I have a number of disabilities caused by chronic illness (mainly late-stage Lyme). When I was healthier I was a fairly accomplished rider but I’ve had many obstacles along the way back. I’ve come a long way and although I may seem in poor health to some people I’ve accomplished a lot to recover as I have already. I know what works for me and what doesn’t, and it allows me to live a decent life considering I was bedridden most of last year. However, I don’t look it - I’m young, thin, and try to present myself only on my good days. I don’t like to tell people I’m ill and just like everyone else I want to ride with top-notch clinicians and instructors when I get the chance. My current coach is retiring at the end of the year and I’ve not had the most encouraging experiences with clinicians and other coaches recently.
Without boring you with the details, I need to find a way of explaining my disabilities to potential instructors or clinicians so I am not seen as whining or complaining when I bring something up during a lesson. I’ve been told to “shut up and ride!” too many times when I have a legitimate concern for my balance or when I want to convey that the “equitation flaw that you never had before and suddenly have today” is a fleeting neurological problem. I lose muscle tone or core strength easily, it takes tremendous energy & strength some days to just get up out of bed, etc etc. I fear that a very good instructor will not want to work with me since they have so many talented, able-bodied students. Therefore, I don’t tell them I have Lyme as if it’s a big deal, just as an aside. However, over the years I see that it affects my riding so greatly I need all the support I can get. What is the best thing to say when interviewing new instructors or meeting new clinicians?
(Please don’t tell me I shouldn’t ride - I know what works for me and what doesn’t, and you wouldn’t know any of this by watching me on a good day on a fine horse - I’m not a sack of potatoes 
)
Well, many top coaches are there to push the top riders and say so in their clinic brochures.
That is easy to understand, they would not want to be teaching the up/downers or the more limited riders, unless they make it clear that anyone is welcome.
That is because they need to concentrate in those that paid their dues, are at the top or getting there and are the ones that top instruction is geared for.
Also, some times, those top instructors are not that good with the less than top students, as you are finding.
It is the same in any other you do, the top voice coach will not be teaching those that just want to sing in the shower.
Many if not most of us are, as riders, the equivalent to singing in the shower, not aiming for the MET Opera House.
I am lucky to be trying to work with one of the better reining trainers, but try not to use her time, do other on my own to get up to par.
The trouble, like you, I keep hitting health limitations.
Every time I start, something else comes up and I end up back in surgery, nine times in the past ten years, which takes so much time and energy and fitness out of you.
There are not many options here, so I have to try to manage and glad to be even considered as a student in such a busy, competitive and progressive training barn, where I just don’t quite belong because of hitting health limitations.
My point here, keep looking, there may be someone that you can learn from where you are, even with your limitations and keep trying to work on your own best you can.
I hope this made sense, such life situations are not a one size fits all.
I definitely get it, Bluey - I can see you have been (and are) there. I had been thinking along those lines until now, that I should just not try to ride with those teachers, but I am not a bad rider. People ask me to ride their horses for them, they compliment my riding (these are people who don’t know I have problems), and I had a position as an assistant trainer a few years ago but just couldn’t keep up with the energy level required. I ride a very sensitive, hot horse which I enjoy, but lessons with coaches who understand his type are important for us. I’m not an up-downer and I want to keep progressing in my riding like my peers. I know a woman with one hand who rides at 4th level, so I figure why not me? As you can see, I don’t give up easily.
[QUOTE=Levitate;7739163]
I definitely get it, Bluey - I can see you have been (and are) there. I had been thinking along those lines until now, that I should just not try to ride with those teachers, but I am not a bad rider. People ask me to ride their horses for them, they compliment my riding (these are people who don’t know I have problems), and I had a position as an assistant trainer a few years ago but just couldn’t keep up with the energy level required. I ride a very sensitive, hot horse which I enjoy, but lessons with coaches who understand his type are important for us. I’m not an up-downer and I want to keep progressing in my riding like my peers. I know a woman with one hand who rides at 4th level, so I figure why not me? As you can see, I don’t give up easily.[/QUOTE]
I think that you need to keep that lamp lighted and keep looking for that one really good coach that will take you, limitations and all.
They are out there, just not easy to find.
Imagine the zeal of the group I work with, they even met most week days way early to work out as a group with a fitness trainer, in their little town’s local school gymnasium, so they are as fit to ride as possible, so they can be the best they can be, riding being a physical activity.
Riders and competitors at the top take this very seriously and if we can’t be there with them, it is easy to understand why they really have to try hard to make the time, in their intense and full lives, for “the rest of us”.
Half a century ago, I was that student working with those top coaches of that time and doing well.
Today, I really don’t expect to again be there, so enjoy what I can do, at whatever level that may be, while still trying my best, short as that may come.
That I am in a new and very different discipline for me makes the transition to being a beginner easier than if I was trying to get back to my old discipline top and stressing that I just was not getting there, the mind willing, the now different/old body not helping.
We always strive, but to be somewhat happy, maybe we have to be realistic on where we are and where we are going.
In a way, we make our own happiness with what we can have, not necessarily pining away for what we had and lost, or didn’t achieve.
Then, everyone’s experiences are different, we have to find our own way.
Based on my own general experiences, I’d say you may have better results bringing things up sooner and trying not to play it as less than it is or an aside. Doing so means other people don’t think much of it and as a result then think your issues are due to being lazy/excuses, etc.
I don’t mean launching into it right on meeting someone or giving all the gory details, but once you’ve had a chance to demonstrate you can ride, and are talking about your goals, etc. I would bring it up then. “Just so you are aware, I have x problem and while it doesn’t prevent me from riding well, it does give me y issue occasionally and also sometimes z happens. So we may need to change the focus of individual lessons if I am having a particular problem that day.” Etc.
(I find it does help to suggest solutions when mentioning the issue, as people may feel overwhelmed or confused if you just present a problem as if you expect them to solve it when they have no experience with disability. Hence suggesting options like changing lesson focus - so you still do something, just not the thing where intermittent neurological issues are messing with you - or other things you’ve found work well with your current trainer.)
I agree also to try to network through your current trainer if possible - that is a reference that people can look to if they have concerns about how much you will be able to get out of a program.
Invisible disabilities are frustrating because so few people think they have experience with them because they are INVISIBLE - so for all they know that rider they were admiring the other day does have some major issue and has just set up a good support system. I have pretty bad arthritis (starting from when I was 10) and I just was told recently by a friend that it is really hard to tell because I rarely limp around, etc. It isn’t that I don’t have issues, it is that I manage my time well to give myself recovery opportunities, and I don’t show pain much. I think a lot of people with invisible disabilities do that because frankly, who wants to go around moaning to everyone about how miserable you are anyway? But it does mean people don’t realize how common these things can be or how well people can manage with them.
Best of luck in finding people who will work with you sensibly so you don’t have to be held back by your health issues.
I agree with kdow. My ‘disability’ is sort of invisible - I don’t always limp when my craptastic ankles hurt.
I got half way serious about riding at the beginning of the summer. My other problem - I ride saddleseat in sport horse hell. Not a good combination for lessons in NoVA.
I simply called/emailed a few places and explained that I needed someplace localish to ride in a cutback and I was rehabbing a rebuilt ankle, with the goal of riding a good saddlebred again. An eventer* got back to me and it’s been a fairly good experience. Another month or two and I should have good enough legs under me to ride a decent saddle horse at my first barn.
I’ve worked out with trainers at my gym for years. When a new one starts, they get a quick run down of my physical limitations. I will work hard, but some nights I can do more than others. I think the boss trainer can tell where I hurt better than I can sometimes.
*In a strange coincidence, turns out the gal I’ve been riding with is dating one of the trainer I work out with. He showed up & says "Hi Redmares :)"during my ride. The gal & I were both thoroughly confused because we had no idea that either knew the guy.
Just explain your limitations from the beginning. You are far from the only one to have issues of some kind. The first thing I have to do when I ride with someone new is explain that I can’t tell my left from my right and that if I repeat a course back to them but still completely mix up where I’m going it’s not generally because I’m not paying attention. A trainer can’t work within/ around your limitations if you don’t give them a chance. There will be some people who are unwilling or unable to work with you, but if you do your best (and realistically if you pay your bills on time) most trainers will make an effort.
I’ve referred a few adults with invisible disabilities to a therapeutic riding center (a PATH International premier center) that gives private and small group lessons to adults, but they are not as advanced as you are. They did have great experiences there, however, and are a good place to try for beginner to intermediate riders. The US Para-Equestrian Association is more up your alley – try looking at www.uspea.org to find a local coach or barn. Therapeutic riding was inspired by Liz Hartel, a Danish dressage rider who developed polio and then developed ways to still ride – and win at the Olympics! One way she succeeded was by firing anyone who didn’t believe in her. Don’t take one ounce of crap from instructors who don’t understand your needs. Fire them. I had a terribly twisted riding posture until Sally Swift straightened me out during a few clinics and she was kindness personified – I was a scared teenager, and it was years before I had a diagnosis of scoliosis that explains my problems. There are a lot of coaches and trainers focusing on improving human biomechanics these days, and maybe one of them would be a better fit for you. Check out Buckaroo Balance, and Erica Posely’s ‘Got Seat’, Mary Wanless – not that any of them are in your area, but just to tap into a network of ‘new school’ trainers. Good luck & please don’t give up until you find a truly supportive crew!
Agree that explaining things as kdow suggested will help a lot, both in figuring out if an instructor is a good fit, and in starting to communicate with them about how you need to operate. I’d also suggest that when you say you know what works for you - figure out how to say it so that it doesn’t make them think, “omg, this person is going to spend the whole time telling me why they can’t do what I tell them and why they have to do something else.” And one more suggestion, again, from the instructor’s point of view - tell them up front that if you occasionally have to cancel on short notice because you’re having a bad day, you intend to pay them anyway, and/or that you may ask them to ride your horse for you.
[QUOTE=betsyk;7739847]
Agree that explaining things as kdow suggested will help a lot, both in figuring out if an instructor is a good fit, and in starting to communicate with them about how you need to operate. I’d also suggest that when you say you know what works for you - figure out how to say it so that it doesn’t make them think, “omg, this person is going to spend the whole time telling me why they can’t do what I tell them and why they have to do something else.” And one more suggestion, again, from the instructor’s point of view - tell them up front that if you occasionally have to cancel on short notice because you’re having a bad day, you intend to pay them anyway, and/or that you may ask them to ride your horse for you.[/QUOTE]
Oh, yes. Don’t leave it open ended for them to feel like they have to figure out solutions for you when they might be overwhelmed - they are trainers, not physical therapists or rehab doctors usually - but don’t present it as “so we must absolutely only do this thing” unless really there is legitimately only one option that is safe and reasonable. (I mean, if you are having neurological issues that are causing temporary weakness on one side that is causing problems with the lesson as planned, then the only real options are to change the lesson content or cut that lesson short. You certainly don’t want to keep riding and be unsafe or even be learning the wrong thing that will tend to make you unbalanced. So there are some areas where they just aren’t going to get a lot of choices.)
But where there might be more than one option, you can say that. “I’ve been doing such and such when this happens, but if you have other ideas I am happy to try something different.” That way they have some idea of what kinds of things you can do, but are invited to use their own knowledge and experience to come up with another approach. And that is kind of what you are paying them for - to use their knowledge and experience to help you be a better rider. It is just that your problems might be a bit different than those of someone who is trying to bring along a young horse or move up a level in showing, or…
I kind of feel like if a trainer can help someone who is disabled become a really strong rider, that actually reflects very well on the trainer - it means they can teach outside of a cookie cutter program and work well with individuals and the unique needs any particular individual has. (Plus it isn’t like they’re going to be learning things working with you that won’t be helpful for them later - what if an able bodied rider gets hurt? During the healing and recovery period they aren’t going to be able to ride as if they are completely healthy, and they will probably need a training program to get them back up to speed once they get the medical all clear.)
