One of my greatest passions outside of academia is horseback riding. This is a sport/art I have been involved with since my family moved to a farm when I was 5 years old. During the time I lived on that farm, elementary and high-school years, I spent the large majority of my spare time riding our horses, taking riding lessons from neighbors in our small community, and showing at local agricultural fairs. My passion for horses, carried over into my day dreams and other hobbies. For example, I love to draw and from as soon as I could hold a crayon until the end of high school, almost every drawing I did was of horses.
When I moved to Canada’s capital, Ottawa, for university I quickly grew accustomed to city life, but greatly missed my favorite hobby. Within a few months of moving to Ottawa, I found a stable not too far from Ottawa, just south of the city, where I arranged to start taking riding lessons. The stable was beautiful, as were the horses — far fancier than the riding I was used to from my small town. I was excited and intimidated.
At my first lesson at this fancy new barn I confidently tacked up my horse, led him to the indoor riding arena where I took the saddle with confidence. Unfortunately, that confidence faded rapidly once the riding lesson began. My instructor asked me to move my horse to a trot, which I did, and then she watched me ride around the arena a couple times. She quickly started loudly and repeatedly yelling at me to “stop bouncing your hands around”, and “stop pulling on his mouth”. After what seemed to me like an 5-10 minutes of yelling, I brought the horse to a stop in the middle of the arena and tried to express how intimidated and nervous I was, and that her yelling was only exacerbating the situation. Her response to me was shocking — she asked me how I expected her to teach me to ride her horse if I couldn’t keep my hands quiet. I was on the verge of tears, not knowing what to say or do. She was my teacher, and she was asking me what to do. That night I left the barn and never returned. This demotivating first lesson at this stable ended up being my last horseback riding lesson before I gained the nerve to try again 5 years later.