This week my little Equestrian Fitness Studio turned 2 years old!
I started with 1 class which has now built to 5 classes and also 1 2 1 clients for both training and sports massage.
This is not a “look how great I am” blog but I do want to talk about the little community we have in our classes.
Each class is filled with women from different back grounds, different horses, experience and aspirations and each week we come together with the same goal in mind “to get better for the benefit of our horses”.
It’s become more than that though. Each week we talk about our horse trials and tribulations, we just listen and don’t judge different approaches and of course we celebrate the wins. By this I don’t just mean the competitions although we celebrate a clear round as much as a qualification to the nationals; but it’s also the other stuff that happens from hard work.
E.g riding a straight line on a young horse! Surviving a tiny hack up the road, in fact sometimes it’s surviving just mounting up and walking around an area on a lead rein as these are all huge achievements at some point on the journey.
Genuine friendships have been formed, often other class members are cheering each other on at shows, and on social media.
I think what we help each other with is realising that you are not alone. It’s realising that even those who go out competing every week suffer with nerves, it’s realising that the girl riding the warmblood has the same problems and worries as the girl riding the cob.
I think we have all learnt to be a little easier on ourselves, as let’s face it having horses is sometimes hard. We do it in the most part for fun and as a hobby, but add in work and family, the financial implications of horses etc sometimes fitting it in and paying for it can be a struggle and when stuff isn’t going right that can make it tough.
So firstly be kinder to yourself for going out there every day and still just being with your horses at whatever level that is. Follow your own journey to your own destination and don’t compare it to someone else’s.
Secondly just be kinder to your fellow Equestrians. For the most part most of us are just doing our best for our horses with the knowledge and tools we have available. We may disagree on certain things but it’s important to remember there is more than one route to most destinations so let others take their own path.
Also, don’t be too sucked into the perfection you see on Social Media….the ones where their financial status and lifestyle is so far removed from yours but there you are berating yourself for not being as good as them.
Let me tell you, the average Equestrian woman comes to my class and she is anything but average, in fact they’re all bloody amazing…..so if you’re reading this you probably are too!
Right, enough motivational chat from me back to working on your muscle next week!
However if you’d like to join us amazing Equestrians I have space in Tuesday 7.30pm and Wednesday 9.30am so hit reply of you would like to join us.