Get Ready to be Surprised

by Melinda Folse News Riding Through Thick & Thin

Once we start digging for “truths” it may surprise you what you think of yourself and your riding, and what you think OTHERS think of your riding. And above all, what all these “thinks” are doing to your self-image and the quality of your experience with horses.

In just one of the embarrassing stories I tell on myself in Riding Through Thick and Thin (and believe me, there are many), I relate an experience of riding in an arena at a friend’s ranch in preparation for a clinic the next day. To say that I was apprehensive about this clinic might be the understatement of the decade. I saddled up, entered the arena, and began some slow circles on the sillier of my two horses.

Another friend joined me and began circling with us, then she cued her horse into a lope. Without thinking about it too much, I followed suit. We were laughing and talking as we rode and I gave little thought to what I was doing in my effort to just keep up. Quite simply I was lost in the moment. All clinic anxiety dissipated, I was in the zone of joy.

Later, over dinner, my clinic-phobia returned and I voiced my concerns — half joking, half not. The friend hosting us for the weekend looked at me, not bothering to conceal her surprise. “I can’t even believe you’re saying that,” she said. “When I saw you two down at the other end of the arena chasing each other around like puppies i have to admit I felt envious — and a little bit insecure. You’re a much better rider than you think you are.”

Whaaaaaaaaat????

As it turns out, sometimes we have no idea of how others see us. Not that it matters, except as a reality check for how we see ourselves. We are so often our own worst critic that for the sake of our self-concept it is important to learn to take an occasional step outside our own awareness and try to see ourselves through the lens of an impartial observer.

If you don’t have an honest — if shocked — friend to offer up some observational insight, it might be worth it to ask for this kind of feedback from someone you can trust to keep it real. It is only through honest self assessment that we can begin to see things as they really are — and not as our hated imagination would have us believe.

Give it a try and let me know what happens. I can’t wait to hear your stories of amazement that will help bury my own . . . and how we can all learn this lesson together!

Reach out to me here, on Facebook, Twitter, MelindaFolse.com, or email me at mkfolse@gmail.com.

This post was originally published by Equisearch.com

Measure with the right stick (or tape).

by Melinda Folse News Riding Through Thick & Thin

Most of us have grown up with an idea of the “ideal rider’s body.” Whether that for you is a size or a number on the scale, maybe it’s time to re-examine your measuring device. Health and fitness experts — and even doctors agree that the better questions to ask include:

– How do you feel?

– Are you healthy?

– Do you have enough energy to do what you want and need to do?

– Are you strong, effective and safe in the barn and the saddle?

– Is your horse happy and healthy?

In a recent media brouhaha over this year’s Sports Illustrated swimsuit edition cover girl, Ashley Graham, I listened to the back and forth, between retired 70’s supermodel Cheryl Tiegs telling E! News she wasn’t happy with Sports Illustrated‘s annual Swimsuit Issue featuring “full-figured women.” The former S.I. cover girl said that a woman’s “waist should be smaller than 35 [inches],” and while she the found Graham’s face “beautiful,” she didn’t think it was “healthy in the long run” to put a curvier model on the magazine’s cover. And then came Graham’s rebuttal: “There are too many people thinking they can look at a girl my size and say that we are unhealthy,” Graham noted. “You can’t, only my doctor can!”

Tiegs later apologized, saying the media distorted what she was trying to say: “I was not equating beauty to weight or size, but unfortunately that is what the media reported in headlines,” Tiegs wrote in an open letter to Graham in the Huffington Post. “I was trying to express my concern over media images and the lack of education in America about healthy choices, thus the reference to the 35-inch waist as a guideline to health.” Citing Dr. Oz, Centers for Disease Control, Harvard University, and the American Diabetes Association, Tiegs is not wrong. Just maybe a little bit misguided in that blanket assumption.

In Riding Through Thick &Thin, we offer up all kinds of ways to incorporate “the holy trinity of fitness” into the day-to-day lifestyle of riders who are pressed for time in a way that would actually benefit anyone else as well. Making sure to do something (a little or a lot depending on how much time you can make available) every day — and to have a selection of activities you enjoy — in the three areas of:

Stamina (walking, jogging, cycling, swimming, aerobics, etc.),

Strength (resistance training with weights, bands, barre, core work)

Flexibility (stretching, Yoga, pilates, etc.)

With our daily commitment to the “holy trinity of fitness” we unlock the secret of sneaking up on overall fitness that, when paired with good nutrition, keeps us healthier at any size. It also nukes the “I don’t have time to exercise” excuse for even the busiest superhero.

And, while it’s true that if you commit to getting and staying strong, fit, and healthy, your waist may likely be (or start moving toward) that 35-and-under ideal, to say that’s the marker is just plain short sighted.

So toss out those measuring tapes and size 6 jeans, ignore the haters, whether their concern for your health is true or false, and put your attention on what you’re doing every day to protect your health by getting fit in these three important ways.

Tell me about your fitness routine. You can find me on Facebook, Twitter, melindafolse.com, or email me at mkfolse@gmail.com. I look forward to hearing from you!

This post was originally published by Equisearch.com

Accept All “Great Truths” Carefully

by Melinda Folse Riding Through Thick & Thin The Smart Woman's Guide to Midlife Horses Women and Horses

How do you know what you think you know on a given subject? In the horse world, sometimes the “great truths” handed down from our fellow equestrians, other disciplines, and preceding generations can be real — or the farthest thing from actual truth.

There’s an old saying I have always loved — and have experienced time and time again in interviewing all kinds of “horse people” for both The Smart Woman’s Guide to Midlife Horsesand Riding Through Thick and Thin: “Anytime you get three horse people together you will most likely find that they will not be able to agree on anything. However, when one of the three leaves the conversation, the other two will finally agree on one thing: the one who left was definitely wrong.”

I think the most important lesson to draw from this “great truth” is that while it’s important to consult the experts, to educate yourself and to listen to those who have “been there, done that” (do we really want to make all the mistakes ourselves?), it is equally if not more important to use the noggin and inner guidance you were born with to learn how to figure some things out for yourself.

How do you know you’re on the right track? You get quiet on the inside and learn how to really see what you’re seeing, hear what you’re hearing and feel what you’re feeling. With practice, this authentic, on-board guidance system we all are born with (but sometimes needs to be primed and rebooted, if you’re pardon the mix of mechanical and technological metaphor) will indeed help you listen, filter the advice, information and sometimes plain nonsense you encounter — and just know what you need and quite often, what your horse needs from you. Horses are great helpers for finding our authenticity — and discovering our own answers— but our part of the bargain is that we have to learn how to get quiet, use our innate gifts of observation and intuition, and teach ourselves to trust what comes. Give it a try and let me know what happens. I’d wager that every horse person alive has a story about this — I’d love to hear them! Please share them with me on Twitter, Facebook, my website, or email me at mkfolse@gmail.com

This post was originally published by Equisearch.com

Kick The Bucket!

by Melinda Folse Midlife Women and Horses

I don’t know about you, but now that I am definitely well into middle-age, I find myself thinking about that “bucket list” that seems more like something I used to hear my parents say they were checking off. Then I came across an article in Horse and Rider called “44 horsey things to do before you die.” Before I die? Whoa! I’m just getting the legal pad out to make my bucket list!

And then something shifted. As I read through this list, I realized that while they were all worthy entries, many of them didn’t fit me as a rider. With one hand reining in my escalating anxiety and the other gripping my pen, I began my own list―but instead of listing all the horsey things to do before I die, I decided to list the horsey things I’ve already been able to do. When I considered that just ten years ago I barely allowed myself to dream of owning a horse, the memories began to unfold of all that has happened and changed in my life since that 1000-lb lesson in abundance (as in be very careful what you wish for) arrived in my life. Because of this added horsepower, everything around me and within me opened up in ways “awe inspiring” doesn’t begin to touch.

So as I made my retroactive horsey bucket list, my bucket overflowed with gratitude for all the people, experiences and hard-earned wisdom these generous and wise teachers have brought into my life. So much has happened because of that single moment when I said “yes!” to a horse. And in reflecting on all that has happened, I can’t help but wonder what else may add itself to my list as I continue to follow where these horsey things lead. I like this a lot better than thinking about dying.

Seven of my horsey experience favorites — and their life takeaways include:

Open yourself to unexpected beauty. “Horse camping” on the 35,000 acre LBJ Grasslands — where a two-hour ride turned into an 8-our odyssey, but I didn’t care because of the surreal “pinch me I must be dreaming” beauty of this experience. Takeaway: If you open yourself to new experiences, you never know what unforeseen beauty may await

Be willing to do something badly. Ranch sorting — where my horse had a much better idea of what to do than I did, but we managed to live through the experience and even sort a few cows. There was also a reining clinic that was both an ugly and wonderful opportunity to push some edges I didn’t even know I had. Takeaway: You don’t have to be good at something for it to be fun; being willing to suck a little bit means you get to try something new. People can be surprisingly kind and helpful to someone who is trying to learn.

Get bucked off and then get back on. This is where the big girl panties come in handy — and where pain is relative to the experience, and working through it has its own surprises. Takeaway: The reward of the ride is greater than the pain of hitting the ground every once in a while.

Experience an exceptional pairing of physical and mental fatigue— where physical fatigue was only exceeded by mind blowing information overload. Takeaway: I’m stronger than I thought I was, more capable than I realized, and my innate curiosity and thirst for learning is a gift that keeps on giving.

Immerse yourself in learning. Working for and traveling with Clinton Anderson and the Downunder Horsemanship team, ask all the questions I wanted to, and then shape the answers into training tips, articles, newsletters and a book, Clinton Anderson’s Lessons Well Learned was the horsey learning experience of a lifetime. Ditto the time I spent with the Drs. McCormick at Hacienda Tres Aguilas and the Institute for Conscious Awareness. Takeaway: Opportunities come along — and may be fleeting — but if you can manage to grab them and give them all you’ve got, the doors they may open are unimaginable.

Share what you’ve learned. Pitching and writing “The Smart Women’s Guide to Midlife Horses” based on my observations, conversations and experiences, both while working with Downunder Horsemanship and with my own experiences, struggles and insights with my own two midlife horses. “Riding Through Thick and Thin” was an opportunity to draw from a lifetime of body insecurity and self-help study, delve deeper and meld with expert advice from the horse and rider arenas to create a new toolkit for riders and non-riders alike that could be a body image game changer, in and out of the saddle. Takeaway: Everything you experience holds a gift, both for you and for those you are able to share it with.

Find the right help. In retraining a horse that everyone else had long since given up on — where painstakingly slow, steady and deliberate progress yielded results beyond what anyone could have imagined. Takeaway: Listen to your heart, show up, slow down and move forward one step at a time to scale impossible mountains and discover unspeakable beauty where you least expected it.

How about you? Is a horse on your bucket list? Has a horse already supplied more joy than any bucket list can hold? I’d love to hear from you. Reach out to me here, on Twitter, Facebook or my website.

This post was originally published by Equisearch.com

Teach Your Fitbit™ to Ride!

by Melinda Folse Riding Through Thick & Thin

If you, like me, have joined the Fitbit™ craze and are challenging yourself daily to get those 10,000 steps (and are mystified at how MANY steps it takes to hit that mark consistently!), you may also be wondering how to calculate those steps — and the workout settings to use when you’re riding.

Now I do admit that I giggled a little the first time my wrist buzzed with the 10,000-step woohoo . . . during a long trot on Trace. I patted him and thanked him and gladly took credit for HIS steps, thinking that perhaps I was working hard enough to merit at least partial credit.

So when I found this great post by Susan Friedland Smith on her wonderful Saddle Seeks Horse blog, I was at once disappointed and encouraged by her bit of delving that helps clarify how we can use our Fitbits, ride our horses, and still get an accurate picture of how we’re doing when it comes to our fitness seeking goals.

I do encourage you to read the whole post (and a big shout out to Susan for doing this work for all of us!) but the upshot is that when we put the thing in workout mode, we can more easily see that a vigorous ride burns as many calories (and uses as many muscles, if not more!) than many popular gym workouts (Susan compares a vigorous, but fairly routine riding lesson to the calorie burn in her spin class).

The bigger issue with using Fitbit when riding is the step count. The challenge is figuring out how to subtract the right number of steps for the duration of a ride, and then go back to regular human step counting for the rest of our day. Susan says that she discovered that if we select “Workout” (which is technically horseback riding) and then the category of “Driving” from the drop down list on the exercise menu of various workouts, it gives a pretty accurate assessment of calorie burn during a ride. For the record, I do agree with Susan that a few minor coding tweaks would make Fitbit sales skyrocket in the horse world (are you listening, Fitbit execs???): “If the developers had foresight enough to know that equestrians would want to use a Fitbit for horseback riding to track fitness data, why not make a few coding tweaks so that when horseback riding is entered, it will deduct the step count during the timeframe in which the exercise took place?”

I also agree that none of these concerns or adjustments take away the the practical fun of using my Fitbit to keep myself moving toward my overall fitness goals. With this technology and Susan’s advice, (assuming we can remember to do it) we can tweak our settings, tap a button at the beginnings and ends of our rides, and actually get to count our rides as part of our exercise regimen. By being able to gauge the intensity of each ride as part of our “workout” (And understanding that we do need to do make sure to do other work to balance the riding muscle groups to prevent imbalance and overuse injuries), we can now give ourselves credit (and kiss our horses) for what is likely a major contributor to our overall fitness regimen.

As we all learn more about this great tracking device and discover more ways to tweak and use its features in ways that apply specifically to riding and barn chores, let’s share them here and start a groundswell that just might get the attention of those Fitbit and bring about the programming we need most!

Comment here, email me, or add your comment to Facebook, Twitter, or my website, and tell us how you use your Fitbit to track your progress toward your riding fitness goals!

This post was originally published by Equisearch.com

Once Upon A Time, A Horse (Part IV: Bonnie)

by Melinda Folse Women and Horses

Long before rescuing OTBs was cool, this story of an unsuspecting Bold Ruler filly stole my heart and broke it and gave it back again as I stayed riveted to page after page of Barbara van Tuyl’s novel that became what is now referred to as “The Bonnie Books.” For reasons I still don’t understand I connected with this story on such a deep level that I still think about it and its characters from time to time. Julie Jefferson was all I ever wanted to be. She was brave, compassionate, wise behind her years — and willing to do whatever it took to protect and care for this endearing horse.

I loved this story because it so plays into our “diamond in the rough” fantasies about difficult horses. For me, it also inspired patience beyond words with a horse that everyone who watched our struggles chimed in with a collective exasperated, “Give up, already!”. But a gruff old trainer emerged just in the nick of time and together, over a year of slow and painstaking retraining, we redeemed this diamond of mine and proved a lot of naysayers wrong.

We didn’t win any races, but we won the sense of accomplishment that can only come from solving a serious horse problem and coming out of it with a shiny, shorty prize you knew was in there all along.

Do you have a diamond in the rough horse story? How did you know? What did to redeem your own chunk of coal? Let me hear from you! Share your story (and photos if you have them!) on Facebook, Twitter, or MelindaFolse.com

This post was originally published by Equisearch.com

Equine Journal, July 2016
Riding Through Thick & Thin Book Review

USDF Connection, July 2016
Riding Through Thick & Thin Book Review

Born to Reign Athletics
Book Review: Riding Through Thick & Thin
Krista H. | June 30, 2016

A while ago, I was offered the opportunity to do a book review for “Riding Through Thick & Thin – Make Peace with Your Body and Banish Self-Doubt – In and Out of the Saddle” by Melinda Folse. As a former recreational horseback rider, back in my early teens and with more readers looking for information on this topic, I immediately said yes. So over the last couple of months, I have been emerged in this 418-page book.

Read more

Once Upon A Time, A Horse (Part III: Smoky)

by Melinda Folse Women and Horses

“I’ve never yet went wrong in sizing up a man by the kind of a horse he rode. A good horse always packs a good man, and I’ve always dodged the hombre what had no thought nor liking for his horse or other animals, for I figger that kind of gazabo is best to be left unacquainted with. No good would ever come of the meeting.”

— Will James, Smoky: The Cowhorse

My relationship with Will James began long before I was old enough to judge grammar or syntax — or realized that everything he says about men and their horses goes about double for women. All of this is excused here, because, as my dad explained, Will James is the real deal. He’s a cowboy that, for reasons no one really knows, spent a lot of time writing down the stories he lived, even though technically he could neither read nor write. (He also led a very short and tragic life, but at least he got the horse part right — and he followed his impulse to write about his experiences as a cowboy in a compelling way that no one else did.) For whatever reason, it was very important to Will to tell people about the horses and the cowboys he lived and worked with. Not only that, he wanted to share what he learned, understood and knew from curating these stories.

Will’s judgment of Smokey was spot on — and even though this little cowhorse with the great big heart endured a lot of peril, to have been so well-understood and deeply-loved by a simple cowboy was a gift and example that became the lasting and best part of Will James’ legacy. And now it is also mine. There is so much I want people to know and understand about horses and how much they can teach us. While most cowboys even today will tell you that there is no better teacher than a horse, it takes a little doing to learn to listen, observe, and understand.

Like Will, I have a deep need to share what I’ve learned and observed from the horses and riders and others who cross my path on regular basis (and even more regular when I put some effort into it!). And while, as the old saying goes, when you get three horse people together you’ll never get them all to agree on anything, you can usually get two of them to agree that the third one is wrong, I find these discussions fascinating. And, taking Wills quote above to heart, you can usually tell all you need to about each of the three by checking out what their their horses think of them!

That being said, and as one who has, As Will describes, “a soft spot in my heart” for all kinds of animals (and some would say a soft spot in my head to match!), stories about horses and their humans have always been my hands-down Number 1 heart-eyed-emoji fascination. And just like Will, I can’t not write them down.

What’s your horse story? What have you observed in the people and horses around you that seemed to reflect a far deeper understandings than was otherwise possible? Let me hear from you! Share your story (and photos if you have them!) on Facebook, Twitter, or MelindaFolse.com

This post was originally published by Equisearch.com

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Category: Projects

Get Ready to be Surprised

Measure with the right stick (or tape).

Accept All “Great Truths” Carefully

Kick The Bucket!

Teach Your Fitbit™ to Ride!

Once Upon A Time, A Horse (Part IV: Bonnie)

Equine Journal, July 2016
Riding Through Thick & Thin Book Review

USDF Connection, July 2016
Riding Through Thick & Thin Book Review

Born to Reign Athletics
Book Review: Riding Through Thick & Thin
Krista H. | June 30, 2016

Once Upon A Time, A Horse (Part III: Smoky)

Equine Journal, July 2016 Riding Through Thick & Thin Book Review

USDF Connection, July 2016 Riding Through Thick & Thin Book Review

Born to Reign Athletics Book Review: Riding Through Thick & Thin Krista H. | June 30, 2016

Equine Journal, July 2016
Riding Through Thick & Thin Book Review

USDF Connection, July 2016
Riding Through Thick & Thin Book Review

Born to Reign Athletics
Book Review: Riding Through Thick & Thin
Krista H. | June 30, 2016