And We're Back!

Hello all and welcome to the new and improved blog. First, I must apologise for the lack of content until recently. Over this past year I have been extremely busy on my Master of Science course in Sports & Exercise Psychology which, I am happy to say, I have successfully completed and aim the graduate in November from Sheffield Hallam University.

Not only this, I have produced research for my post-graduate thesis which is now on the way for the talent development Excel programme for developing world class riders competing for Great Britain. For some who do not recall my last blog, I did indeed produce an undergraduate Equestrian research paper which is in the pipeline for publishing. Not a bad feat for a student eh?

So, from here I want to talk about a little bit about stress that we experience in the competition environment as riders. We've all been there, we've all had that one round or one day that just goes “belly up” and we can’t seem to fathom out why. There will always be a day whereby everything we do will go from bad to worse, and it can be from even having a previously bad day out competing to things just not working the right way that day to if you recently parted with an ex-partner….Well from experience I have got to say, sadly, the false Occam’s Razor for some riders (and some trainers/coaches) have been that of "It’s the horse / other riders or even the grooms" blame game, sadly more so the former than the latter.

The story for most of cases is the polar opposite from the truth. Indeed, there are scenarios where the horse in any sporting situation can go wrong within his perception (but this is as with anything in life, we're all at fault at some point). However, it is noted this case is true in the small percentage of times and indeed the horse depends on the rider more than the rider depends on the horse. As riders we know what is coming next whether it be a fence or movement, therefore it is our job to see it through for the horse- rider success via planning and visualising well in advance. When the rider falls short of what is expected of them, for instance to get over a combination or set up a movement for the test, then we cannot expect the horse to adjust unless they're honest enough to get themselves out of the situation. Yet we can rely on this at times, though it must not be a dependency as many trainers will class the first time an issue arises whereby your steed has helped you out at competition as a "get out of gaol card". This will only happen once in the day from my experience.

So where does this issue come from? Well the answer can be that yes, the horse isn’t listening to our aids or bails at the last minute which is a valid point. However today I’m going to overlook this variable and talk about the reasons behind lower performance from the rider point of view of keeping your cool under pressure... Stay with me now!

Within Psychology, we speak of psychological arousal, anxiety or "stress", the point at which we demonstrate ourselves to deal with a stressful specific scenario. Psychological Arousal is affected within all of us, it is how we deal with it that tells us how we succeed or fail. Indeed, a great notion of this comes from the well knows Inverted U Theory- Founded by Yerkes and Dodson (1908) whereby they state that arousal (stress) aids our performance to a peak. It is this peak performance plateaus with the amount of stress, if we carry on taking this on aboard and we cannot control the stress we experience then we then begin to reduce in our performance -leading to more stress and a bigger decline. Indeed, this can either be a quick and or slow procedure dependable on the discipline, but even then, the variables can be sporadic as we all deal with stress differently. For example, let’s look at an Eventer, you may have a superb track record on the Dressage and Cross Country, but the stress of the crowd in the Showjumping ring may be that extra bit that tips you over the edge. Another example is of a Dressage rider, they may find the canter elements easier to tackle with their horse within a test, however when it comes to a upward or downward transition to trot, this stress may go over peak due to a prior issue to which they may potentially attribute a stressor to. Therefore, they gain a lower mark on the canter-trot transition as they became too stressed in which this transferred to the horse and the horse became tense (in this situation). An explanation you may be thinking is that they must practise their transitions, which can be true, however we need to delve deeper into this context of the rider. Why is it they have this issue? It could be from a previous time whereby a negative event triggered a conditioned response to which that rider now associates with, therefore every time this transition occurs they become “too stressed” as they are conditioned to a negative past event. This element produces a cloud in our head, whereby we cannot think nor see clearly in the situation, therefore we panic and are unable to look ahead to the next phase or movement. This demonstrates is a cognitive overload and takes up a huge amount of thinking power in our head that we are unable to dictate to a more effective use. As I hope you can see, we can begin to see that the source in question to our human performance at a competition directly comes from one aspect, our mind.

The mind is a powerful tool which can project us forward into sporting highlight success, however on the flip side this tool may play counter intuitive and prove detrimental to us. I must admit, I have fallen victim to this aspect within the Inverted U Theory and even from the more in-depth version of Catastrophe Theory (Hardy & Fazey, 1987). This theory is an advancement on the Yerkes and Dodson model whereby when stress becomes too much in the scenario that our heads go into overdrive and we cannot think more perform adequately and therefore performance drastically drops. Think of it as a parachuter in the sky who is trying to slowly come down to earth, at the start they jump out of the plane and pull their chute gaining full control. However, on the descend post chute deployment, that chute is being torn and battered by the wind and they descend quicker to the extent whereby they begin a free fall as the chute is inoperable. Previously they were in complete control, but then gradually and dramatically they have lost all control. This exactly mimics our mind but working at a much quicker pace, for instance, you may be at a qualifier round and the warm up is fine, but as soon as you enter the ring you "lose it" as the stressor is too much to handle. Then it becomes a downward battle to regain control. To the untrained much like myself previously, this is a phenomenon which must be overcome if we are to proceed. Fortunately, we are not locked in the darkness as there is light at the end of the tunnel, with training and time, we can overcome this negative situation. The Astonishing thing is that this even affects the top riders, okay it might not affect them in terms of Catastrophe Theory as they have spent years training against such. However even little pieces of over arousal may distract riders to which they may make a mistake at the wrong split-second moment, for riders this can be crucial, especially at team games.

So how do we overcome such issues of our mind? Well fortunately there are many aspects in which we can address and deal with said issues, it all depends on the rider perceptions and willingness to participant to have an open mind and accept the bizarre phenomena of Psychology. I know this does sound very vague and/or even alien, however, our own Psychology and its utilisations are not a quick fix, but more of a random jig-saw puzzle that we chip away with time at to make the full successful picture.

I hope that I have given you a little bit of insight into what may present or explain why we and others experience pressure and how we deal with it as athletes. Within my next blog I will aim to inform you about the relaxation techniques that you can use at home and within the sporting context to aid you with pressure/ stress coping.

Till the next time.