Confidence Building for Horse and Rider

Are you and or your horse:-

• Lacking in confidence?
• Being held back by a lack of confidence from enjoyment and realising potential?
• Crippled by confidence issues that invade other aspects of life?
• Dreading riding or handling?
• Feeling terrible, suffering anxiety / stress / fear?
• Etc....

If yes don't waste another day letting a lack of confidence hold you back. Work with me, Vicki Jayne Maris, author and a nationally recognised specialist in confidence building and you can take control of your confidence issues and learn how become confident. Do you want to start to build confidence using methods that tap into the language of the herd? Do you want to effectively overcome your confidence issues by using an easy to follow, logical step by step structured plan? If yes read on…  

Confidence Building Lessons, Clinics and Day Courses.

For Coventry, Warwickshire and surrounding Midlands areas I offer private and semi private lessons, clinics and day courses. For England I offer clinics and day courses (minimum group 4 people) and no matter where you live private video lessons. If a lack of confidence is holding you back, spoiling your enjoyment, causing you fear, stress, anxiety etc…please get in touch, I can help. I have a proven track record of resolving confidence issues. I am very compassionate, understanding and supportive. I know how crippling, worrying and stressful a lack of confidence can be. For an informal chat call 07930605544, or click here to use the on-line contact form.  

FREE - On-line Confidence Building for Horse and Rider 

You can now register to access the on-line version of the interactive work book Introduction to Confidence Building for Horse and Rider. It is FREE to register and to access the on-line version of Confidence Building for Horse and Rider. Also available to compliment these resources no matter where you live are private video lessons. If after reading and using the confidence building resources you find it of value and want to send a small payment to Vicki Jayne Maris as a way of a thank you and recognition of her considerable time and effort to write and provide this information it will be very gratefully received. No bill will be sent, it is up to you to decide if you want to pay and how much. Please complete the on-line form below to register for FREE. Once you are registered I will send you an e-mail with your user name and password and the link so you can access for FREE the on-line version of Confidence Building for Horse and Rider. Click here if you have a user name and password to go to the on-line confidence building resources. Click here for more information on the contents of Confidence Building for Horse and Rider. 

Register Here. Please complete all sections of the on-line form below to register for FREE to access for FREE to the on-line version of Confidence Building for Horse and Rider. Once your registration has been processed you will receive an e-mail that gives you your user name and password and a link to access Confidence Building for Horse and Rider.

Terms and Conditions: To access the on-line format of Confidence Building for Horse and Rider I agree the information is for personal use only. The Copyright © 2009 for Confidence Building for Horse and Rider is held by Victoria Jayne Maris. All rights are reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted or distributed in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical including photocopying and recording, or by any information storage, or stored in a data base or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of Victoria Jayne Maris.

Confidence Building for Horse and Rider

I was inspired to write the Introduction to Confidence Building for Horse and Rider by many of the people and horses I have helped to regain their confidence. It started with me putting down in writing some of my insights on paper to compliment the lessons I deliver. The feedback from people I teach was very positive. I can only help a limited number of people with one to one support, so I felt if I put together a resource that people could use with their own instructor these insights may be very useful for more people. My aim is to help people understand the bigger picture of how we and our horses can be trapped in a cycle of anxiety and fear that limits us and eats away at our confidence and dreams. And to share the simple and easy to use techniques we can use to build confidence.  

As a seasoned horse riding instructor with over twenty years experience, I have time and time again come across a lack of confidence from horse, rider or both as being a major barrier. Often the horse owner is unable to recognize it is a confidence issue, many give themselves a hard time or avoid the situations that cause the horse and rider partnership problems. Sometimes the horse is labeled as “difficult / naughty / a problem” etc… Mostly it is a tangle of confidence, tension and poor communication between horse and rider that escalates to a crisis point.  Often this is when people recognize they need help or the horse is moved on. 

The Introduction to Building Confidence in Horse and Rider aims to help you understand human and equine confidence, what causes a lack of confidence, and tips to help build confidence.

This book should not be used as a replacement for professional support. Horses are big, strong and fast animals that when they lack confidence, become anxious or fearful can become very dangerous.   

The contents in this book are based upon using guiding principals that support any natural horsemanship technique combined with cognitive behavioural techniques. Click here for more information on cognitive behavioural techniques. There are many excellent practitioners of natural horsemanship and this book will not examine natural horsemanship in detail. However it will make reference to practitioners and further reading. The book will cover an overview of cognitive behavioural techniques in relation to horsemanship, with the aim to support horse owners and riders to utilize a very valuable resource within ourselves for working with horses and to help with day to day life challenges. The topic of cognitive behaviour is vast and there are many in-depth publications on this subject, however until now none that I am of aware off with an equine context set within the natural horsemanship approach.  

The Introduction to Confidence Building for Horse and Rider Work Book is packed full of information and interactive exercises. The exercises are designed to stimulate thought and help you question your thinking or approach and in turn enable you to understand your or your horse’s lack of confidence, what fuels the lack of confidence and how to take planned steps to work through your lack of confidence.

The contents of the book cover:-  

Part One - Guiding Principals  

• How to maximise your learning
• Learning styles
• Comfort zones
• Empathy and develop equine compassion
• Compatibility – The equine and human relationship
• Patience is a virtue
• Energy and emotion
• Simple consistency and practice
• Layers of practice
• The perfection stick
• Chasing moonbeams and spiky profiles
• Healthy horse & human
• Environment
• Deal with the horse that turns up
• Learn to read the questions your horse asks
• Struggling and learning
• Do the same get the same
• Be open minded – are you ready to try a new approach?
• Pressure
• Sands of experience
• Move subconscious to conscious
• The people who make a difference
• One at a time - You can’t fix it all at once
• Safety
• Confidence and ability
• Avoidance and evasion
• Trust and belief  
• Prepare to push
• Heavy load – let it go
• Relaxation and concentration
• Make it fun

Part Two - Cognitive Behaviour Techniques

• An unfair label? 
• Negative inner dialogue
• What is confidence? 
• What is low self-esteem? 
• What is the anxiety response? 
• What is stress? 
• What is panic? 
• What is fear? 
• Do you feel the fear? And should you do it anyway? 
• Warning signals
• 4 steps to problem solving
• Develop an action plan
• Maintaining progress
• Celebrate and congratulate
• Some final thoughts to ponder 

Please note: The printed book has lots of interactive exercises therefore the book is presented in a file so you can remove pages.  

Cognitive Behavioural Techniques 

What is cognitive behaviour? Cognitive behavioural techniques can help you to change how you think (cognitive) and what and how you do things (behaviour). By understanding and using cognitive behavioural techniques will help you to understand how the way you think affects you physically and emotionally. How you think about situations / difficulties / problems will in turn dictate how you feel, what you do and the outcome.   

Why is cognitive behaviour useful when building a good relationship with a horse? When working with horses we need to understand what it means to be a horse, therefore natural horsemanship and human cognitive behaviour need to be interwoven and balanced. When you are building your confidence or supporting a horse with confidence issues understanding and applying cognitive behavioural techniques will help you to become aware of reasoning and allows you to take control in a direct and targeted way. It helps you to identify your personal goals, to then develop an action plan with strategies. As with all good plans you need to monitor and evaluate progress, and be willing to adjust goals and time limits. The skill of learning and applying cognitive behavioural techniques to your horsemanship has far wider benefits as it enables you to tackle many life problems by harnessing your own inner resources.  

What are the benefits?  

• It can help you to make sense of overwhelming problems  
• You can challenge negative thinking  
• Help you understand biological responses in relation to stress, anxiety and fear  
• Challenge common thinking distortions    
• Consider more useful ways of dealing with difficulties
• Plan for success, with realistic aims that are in line with your values
• Be aware of your strengths, skills and talents
• Become more purposeful  
• Skills learnt you can apply in a number of settings not just with horses
• Builds confidence and self esteem
• It helps you regain perspective and control

Testimonial - FREE on-line interactive work book Confidence Building for Horse and Rider. This book helped me understand my feelings and why I may feel a certain way. It has shown a constructive way to tackle to put the negative thoughts into more positive ways of thinking. The book to me is priceless, if money was no object I would happily have bought the book but having my horse means I have to cut back on other things even if they are of great use. Thank you for having this FREE download I have found it invaluable.