{"id":19132,"date":"2025-09-30T22:48:40","date_gmt":"2025-09-30T22:48:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dtmembership.wpenginepowered.com\/news\/power-of-positivity-giving-others-grace-in-a-sea-of-negativity\/"},"modified":"2026-01-21T15:00:43","modified_gmt":"2026-01-21T15:00:43","slug":"power-of-positivity-giving-others-grace-in-a-sea-of-negativity","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dressagetoday.com\/rider-wellness\/power-of-positivity-giving-others-grace-in-a-sea-of-negativity\/","title":{"rendered":"Power of Positivity: Giving Others Grace In a Sea of Negativity"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

After recently doing some virtual judging, I started thinking about how much the world has changed over the decades I\u2019ve been riding. Now that everyone has video on their phones, a lot of riders video and post their rides on social media and some even post their written test sheets with their scores.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whether it\u2019s a good or bad thing, this all of a sudden makes us a lot more exposed. Personally, I rarely post a video of myself riding because when I watch myself ride all I see are the negatives. If my students choose to post videos from our lessons, I ask them do so without audio\u2014not because I don\u2019t believe in what I\u2019m talking about, but because we say things to our students specific to a moment and those things can easily be taken out of context.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Social-media critiquing can have many negative impacts on riders’ confidence and the sport of dressage. Dressage trainer and judge Aviva Nebesky encourages people to give other riders grace as they work to improve. \u00a9Amy K. Dragoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ll give you a quick example. I was teaching a student on someone else\u2019s horse and the owner happened to be watching that day. It was kind of intimidating and after the lesson I asked her if there was anything I said that she disagreed with. She noted that it was a good lesson except for the fact that I told my student to pull her elbows back behind her. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

I went on to explain that of course you would not instruct most riders to do this, but this particular student tended to ride with her elbows so far out in front of her, the only way I\u2019d successfully been able to get her elbows even close to her body, was to advise her to bring them back behind her. The lesson had gone online and people were saying, \u201cWow! Aviva is telling people to ride with their elbows back.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A Moment in Time Is Not the Full Picture<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

I think most of us go ride and aim to do the best we can, but we all have off days when we don\u2019t ride our best. I don\u2019t believe anyone wakes up in the morning and plans to yank their horses in the mouth or jab them with their spurs and ride as poorly as possible to make them miserable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When we don\u2019t ride our best, it\u2019s a moment in time and likely is due to lack of knowledge or experience or it was simply a bad moment. Who hasn\u2019t lost their balance or made a position mistake before? That\u2019s how you learn. So, I think this might be an opportunity to show one another a little more grace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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When critiquing a video clip, people often fail to recognize that it’s only a moment in time and don’t see the full context. \u00a9Amy K. Dragoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019ve also noticed when critiquing my lessons on social media, people complain that I talked a lot about a student\u2019s core or leg position but I never mentioned how busy her hands were. My response\u2014as well as my own trainer\u2019s\u2014is that you can only address so many things at once. After four or five things, it\u2019s hard to multitask. So, I address the four most important issues a rider is struggling with. The learning process is based on a lot of small building blocks over time.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In this example, I could talk about hands until I\u2019m blue in the face, but if a rider doesn\u2019t have a seat, she doesn’t have hands. So, first we need to address why they don\u2019t have strong seat. Maybe they\u2019re stiff because they have desk job or a previous injury or some degree of fear is making them hesitant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I teach people how to sit the trot, for instance, I advise them not to brace against the movement. Instead, I tell them to allow their hips to move from side to side. Visualize dropping a bowling ball onto a trampoline; it\u2019s going to bounce and go boom, boom, boom \u2026 . Now, think about dropping that bowling ball on a mattress; it goes splat. In riding, your horse is the bowling ball and your goal is to be the mattress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Find Grace In Your<\/em> Journey<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

We\u2019re constantly told to be quiet as riders and to stop moving. But watch the great riders\u2014they\u2019re moving, but they\u2019re moving in perfect conjunction with their horses. They are soft and strong enough at the same time to move with the horses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Nebesky encourages social-media critics to focus on positivity and give others grace in their personal journeys with dressage. \u00a9Amy K. Dragoo<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

I think it\u2019s so important to give people grace and understand that every single one of us is on a journey, and most of us are not gifted or naturally talented at dressage. But we\u2019re not trying to hurt our horses. We\u2019re trying to get better. So, let’s focus on being a little kinder and kudos to those of you who aren’t perfect and are brave enough to post about your progress.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For More:<\/h2>\n\n\n\n