To the riders who had very, very tough trainers as a kid or teenager...

[kateh]

I’m currently in grad school, and I see lots of parallels between the trainer/student and advisor/grad student relationships. I’ve seen promising young scientists leave the field because of their harsh mentors, and not necessarily because they can’t deal with mean personal attacks, but because they don’t want to. And if that’s the only view of the field they get, then I certainly don’t blame them.

In both cases, I’ve found I can withstand and learn from the screamer/harsh authority figure, but I don’t thrive under them. I just don’t think a ‘beat em down’ process is necessary or accomplishes much beyond destroying someone’s confidence. Identifying/correcting mistakes and maintaining high standards can be done without being harsh. It shows a lack of respect for the other person, and honestly, a lack of creativity if you think the only way to motivate people is to yell at them.

Besides, if you compare it to training animals, it’s well-established that positive reinforcement of good behavior is much more effective than harshly reprimanding bad behavior. Well… humans are animals too, aren’t we?

[quietann]

The thing that will get me is a manipulative trainer. Had one of those a few years back and the damage has stayed with me to this day. She thought I wasn’t a good enough rider for my horse and managed to either state it flat out or hint at it all the time.

My tween/teen trainer was a character – very fair, occasionally brash, but never as far as I remember abusive. She had a lot of patience for a kid who was not a natural, and often timid, but wanted to learn. That was me. But definitely not someone everyone would have liked. Part of the attraction, for me, is that she took us out of the ring a lot, and offered extra trail rides on weekends. She didn’t have a lot of good things to say about “arena riders.”

[NC001]

@kateh

I’m currently in grad school, and I see lots of parallels between the trainer/student and advisor/grad student relationships. I’ve seen promising young scientists leave the field because of their harsh mentors, and not necessarily because they can’t deal with mean personal attacks, but because they don’t want to. And if that’s the only view of the field they get, then I certainly don’t blame them.

In both cases, I’ve found I can withstand and learn from the screamer/harsh authority figure, but I don’t thrive under them. I just don’t think a ‘beat em down’ process is necessary or accomplishes much beyond destroying someone’s confidence. Identifying/correcting mistakes and maintaining high standards can be done without being harsh. It shows a lack of respect for the other person, and honestly, a lack of creativity if you think the only way to motivate people is to yell at them.

went to grad school in a science field and worked with a mentor that was personally insulting and difficult to talk to (although also sang your praises to everyone else so it balanced a little…)- when I went looking for a post-doc I wouldnt consider anyone I didnt feel completely at ease talking to because I wasnt going through that again. I did my time with a jerk and that was fine, I got through but I wasnt going to repeat it.

[Scribbler]

@kateh

I’m currently in grad school, and I see lots of parallels between the trainer/student and advisor/grad student relationships. I’ve seen promising young scientists leave the field because of their harsh mentors, and not necessarily because they can’t deal with mean personal attacks, but because they don’t want to. And if that’s the only view of the field they get, then I certainly don’t blame them.

In both cases, I’ve found I can withstand and learn from the screamer/harsh authority figure, but I don’t thrive under them. I just don’t think a ‘beat em down’ process is necessary or accomplishes much beyond destroying someone’s confidence. Identifying/correcting mistakes and maintaining high standards can be done without being harsh. It shows a lack of respect for the other person, and honestly, a lack of creativity if you think the only way to motivate people is to yell at them.

Besides, if you compare it to training animals, it’s well-established that positive reinforcement of good behavior is much more effective than harshly reprimanding bad behavior. Well… humans are animals too, aren’t we?

When I went to grad school I was in my 30s and had worked and travelled extensively. I made sure to pick advisors that valued my work but also pushed me to improve. I avoided people who reduced their students to tears, or were obviously drunks. However I don’t know if I’d have had that insight if I’d been 22 like many of my classmates.

One problem is that if you are depressed, anxious, self doubting, generally stressed (as many teens and young adults are) it can be harder to spot the toxic personalities because you already feel awful and they just seem like more of normal. Once you are more settled and happy in life, you can recognize that they are set to destroy your basic happiness and avoid them.

The irony is that unhappy young adults need basically decent mentors ( and friends and careers and bosses) but may not be able to identify them.

[lovezehorses]

The main thing about tough is what is their purpose? I don’t mind tough trainers if their goal is to help improve you and your riding. I am not a fan of trainers who yell and proceed to not help improve your riding, it just become more of a “I will only point out flaws” type of lessons.
That being said, I don’t really care about whether I have a tough or nice trainer. I just like a trainer that is detail orientated and tailors their lessons to the horse and rider combo. I have come to realize that every rider understands differently. When I use to take semi-privates, my trainer at the time would change the way she communicates to each of us because we understood how she wanted us to ride differently.

[blumchen]

Since posting on this thread, I’ve given this topic tons more thought. I wanted to add to my experience with my first trainer, who was very harsh. My parents were not a fan of her teaching style but she was recommended to us by the few equestrians we knew and it was by far the closest place to our house. This was back before my parents were adept users of the Internet and could search for other options. And even though I was terrified before my lessons, I was so happy after them that I think my parents were just very confused by the whole thing. Looking back, I was overjoyed after my lessons because 1. I had made it out alive, 2. I had a whole week before I had to go through it again. My lessons were on Thursdays and usually on Tuesdays, I would start to get really nervous.

At the age of nine or ten, my first trainer was having another one of her moments during our lesson. I can’t recall exactly what happened, I think perhaps the saintly school pony refused a jump. What I do remember is that she had some harsh words for me and some harsh treatment of the pony for whatever we had done.

Once she was finished, she told me to go try the jump again. I looked at her and said, “I quit.” I remember seeing the absolute disbelief on her face. I had been nothing but quiet, compliant, and quite honestly terrified prior to that moment. But I was a fed up nine-or-ten-year old. She told me to go back to the barn and untack, then come back to the arena to talk with her.

As I rode that pony out of the arena, I remember my dad getting up and walking quickly to catch up with us and then asking me what happened. “I told her I quit.” I didn’t quit riding, but I definitely quit her. It’s interesting to look back and remember how shy I was and how scared I was of my trainer but I still basically told her to get lost once I reached my limit.

I don’t quite remember the conversation we had after I untacked the pony, but I think my dad handled most of the talking and told her that her teaching style wasn’t a good match for us. I’m glad I got out before I decided to quit riding altogether. I knew I loved it and wanted to do it, but needed to find the right situation.

[Scribbler]

@blümchen

Since posting on this thread, I’ve given this topic tons more thought. I wanted to add to my experience with my first trainer, who was very harsh. My parents were not a fan of her teaching style but she was recommended to us by the few equestrians we knew and it was by far the closest place to our house. This was back before my parents were adept users of the Internet and could search for other options. And even though I was terrified before my lessons, I was so happy after them that I think my parents were just very confused by the whole thing. Looking back, I was overjoyed after my lessons because 1. I had made it out alive, 2. I had a whole week before I had to go through it again. My lessons were on Thursdays and usually on Tuesdays, I would start to get really nervous.

At the age of nine or ten, my first trainer was having another one of her moments during our lesson. I can’t recall exactly what happened, I think perhaps the saintly school pony refused a jump. What I do remember is that she had some harsh words for me and some harsh treatment of the pony for whatever we had done.

Once she was finished, she told me to go try the jump again. I looked at her and said, “I quit.” I remember seeing the absolute disbelief on her face. I had been nothing but quiet, compliant, and quite honestly terrified prior to that moment. But I was a fed up nine-or-ten-year old. She told me to go back to the barn and untack, then come back to the arena to talk with her.

As I rode that pony out of the arena, I remember my dad getting up and walking quickly to catch up with us and then asking me what happened. “I told her I quit.” I didn’t quit riding, but I definitely quit her. It’s interesting to look back and remember how shy I was and how scared I was of my trainer but I still basically told her to get lost once I reached my limit.

I don’t quite remember the conversation we had after I untacked the pony, but I think my dad handled most of the talking and told her that her teaching style wasn’t a good match for us. I’m glad I got out before I decided to quit riding altogether. I knew I loved it and wanted to do it, but needed to find the right situation.

Now that is a good learning situation. You learned to stand up for yourself and your parents had your back.