Daniel Stewart: U.S./International Olympic Riding Team Coach

Daniel Stewart travels the world giving clinics about how to mentally prepare and pressure proof your riding. I got to attend his clinic this past weekend and I share in this post everything I learned and my thoughts on the overall clinic.

Day 1

The schedule for the clinic looks something like this: There are three groups of riders. Group 1 and 2 are intermediate level riders and group 3 is advanced riders. Each group has an hour in the arena with Coach Daniel Stewart.

The first day I worked as Daniel’s scribe. This entails keeping track of each rider's faults and where those faults took place. The jumping course was setup in the shape of a compass. There was one jump on N E S W. Faults included going under or over the allowed amount of time, chips, longs, downed rails, counting strides, incorrect leads/lead changes, incorrect number of jumps jumped, incorrect number of direction changes and incorrect direction change. If a rider went over or under the allowed time, they would get 1 fault for every second over or under. Counting strides was an exercise Coach had the riders do during their rides. Essentially each rider needed to count their horse’s three strides approaching each jump. During each round, if any one rider had 8 or more faults they had to do 50 sit-ups. Each rider got three chances to ride the course- by the end of the three rounds if any one rider had more than 30 faults, they had to do 100 sit-ups. As the scribe, I needed to keep track of all this.

At the very beginning of the clinic, the riders and auditors (spectators) came out into the arena and Daniel talked to us for awhile explaining his background, his goals of the clinic and the rules, etc.

I have to say, my expectations of Daniel were way wrong. I assumed he would be strict, tough and maybe a bit mean or hard on the riders. But no, he was extremely nice, personable and funny. However, he did give constructive criticism, but he did it in a way that allowed the riders to be receptive and stay in the zone.

Coach talked about what he calls ‘franky’. Franky is a combination of the words frustration and anger. He talked about how when we are riding a course and all of a sudden we hear a pole thud to the ground, do we immediately stop focusing on the course in front of us and get franky about the pole? Or do we let it go from our minds, focus on what still needs to be done, then after we have finished the course, go back and think about our mistakes, learn from them, practice more and grow?

It has been scientifically proven that under enough stress, humans become forgetful. This is called stress induced amnesia. Have you ever been really late to something and as you are running out the door you frantically realize that you don’t have your keys? You run back to the house only to realize you have no idea where your keys are. This only makes you more frantic and stressed, thus causing your memory to continue to fail. It is the rush of adrenaline you get when in a stressful situation that causes you to be forgetful. And, actually, in the caveman days this was considered a good thing. When in a dangerous and stressful situation, the brain essentially made you forget everything that wasn’t essential for your survival. In prehistoric times, this made sense. Or even when one is in a stressful and unexpected situation in today's world, this is helpful. The brain only remembers what is essential for survival. However, as an athlete, when we put ourselves in stressful situations, knowing we can handle what is coming our way, our brains don’t change. Our brains still only let you remember what is needed for survival. For example, you are super nervous before a competition, and on the course you get over the first jump or two and realize your can’t remember the rest of the course for the life of you. That is your brain thinking all you need for survival is to get over the jump, not necessarily in the right order. That is why it is important to recognize this lapse and learn techniques for overcoming it.

As you continue to read this blog post you will learn about the various ways to help fight stress induced amnesia.

Coach Daniel Stewart’s clinic was less about getting the perfect seat, leg and body position, or the horse. The clinic was more about the rider’s mental state. Coach mentioned that he hasn’t really seen any other clinics that focus on mental positivity, stress & pressure proofing and helping riders to overcome their own anxiety and human nature.

Human nature (and horses too) tells us to fight or flee when in a stressful or dangerous situation. For our brain, riding atop a 2,000 pound animal, let alone jumping with them, is a dangerous situation. As our horse speeds up, sometimes this is the horse getting itself balanced, however our brain can read that as a dangerous situation and that we need to flee. This can cause us to have an automatic response to ask our horse to slow down. I know that sometimes when I am cantering and I feel my horse speeding up, I think I need to half halt. However, that is not always the case.

Coach talked about how pre-show routines for helping with stress and anxiety is what

takes a rider from being good to being great. Coach mentioned that the difference between an olympic rider and a non-olympic rider is their mental state and how they mentally prepare themselves. At that point, the only thing holding, not only a rider but any athlete, back is their mental state.

Another great thing that Coach talked about was athleticism. What is one thing that athletes do that differentiates them from the average person just doing exercise? The athlete trains with added restraints to make themselves better. For example, runners train with ankle weights, swimmers train with hand weights. Equestrians train without their stirrups, jump with their arms out to the side, ride bareback, and so on. All athletes train by using added obstacles to make their work harder, so that when they step onto the field or into the arena for competition, it will feel so much easier and they will be stronger without the ankle weights or with stirrups.

The first day I was able to watch 12 riders during the clinic. Each round there was a set of rules, but the one thing that never changed was that the rider had to design their course on the spot. For instance, at the beginning of each round Coach would lay out the basic rule that applied for everyone. So for instance, the very first round he would say something like, “Riders you will have 30 seconds to do 4 jumps, counting 3 strides and no repeated jumps.” So those rules applied to all of the riders. Then, the first rider would get ready to go and he would say, “Okay trot a circle around me, then pickup a canter, your first jump will be [then he would pick a jump], off you go.” He would send the rider off, then moments before their first jump, he would give them their specific stipulations, “Rider on course,” he would say. “30 seconds, 4 jumps, counting 3 and 2 changes in direction.” That would be the riders stipulations, pushing them to make up their course on the spot. As the rounds went on he would add more stipulations like the riders would have to end on an odd numbered jump or he would raise or lower the allotted time.

The point of adding these stipulations and doing so at the last minute, is to:

1. Show how humans tend to make more mistakes as the pressure builds

2. Show that humans can overcome that pressure given some techniques proven to help (discussed below)

Another great point Coach made was that there is something called the right amount of wrong. Humans cannot grow if they never make mistakes. If you jump the same course everyday going the same direction over the same jumps, you learn that course so well that you are no longer being challenged and therefore you are not growing and learning. Making mistakes are great when they allow you to learn and grow from them. In this clinic if your scored 7 or fewer faults in a round Coach called that the right amount of wrong. And as the clinic went on, the riders got better and better. For example, during one round, one of the riders got going so fast that as they rounded a corner her horse was thrown of balance and she nearly fell off. Everyone in the audience gasped because we thought her horse was going to fall on top of her. They were fine, but they never made that mistake again. From that point on it was in the forefront of that riders mind to maintain the right amount of speed. That mistake was the right amount of wrong and allowed for growth.

Coach also talked about the Goldilocks zone. Think of a scale: The left side is your comfort zone. All the basics you know really well. Then there is the middle zone where you start to push yourself outside of your comfort zone and try more challenging work. The far right of the scale is the danger zone, where you are setting yourself up for danger and failure. An example of the danger zone would be deciding to ride a very green horse during a thunderstorm while the arena is being dragged without any supervision. See the point? You need to find that area where you aren’t just working on what you already know how to do well, but also are not pushing yourself so far that you are endangering yourself and the horse. The goldilocks zone is the perfect balance of working on something that challenges you enough that you will make mistakes, but isn’t so challenging that you won’t learn and grow from your mistakes.

A common phrase Coach said was, “When you can’t do everything, do everything you can.” For example, you are supposed to do 4 jumps with no repeats in a certain amount of time. You jump over your third jump and realize you have no idea which jump is supposed to be your last jump, but you do know that if you don’t jump one soon you will gather up a lot of time faults. In that situation Coach says, “Do the wrong thing for the right reasons.” Repeating a jump will give you less faults than if you get time faults.

The brain can only focus on one thing at a time, as such Coach will tell you to try your best to do everything that you can if you aren’t able to do everything.

Another important factor that goes for all riders, is putting the horse before the course. For example, being on the right lead or committing to a jump. Always make sure you are on the right lead for the horse’s safety and health. If you have jumped all of your four jumps but you finished on a line and are quickly approaching another jump, you are asking your horse to commit to that jump so you had better commit too. Again, you do this for the horse’s safety. Plus, if you are always aiming towards a jump then at the last minute asking the horse to turn away and not take the jump, you are teaching a refusal type behavior to the horse. You are saying it is okay to go to the jump then turn away at the last minute.

Probably one of the most important techniques and lessons learned at the clinic was that of shifting and chunking. Shifting is when you have to shift your focus from one thing to another. For example, when you first learn to put a bridle on you are likely thinking of the process in a series of steps. Hold the top of the bridle near the horses ears, hold the nose band up, straighten out the bit, thumbs in back of mouth, etc. As you practice bridling over and over, you eventually don’t need to think about it anymore, you just do it. Rather than the bridling process being a situation where you have to shift your focus from one thing to another, your brain puts the steps into one fluid motion, otherwise known as chunking. Another great example is tying your shoes. You first learn to make one bunny ear, then make another bunny ear, then you cross, then you go under, etc. When you first learned to tie your shoes it was clunky and slow. Now, you just tie your shoes. One solid, fluid motion that requires little to no thinking.

When applied to riding, as you learn new things you first think of these things as a series of steps, but as you practice and get better your brain shifts those steps into one motion. When first learning to canter, you might be told to shorten the reigns, inside leg puts pressure on the girth, outside leg puts pressure behind the girth. Now, you just pick up a canter.

Another important point that Coach made was the idea of a ‘tranter.’ This is a combination of the trot and the cantor. As the clinic went on Coach would start to give riders faults for trantering. Coach wanted the riders to commit- either trot or canter- not the middle ground that sometimes happens when the horse slows to something less than a canter but is doing something more than a trot. Horses aren’t robots, they still need a pilot.

The three most important techniques coach gave us for helping to get over nerves, pressure and stress was this:

1. Your Anthem

2. Your Acronym

3. Your Cadence

Your anthem has to do with music motivation. Music has been scientifically proven to be able to influence your mood. Music can either pump you up or calm you down, and depending on which is a bigger challenge for you when it comes to competition, you may want to add music to your routine. Coach suggest you find a personal anthem that can become your song at competitions.

As previously mentioned, during stressful situations humans tend to forget things. Well all these tips and tricks are not going to be helpful if they can't be remembered. Thus, you need something to cue your memory or spark your memory. Coach recommends developing a cute word, which is an acronym to help you remember what you need to do to ride your best. A few examples:

STAR - Sit Tall and Relax

BIG: Breathing is Good

BEST: Balance Every Single Transition

LAND: Look Ahead Never Down

BLAST: Breathe Laugh And Smile Today

You can pick your own cute work by thinking about the key things you need to remember to do at a competition and developing an acronym to match.

Cadence has to do with rhythm. Sprinters are taught to focus on the sound of their breathing. Skiiers are taught to focus on the sound of their skis. If they can get into the sounds, they can get into the zone. Find a rhythmical sound you can listen to, like your tack squeaking as you post, your horse snorting with each stride or as Coach suggest, developing your own cadence by picking a rhythmical phrase to repeat to yourself. One of his students uses "Be Strong Push On" and says it in time to her horse cantering.

Coach talked about a positive affirmation sentence, where if you think positively and repeat to yourself a positive affirmation sentence you can help release tension and nerves.

Day 2

The second day of the clinic was a similar process but this time the jumping course had 6 jumps and there was a new stipulation. The course had a jump set up in each corner of the arena, with two jumps in the middle forming a V shape with the top of the V opening up to the left side of the arena.

Essentially, there were 2 diagonals lines of three jumps going from the front left of the arena to the back right and another line from the top right of the arena to the back left of the arena.

There was a new stipulation for this round called a link. This means you must jump either an outside jump followed immediately by an inside jump or vice versa. In the first round you were allowed to repeat jumps, then in the second round you were not allowed to repeat jumps, making it all the more important to do things in a good order. So an example of one of these rounds might include the rider having to jump only 5 jumps, 2 links, 2 changes in direction, no repeats in 25 seconds. Coach would adjust these for each rider, so that the riders couldn’t make up a course in their head beforehand.

Allowing the riders to make up a course ahead of time would take away all of the pressure. Coach was trying to make a stressful, yet manageable, situation for the riders to help them then use various techniques to overcome that stress.

During the rides he would sometimes call out different things in attempt to create more stress. He didn't do this in a spiteful way, but rather imitated various things that might happen at a show. For instance, during a dressage test the rider may very well hear the judge tell the scribe that they got a 4/10 on a certain exercise. If allowed to, that could really mess with the rider’s focus and create stress. So Coach would clearly call out when the riders got faults in attempt to replicate this. Again, not to be mean, but rather to help riders practice that type of situation allowing them to learn and grow.

You can’t get better at blocking out the judge giving a score during your ride, unless you quite literally practice- either by doing lots of shows and/or replicating the experience in training. It would be similar to professional dancers doing a dress rehearsal in full costume and makeup. They intentionally practice what it would feel like to do a show so they can understand what the costumes changes will be like, etc. If they never practice those things, then their first go around will be the actual show and you are bound to make mistakes. In a similar way, if you and your horse never practice jumping over decorated jumps (jumps with flower boxes, etc.) when you go to jump over one for the first time in a show, your horse might get spooked never having seen a jump like that before.

Everything Coach has taught at his clinic comes together to form a brand. The rider who rubs the nearest horse shoe for good luck has her Lucky Brand. Her cue word is LUCKY: Look Up Cluck Kick Yell, as she rides a very stubborn pony named Lucky. Her music motivation is "Lucky" by Jason Mraz. And she has horse shoes embroidered on her saddle pad.

Overall, I had an INCREDIBLE experience at the Daniel Stewart Pressure Proof Your Riding clinic. I learned SO MUCH about how to help my riding by overcoming stress and how to overcome that stress. It was a GREAT CLINIC! I highly recommend you go if you have the chance. If you don't have the chance, however, Daniel does have a book that you can purchase, check here. Also, feel free to check out his website for more information.

Happy Riding!

*Please note all photographs are original and property of Monika Haskell and Pony Tail, excluding the South Wind Pony Club Poster*