Ridecamp: [RC] Fear: rational vs irrational fear

A. perez walkergir@xxxxxxxxxx
  Having just gotten bashed via private email for my last post, let me first apologize for any I may have offended, and clarify.

  Someone posted "I can't see how bareback would help.  I too am short and have short legs and am also overweight.  I doubt I could ride across an arena without toppling off."

  Fear can be classified as irrational and rational.  I would be scared to hop on a pair of skis and go down a black-diamond slope.  Why?  because I don't know how to ski. This is a perfectly rational fear.  How to deal with this fear?  Ummm learn to ski, maybe? IE: overcome the limitation that makes the activity dangerous.  Once you have minimzed the danger, probably the fear will be less as well.

  Now suppose I am scared of walking out of my house because I am afraid a meteorite is going to fall fromt he sky and kill me.  Now that is an irrational fear: the probability of that happening is slim to none, and dealing with that fear most effectivley probably won't involve lessening the likihood of ot happening.  Instead you need to work on overcoming your fear (lots of books, articals etc on that).

  So let's take being afraid of falling off a horse.  If you are a rock-solid rider, riding a bomb-proof horse, but are scared of falling off becuase of a past bad experience, than you need to work on overcoming your fear.  HOWEVER: if you are NOT a rock solid rider, if one says "...I doubt I could ride across an arena [bareback] without toppling off", than MAYBE this is a RATIONAL fear: MAYBE one IS in danger of falling off, and MAYBE one might want to work on improving one's seat?  Bareback riding is one way to do that (or ride without stirrups if bareback is too intimidating.  Of COURSE it should be done safely: on a horse that is quiet, sane etc, smooth-gaited and of the appropriate size etc.  (I did NOT mean to suggest you should do the dumb stunts I did as a kid: my point there was that the only reason I survived those is because I had a strong seat.  I was NOT advocating them as a way to get the strong seat!)




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