struggle helps you grow

Today was my second day of volunteering, and again I learned A LOT! Today I really got to experience how totally different lessons can be. My first two lessons went really smoothly (well minus Zorro not wanting to move forward). It is really incredible the variety of people we have in the lessons and their ability levels, however they all still present challenges. The last lesson of the day was pretty rough for all of us. But I learned three very important things that will be very helpful later when I begin teaching as well as in future lessons. The first is the importance of keeping a quick pace. The faster the horse is moving the more the rider can engage in learning and riding. As soon as lessons start to slow down people get distracted and traffic jams start to happen. The second is the importance of your body position while leading the horse. The horses are specifically trained and learn to carefully follow whoever is leading them, so if your body position is back behind the horses shoulder they will become confused and not keep an even pace. The third was how to specifically deal with people who have autism. I've learned a lot about autism in school, but putting all that book knowledge to use in the field is a hard thing to do and you can become easily frustrated when things don't seem to be going your way. This happened to me today, but I'm proud of myself for not loosing my cool when it seemed that I had lost my connection with my rider. Instead I had to think really hard about how to keep his attention. I really put my critical thinking skills to work today! I understand that not everyday can got 100% smoothly and I really appreciated having a lesson that I really had to struggle with, it really gives me an opportunity to learn under pressure and stress and overcome a difficult situation.
I can't wait to get back out to the farm next week! I really wish that my schedule worked out better so I could go out there more than once a week... Hopefully I will be in the spring!