The research finding that expert athletes actually slow down their thinking at the crucial moment in competition is instructive. I sometimes come out of the show arena thinking “that course happened to me.” Rather than a feeling of my own riding and plan executing the course, I feel as though the course was just happening and the jumps were coming so quickly that I was doing triage. This feeling is probably a result of my brain (and likely my horse’s brain) moving too quickly. We all do it; we all succumb to stress. But knowing that there is scientific research behind the idea of athletes slowing down their mental processes in these stressful moments shows that ability to slow down really is something we should all strive to achieve.
Have you ever lost focus during a dressage test? Felt stressed during a show jumping round? Struggled to stay calm and focused during a cross country round? (I have.) The idea of maintaining focus by honing in on a particular point makes a lot of sense for riders as well as other types of athletes. Instead of getting distracted and flicking our eyes between lots of different things in the arena, we are likely better served by focusing on one thing, whether it be the letter toward which we are riding as we trot across the diagonal, or the line on which we are trying to stay as we navigate a combination of jumps. Instructors often encourage riders to look where they are going, but the idea of looking, and really seeing, sometimes eludes us. That focused vision provides not only clarity of direction, but also focus.
Ema Klugman