influence your state of mind; it’s a two way street! Altering the way that you move, hold yourself and breathe automatically affects your mood and your biochemistry.

Every emotion has a physiology attached. If I ask you to adopt the posture of confidence, you would most likely stand tall, shoulders back and head held high. How do I know this? Because this stance is recognized as the physiology of that particular emotion.

In the moment where things are going pear shaped, these are the two main areas to pay attention to. Where is my focus? Am I directing my focus in a direction that is allowing me to remain resourceful? Am I asking myself the kinds of questions that direct me to seek out the answers that I need?

Then check in with your body. What do I need to adjust? How is my posture? How is the quality of my breath?

Paying attention to these two key areas will allow you to automatically shift direction towards the outcomes you desire.

xx Jane

A bad experience. A break. And now any jump seems too high!

Posted on by Jane Pike

Julie wrote to me about a situation that I know is not at all uncommon; she had a series of “bad experiences” jumping, a bit of a break (in her case a few years) and now she is finding on her return that her mojo and jumping confidence has totally left the building. Gah!

Here’s what she has to say….

I’m wanting some help over coming my fear around jumping. I am an experienced rider and although never overly brave, I would happily jump around metre courses. However, I had a couple of bad experiences and a break from jumping (a few years) and when I have come back to it I find that even the tiniest fence is terrifying.

My thought process the whole time is what will go wrong, such as the horse will stop and I will go over its head rather than thinking about what will go right. As a result I avoid jumping. I really want to get back into it and to be competitive again. What can I do?

The situation that you are describing is not an uncommon one, although in saying that it doesn’t make it any less frustrating or upsetting. In regards to the bad experiences you describe, here’s a slightly different look at it which will help you make sense of how your mind has stored the experience…

Whenever we experience a strong emotional reaction that is linked to a specific event the two essentially become interlinked or anchored to each other. Our minds do this as a short cut mechanism to prevent us from repeating harmful or dangerous experiences unnecessarily. Regardless of the actual outcome of the experience, your mind has interpreted it as threatening to your emotional or physical security (it goes all homeland security on you), and simplistically speaking has stored the experience in the hard drive of your subconscious mind.

If you think of the mind like a computer, in order for us to access specific files, we need to provide the right triggers. In this case, jumping for you if the trigger for the file to be reopened, and as a consequence you experience a negative reaction- your mind is simply trying to prevent you reliving the same experience again. It has your best interest at heart! Given that you have had a significant period away from jumping and left on a “bad note”, your mind has had many opportunities to revisit the file and play the movie of your experience over and over again, reinforcing the emotions. The time lapse between has also ensured that no other experiences have been provided to challenge or undermine its validity.

There are three main objectives that I would like to work with here. The first is to reprogram your association with jumping from one that is negative, to one that associates it with pleasure and fun. Instead of thinking about what it is costing you, or how bad it feels to jump, I want you to switch it around and think about what it is costing you not to jump. Get as emotional as you can. We want to switch the “pain point” around. For example, not jumping might mean that you aren’t able to achieve the goals that you set out for yourself, that you rob yourself of an exciting and pleasurable experience with your horse. Think about everything you are going to miss out on by not jumping and give yourself some leverage.

The second is to create the future in advance. Sit down and write out your vision for your ideal jumping round or training session. You don’t have to think too far ahead- this might just involve you happily popping over a couple of small jumps in the arena. Introduce as many of the senses are possible. What do you see in your mind’s eye? What’s going on around you? How do you feel as you go over the jumps? What are you saying to yourself? What is your internal dialogue as you successfully complete the rounds? Once you have created a picture, live the scenario out in your imagination for a few minutes a day. Visualisation is one of the most powerful tools to affect subconscious change that we have at our disposal. Marinate in the vision you have created for yourself and begin to live a different jumping reality in your mind.

Finally, work to incrementally increase your comfort zone. Look to bank a series of successful rides that you mind can draw confidence and reassurance from. There is no height requirement; start off with poles on the ground if you need too! Remember, your current situation is not a determinant of your future reality; you are just looking to put the stepping-stones in place to build up to jumping bigger heights.

Think of the point you are at now as point 0 and where you want to be is point 100. Between these two points are a myriad of others; what points could you introduce that would allow you to gradually build up your jumping confidence? Recognise that feelings of discomfort will always be present when you are extending the parameters of your comfort zone; feelings of terror mean you have gone too far. Look to move forward only as far as you can easily step back. Over time, your comfort zone will begin to expand and your jumping confidence and capacity can only increase as a result.

I have no doubt with a few tweaks and turns, you will be back to rocking it out in the ring.

Best of luck!

xx Jane

How NOT to let your mind run away with you!

Posted on by Jane Pike

One of the most common conversations I have with riders involves breaking patterns; intercepting modes of behavior or ingrained responses that are preventing them from doing the things that they want to do, or getting in the way of them being able to produce a certain result.

Firstly, realising that we are in control of responses- at all times- is crucial. If you think that your mood or reactions are due to people or circumstances outside of yourself, then you immediately give away your personal power to that which you have no control over. Terrible idea. Don’t do that.

What I want to talk about now, however, is consciously designing a “thought interceptor” (sounds like something off the matrix I know!) that use can utilise to redirect your focus when the superhighway of your brain space is travelling in the wrong direction.

But first, a back story.

There’s an economy to the thinking process that is designed to save us time which essentially takes several chunks of different information or activities and groups it together into one bulk item. For example rising to the trot; after a while that becomes an unconscious activity that you don’t have to think too much about, even though there are several different elements that contribute to making that possible.

Driving your car is another example of this; after a while you don’t have to think about the separate elements that form together to allow you to drive your car as unique activities. They become one item which is involved to “driving your car”.

Once your brain realizes that there is certain pattern of behavior that you are repeating again and again they become conditioned responses in the nervous system; the sole reason behind this is to ensure that we are operating efficiently. It’s there to save us time so every time were are presented with stimulus A, we know that reaction B needs to come from that; creating a neurological shortcut between those two points allows us to operate in the most efficient manner possible.

I’m going to continue on with the driving analogy because it’s a really good way of illustrating the point of using a thought interceptor in your everyday life and certainly for your riding.

Let’s say for instance you’re driving to work and you drive the same route every day; after a while, the driving experience of getting from A to B becomes essentially an unconscious activity. Of course there are elements of conscious behavior; you know you stop here, you know you go there, but certainly along the way our minds can deviate from the task at hand and we can be thinking about how our last training session went or what we watched on TV the night before. All manner of things comes up in our conscious mind while our unconscious mind is busy showing us the way.

So what happens if one day you are driving to work and all of a sudden there is a tree that’s fallen down, completely blocking your route? That is a pattern interrupt. What happens at that point is the unconscious mind gives over its power to the conscious mind, which is essentially the decision-maker. The decision-making power always lies with the conscious mind, so whenever something happens which deviates from the norm it pulls you out of this unconscious patterning of behavior and asks for a new decision to be made.

In order to force the unconscious or subconscious mind into a new decision-making mode you have to throw a spanner in the works. Why? When we have been practicing a certain outcome for a period of time, it becomes a conditioned response and our nervous system is habituated to behave in a certain way. In order for the outcome to be different, or for the pattern of behavior to change, we need to intersect the path with something, and that’s where a pattern interrupt becomes so useful and so handy.

One of my big catch phrases I use myself is “choose a better thought“; what is the best thought that I can choose in this situation?  Despite what you may be feeling, you are always free to choose a better thought than the one you’re currently thinking. For instance, if I am wanting to introduce a very simple pattern interrupts to a negative thinking process, if I manage to catch myself at that point that point where the negative thoughts starts to permeate my conscious mind, I will take my hair band which often lives on my wrist for obvious reasons and give it a snap.

That semi-uncomfortable feeling of the snapping hairband is a pattern interrupt; it’s something that my mind is not expecting me to do along the way of continuing or perpetuating a negative thought pattern. Do whatever you need to to interrupt the negative thought process and then take the opportunity to choose a better thought.  

There is however a ‘modus operandi’ to how the pattern interrupt sequence works, and what you need to do first is to identify a pattern of behavior that you’re looking to change. Once you’ve done so you really want to study the process, so you look to see if there any specific triggers that set it off and then what the chain reaction is from there. It’s the chain reaction from A to B. Then what you’re looking to introduce obviously is a pattern interrupt, something completely unexpected that you wouldn’t normally do in that situation. It could be anything like pulling your earlobe, or clucking like a chicken, snapping your hair band; anything that sends that neurological process into a tailspin so you can then replace it with a better thought or a better action, a better process that takes you closer towards where you want to go and further away from where it is that you don’t want to be.

Have fun and good luck developing your new pattern interrupts!

xx Jane

Survival Tips For Putting Yourself Out There

Posted on by Jane Pike

Survival Tips to Transcend the Moments When You are Going to Put Yourself out there and feel a little …. Stupid.

It’s a sad state of affairs when we limit ourselves and our capacity based on what other people are thinking. If you are hung up on the thoughts and opinions of others, or don’t put yourself out there at the risk of looking stupid, here are three of my top survival tips for setting that baggage aside and strutting your stuff like the equestrian version of Charlie’s Angels. Let’s hit it.

1. Remember your outcome

When we start feeling stupid and worrying about what everyone around us is doing, we forget why we are doing it in the first place. It distracts us from Mission: Awesome and instead turns it into Mission: Hot Mess. Know what you are doing there, why you are doing what you are doing and how it fits into your overall plan and future goals.

Anyone who achieved great things spent some time feeling like they didn’t know everything, like they couldn’t yet do what they wanted to do in the way that they wanted to do it, and yes, feeling a bit stupid. When you start to stretch the bubble of your comfort zone you are quite literally expanding your comfort zone. And when you start to expand your comfort zone, guess what? You feel uncomfortable! If you don’t feel uncomfortable, well… you are still inside your comfort zone.

Uncomfortable is ok. Your comfort zone will expand to meet you in time. But if you don’t move the perimeter posts, it’s never going to happen.

2. Remember, it’s temporary.

We need to reframe this for a second. You are far from stupid right now. What you actually are is a Neural Highway Ninja. Basically, all those neural networks in your body are connecting up new pathways, joining the dots together and building both your mental and physical muscles in ways that will allow you to get out there and repeat the same task much more ease-fully in the future. You getting out there and actually doing it- not thinking about it, talking about it, or drinking coffee about it- is the only way that you are going to make this happen. The only way.

Forget stupid. Your totally bad ass. B.A.D. A.S.S.

You heard me!

3. Work out your Inner Circle of Awesome.

In all likelihood, most people aren’t as obsessed with us as we are. Strange I know. If, however, you just can’t get past wondering what other people are thinking, then you need to get selective. Narrow it down.

In the Academy, I talk about the Inner Circle of Awesome. Your Inner Circle of Awesome is your crew, your posse, the group of people that know you, know your horse and know where it is that you are both heading. These are people who have your best interests at heart and whose opinion you can listen to. From their constructive feedback, you can pick out the jewels that will help you further your training and continue on.

Everyone not in your circle of awesome you can absolutely listen to, but they are essentially surplus to requirements. Appraise any feedback on its value mechanism. Can I use this information to improve the performance of me or my horse?

If yes, fabulous. Thank you and move on.

If not, fabulous. Thank you and move on.

Be clear on what you want, and take immediate steps towards actualizing it. If you are going to shine like a crazy diamond, you can’t hide under all the rocks in the pond. Get out there and do it! I’ve got your back.

xx Jane

Mental Training for Competition

Posted on by Jane Pike

Last week, someone asked me about the approach I take training riders for high-level competition. For many, the thought of it comes as a shock. Wouldn’t someone competing at the elite level of his or her sport already have it together? What would they need with a coach like me?

Well, it turns out, quite a lot! Mental training techniques are not all about overcoming fear, working with confidence issues or taming anxiety. They are primarily about optimization- how we can optimize and train our minds to deal effectively with the pressures and stresses that arise in the competition arena.

My chief aim when working with someone who is interested in bettering their performance is to allow them to fine tune the existing skills that they have and produce their desirable outcomes on a more consistent basis than they would be able to previously

I am not their riding coach.

I am not their dressage or jumping instructor.

I am their mental coach and I am there to give them the skills to build the muscles of their mind in the same way a personal trainer would be on hand with a program to build strength and endurance in the body.

If you want to get physically stronger; if you want to improve your jumping technique; if you want to get better dressage scores then you hire a trainer who can give you proven methods and skills to enhance your own skill set and performance. Hiring a mind coach is no different; I help people identify the processes that bring them results and give them the skills that increase their mental fortitude and enhance the mind’s ability to focus.

One of the big fallacies is that professional riders don’t feel nervous. Nothing could be further from the truth! Many of the elite riders that I work with DO feel nervous, and it’s often inevitable. Pre-competition jitters can enhance performance by sharpening our sensory systems, but they can impair our performance when we can’t adequately control them. This is where the ability to be able to deal with pressure becomes so important.

There are several elements that I attend to when putting together a program for competitive athletes, and each are specified and tailored to the individual concerned. All combine to form a formula that can be worked through on a daily basis.

The first is breath work. From a physiological point of view, as soon as we experience pressure, we experience an acceleration of our heart rate. Controlled and specific use of the breath gives us primary control over our “arousal state”, which is the level of energy that an athlete experiences prior to and during performance. Across the board, we are looking to keep our heart rate below 120 beats per minute. Without adequate mental preparation, anyone whose heart rate exceeds 120 beats per minute will experience significant loss of mental focus and “sharpness”; over 150 beats per minute and we switch over to survival mode. As a consequence, controlling our heart rate with our breath becomes more than significant.

I will summarise briefly the other elements that are attended to:

1.     Specific mental programming techniques in relation to our internal dialogue on the field, or our self-talk: This helps to continually direct our focus and avoid unhelpful internalizations of doubt and negativity.

2.     Visualisation: Repetition of specific past and future outcomes and projections using proven and researched visualisation methods

3.     Beliefs and Identity: Our self image is the key agent of our behavior, bringing forward the thoughts, actions and behaviours needed to fulfill our ideals and expectations.

4.     Anchoring: Connecting specific stimuli with specific emotional states.

When the right ingredients are combined, what you are left with is a highly effective and easily implemented mental training workout. It’s the practical means to develop tangible results that are reflected in performance.

xx Jane

Cultivating Confidence

Posted on by Jane Pike

Earth to Planet Confidence? Can you hear me?

Confidence issues. They are the Captain KillJoy to our Super Hero selves. You don’t have to be a psychology expert to know that confidence- or a lack of it- affects every aspect of our lives, and obviously has a huge affect on how we conduct ourselves in the saddle. I thought in this particular post we could go all Keanu Reeves (I’ll probably bust out some sweet moves as I’m writing), dive into the matrix and have a good poke around inside the workings of our mind and how we can use it to our best advantage when cultivating confidence.

Ready? Excellent. Let’s get in there.

Now you have entered the inner workings of your brain space, you will notice that it is operating in two distinct parts. You may not have seen them before from this exact angle, but you will recognize them when I tell you that they are the conscious and the unconscious (or subconscious) mind. I know it’s a surprise to realise that the conscious mind is actually really small. You don’t have to worry- this is not an indicator of your intelligence- it’s just that the conscious mind actually only occupies a very small part of the overall mind-scape, even if it is the area that we are the most familiar with. If you imagine for a moment that you are floating on a canoe on a lake, the canoe would represent the conscious mind, and the lake your unconscious mind. It’s important (obviously) but it’s only a tiny slither of what’s around us (or inside us, as the case may be).

Anyway, back to the mind. Your conscious mind is communication headquarters. It sends out to the world everything that you wish to communicate, and also controls your inner dialogue, the little voice inside your head that speaks to you. It’s Captain Communicator, sending out into the universe everything that the unconscious mind commands.

If you would step into your unconscious mind, you would notice it to be a huge storehouse of all your memories and experiences. Everything that you see in here is malleable- it can be extracted, molded and shaped in a thousand different ways, but the shapes that they form for us join hands with Captain Communicator and come out on the other side as our habits, behaviors and beliefs. It uses all of the information that it has stored to make sense of all the incoming data that you receive from the world, with its primary job being to keep you safe and ensure your survival.

You will also notice that between the unconscious and conscious minds there is a filter. This filter is made up of two layers; your belief systems and your focus. Your belief systems and your focus are hard at work picking through the storehouse of past memories and experiences and then using them to give meaning to your present circumstance. This filter system is the most powerful mechanism you have at your disposal to determine your reality. Essentially, whatever you choose to focus on, you give meaning too, and as soon as you assign meaning, you assign power. Your consequent experience only becomes positive or negative as a direct result of your focus, which has the power to lift you up and propel you forward, or bring you down.

If you have shaped your identity or associate strongly to the idea that you are an unconfident rider- you might believe that you aren’t good enough, or that you don’t have what it takes- then this belief will inform your focus. Our minds always seek to make our external reality congruent with our internal world. It wants them to match up. Consequently, if you believe that you aren’t good enough, your filter system begin to search through all of the resources of your unconscious mind to support your assertion and presents them to the conscious mind in defense of your case.

Your focus will rally to support the cause also. Believe you aren’t good enough? *** rubs hands together *** let’s see what meaning we can attach to all our your present and future experiences show you how true this is! A training rider that didn’t go to plan then becomes a reflection of your inability as a rider, a personal blight as opposed to something that is able to be worked through and constructively used to your advantage. After all, seeing things differently or focusing on a different possibility would go against your belief system, and the mind most certainly doesn’t want that. We want the inside and outside to match remember!

Think about it in terms of your own experience; if you are a rider who identifies with having confidence issues, do you sway towards being positive or negative, pessimistic or optimistic when it comes to assessing your riding and your future possibilities?

The ability of your conscious mind to direct attention and awareness is one of your ultimate super-powers. In order to create confidence, you must learn to control what it is that you are focusing on, and the actual skill of directing your focus comes down to reprogramming your belief systems and a single, ongoing decision to control your focus; deciding how and what you will think and consciously directing your thoughts in a way that creates positive meaning, action and momentum.

Becoming confident riders starts at this point- by recognizing the belief systems that limit us and understanding the ways that we allow them to inform our focus, and consequently, our reality. The key to the Confidence Vault comes with your ability to attach an empowering meaning to any given situation and adopt a new belief. No belief need be permanent. They are self-created entities- the only power they hold is the power that we assign them.

xx Jane

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