(“Shawna,” I asked, “Is your bedroom painted pink?”)
So many students have floated by me over the years. Some you’d size up and anoint with the “can’t miss” label. Then they’d get pregnant or join a punk rock band or god knows what. X them out! Others would plug along, ride a little bit, have some fun, and go on to kids and jobs and the rest of their lives. Maybe they’d come back to it—many of mine have—maybe not.
The “what might have been” situations in life and in dressage always fascinate me. Years ago I taught a young woman with some talent but unfocused interests. She had a little brother—ten years old at the time—and her mother asked me if I’d be interested in taking him and his pony on as new students. Thinking, “Just what I need, a little kid and a pony,” I politely declined. He grew up to be Tom Noone and represented the US in the World Cup in 2001, finishing tenth. Should I have told his mother “yes” back when? Would I have boosted him to greater heights sooner? Ridden his coattails to fame and fortune? Or accidentally persuaded him to switch to Ice Dancing? Who’s to know?
This past Sunday I re-encountered a student from the past. Here she is described in DRESSAGE Unscrambled. The lessons I was writing about took place seven years ago.
One thirteen year old girl came into a clinic lesson with a “project” Arabian. The horse was middle-aged and had had some years of practice getting his own way. He was very lazy to the leg and would only bend one direction, and that was only because he was so hollow to that side that he couldn’t have been straight.
His rider was very sweet but passive beyond measure, and it looked like it was going to be a very long forty-five minutes for me. Her making the horse round was out of the question. A lively trot wasn’t going to happen. Steering was unlikely other than in its very broadest definition. The kid just seemed helpless.
We pursued attention and energy through a bunch of different exercises, more or less to no avail. Finally I called her over to me.
“Shawna,” I asked, “Is your bedroom painted pink?”
She looked a little dumbfounded and answered hesitantly, “Yes.”
“And do you have a canopied four poster bed with chiffon ruffles around the top?”
“Yes,” meekly.
“And do you have your walls covered with shelves filled with stuffed animals?”
“Um, yes.”
Raising my voice, I shouted (kindly), “Well, for heaven’s sake, could you please just GET A LIFE??!”
She seemed startled but took my remonstrations in stride. Later, as the lesson was wrapping up pleasantly, I gave her some homework till the next time.
At that first lesson she’d been accompanied by her Dad. The next month she arrived with her Mother instead, and the first thing Shawna did was show me her fingernails. She’d done them for me in Goth Black nail polish.
And she rode like a Changed Person! She could make her horse go forward. She could leg yield down the track nose to the wall, make a partial turn on the forehand and leg yield back. Her horse really behaved! As her Mom said to me afterwards, “I haven’t seen Shawna ride for a long time, but she can make Princess go where she wants now!” It’s a Concept, I thought. It could have happened years ago, but better now than never!
And “the rest of the story” . . .? Having not seen her all this time, I was mightily pleased that—at age 20—with the same horse she looked absolutely poised and confident, able to put Princess on the bit, balance her, and have the ride she chose to. Regular nail polish now, but a whole new riding persona that “stuck.” Seven years ago I hadn’t thought it could come to this, but it did! And these “miracles” happen often enough to keep me coming back for more.