Books; Cannot Teach One to Ride.

"I am responsible. Although I may not be able to prevent the worst from happening, I am responsible for my attitude toward the inevitable misfortunes that darken life. Bad things do happen; how I respond to them defines my character and the quality of my life. I can choose to sit in perpetual sadness, immobilized by the gravity of my loss, or I can choose to rise from the pain and treasure the most precious gift I have – life itself."

Walter Anderson

I beg to differ.

I do, however, have to agree that some people are not book-learners but are rather see-er's and do-er's. Nonetheless, many people are definitely very capable learning and applying knowledge reaped from the books they read.

I like to say that I am an example of a book learner.... if I have an interest in what is being taught.

I also should mention that I believe for more complicated endeavours, like equitation or whatever it may be, the person must have a good foundation before they can effectively build upon it from what they read.

 

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A couple years ago I was warming up my horse with another barn mate, we were chatting about things we had learned about such and such, unfortunately I don't recall what the subject was, something to do with greenies, but my barn mate remarked about how she enjoyed having our conversations since I seem to have a good amount of knowledge.

I then explained to her that I glean some of my best information from books and promising to bring her my favourites to borrow.

 

At the same time there were a few others in the arena, one finishing up a lesson with a coach, the coach quickly chimed in that my barn mate's money is best spent on lessons from a person not from a book because you cannot learn to ride from a book.

 

Said coach was pretty well known for being obnoxious and opinionated, which is fine, it is a free country, both of us shrugged it off thinking nothing of it and carried on.

 

 

Recently, I was reading an article by a respected equestrian, and he also stated the same thing.

 

"One cannot gain the knowledge necessary for proper equitation from a book".

 

 

This basically drudging up this past, however vague, memory of mine and I don't know why but I took a slight offense to it.

I love books! I have likely learned more from books than I have from actual coaches through my many years on horseback. Given you have to know how to properly apply the ideas and concepts written.

But buying a $40 book written by the greats like Anne Kursinski, James Wofford, Joe Fargis etc, in my opinion is a total bargain! These books are no less than a transcript of their lessons that you can refer to a hundred times over if you need to.

 

So why such an aversion to books? It is saddening...