Pam Poole. Life coach, equine confidence and equine rider mentor

I don’t know what I expected really but was confident I was in for a most interesting evening on Wednesday 27^th August. Pam delighted and surprised an audience of over 40 last evening at Waimakariri Riding Club monthly speaker dinner. Others will take away different points but these represent mine, Gwen.

So, to start with learning, is uncomfortable and messy. For both horse and rider! I liked how she talked about understanding the specific context. I also liked how she talked about understanding your own competence and confidence. These are now the same concepts. And perhaps consider how these things change over time. The example she gave was thinking about putting on a halter when you first started to learn compared with how you manage and think about those kinds of skills now.

I also liked how Pam talked about the intentionality of rider was important in influencing small things. We have perhaps been socialised into thinking big things are the most important gains. However, I think Pam is right … the small things are really important and influential.

She had a lovely diagram that reflected how we change and learn. Starting with unconscious incompetence we move into conscious incompetence, through to conscious incompetence and onto unconscious competence. Don’t know about you folks but think I am somewhat stuck at conscious incompetence sometimes!

Finally, I rather liked this saying ‘Horsemanship is the art of mastering our own movements, thoughts, emotions and behaviour. Not the horse’ . We can decide what to do next.

If you are still interested feel free to follow Pam’s podcasts are on spotify.