You Learn More Than Riding In Horse Back Riding Lessons
One of the reasons horse back riding lessons are still popular, even though our reliance on horses for transportation has diminished, is because of all of the other things you learn as you gain control over a horse. This is a discipline and not just a sport, much like any of the marital arts or of yoga. You can't just devote your time to learning how to ride when you are in the saddle. For many, their life revolves around horse back riding lessons.
Cooperation With Another Species
Horses weigh, on average, 1000 pounds, yet a tiny child can completely control this huge animal if the child knows how to ride. Horses are also notoriously skittish and fearful, since they are prey animals. Their primary means of defense from predators is to run away. Instinctively, if they hear, see or smell something strange, they don't hand around to check it out. They get out of there as quickly as possible.
Yet, in horse back riding lessons, you learn how to be the brain of this incredibly large, powerful and half-wild animal. Riding a horse is a bit like riding a bridge between the human way of existence and the way of animals. You cannot master a horse with force. The horse may temporarily obey, but will wait for an opportunity to get back at you. When you ride well, you remove the fear that a horse has.
Mastery Of The Self
A series of regular horse back riding lessons, whether in the arena or out on a horse back riding trail, helps the person learn all about self-control. They need to stay calm when chaos reigns. If the horse bolts, the worst thing they can do is scream and panic. They need to stay centered, as calm as possible and regain control. You need to have a lot of horse back riding lessons before this process becomes instinctive.
Horse back riding lessons are especially recommended for the physically handicapped and the abused. Children growing through awkward growth spurts better learn how to coordinate their bodies and their thoughts. These are people who may feel as if their lives are out of their control. With riding a calm, healthy horse, they can soon learn that they are not helpless playthings of Fate, but fully realized living beings. Horses become very attentive and nonjudgmental friends. And horse back riding lessons are also great fun!
