Integrity Equestrian

Saying goodbye to 2024 and preparing to welcome in 2025. 2024 has seen a lot of changes:
- Joker and I entered our first “real dressage” show and we’re going to work to make 1st level solid and possibly begin work on 2nd level in 2025
- Paladin hit 4 years old and got VERY big for his britches. Looking forward to his 5 year old year as he continues to develop into a fabulous horse
- I purchased two phenomenal saddles from Lorri Hart and saw the immediate impact of a custom-fitted saddle
- I received some medical diagnoses that explained so much of the difficulties I’ve been experiencing for my entire life, and I’m now better able to find adaptations that help me do what I love
- I met some amazing new families
- I saw so much growth in my long-term students
- I had some fun and fabulous horsey adventures with my fun and fabulous horsey friends
- I scaled back my lesson program to make room for my family therapy clinical internship

In 2025 I am so excited to meet more horse-crazy people, continue growing with my students and horses, and I should be stepping from my graduate intern status into associate licensure around my expected graduation date in June ❤️
2024, it’s been real, it’s been fun, it’s been real fun.

I read a theory about why so many riders lack a deep command of basics, and it was explained like this---

Correct basics are hard to master because there is an enormous amount of repetition involved, and if someone has tried something hundreds, possibly thousands of times, and still can’t do it, it is easy for the person to conclude that he/she is taking on an impossible challenge.

In his book “Mastery,” George Leonard wrote that on the quest to become good, there will be long stretches of “seeming non-improvement.”

Like watching grass grow, change is happening, but so slowly that it can’t be measured daily, weekly, or even monthly. But at some point, for those who stick with it, “suddenly” they can do things that before they couldn’t do.

The issue is giving up in frustration before putting in those many many many many months of practice.

That is ONE theory. I am sure there are many others, but this one does ring true.