Nerves

I get so nervous when they call my name, so nervous my horse gets nervous, too. I take 3 deep breathes but it doesn't help. Have any ideas of what I could do to calm my nerves.

Just try to be confident. Say to yourself "We can do this" and talk to your horse about how great you're about to do. And just have a "even if we mess up, it's okay because there's always next time, and this is a great learning experience" and "we'll give it our best shot" kind of attitude. You've trained hard for this moment, so it's your time to show what you've got. Usually the worst that can happen in a show is not doing as well as you'd like or embarrassing yourself. (Not counting the idea of you or your horse or someone else getting hurt of course)

Even if you don't /feel/ it at first, it's mind over matter. Keep telling yourself these things, and it'll help, and your horse will be less nervous too. Shows are meant to be fun, and if you're too nervous to have fun it's not nearly as... fun. The thing is, you're going to do things in life in front of people where you're nervous. You just need a good attitude to get through it, and to stay calm and focused. Good luck~~ :)

Exactly!!

There's nothing wrong with being nervous; but you need to control how that gets relayed to your horse.

I find what helps me, if I am starting to feel jittery, is just stop my horse, close my eyes, and take a BIG SLOW breath. Slowly exhale it and just focusing on relaxing my body. When I open my eyes, I feel much better. Then I just try to imagin how we are going to execute the perfect run, step by step in my head. I go in there confident that we are going to make that perfect run I have in my head. Note that I did not say we are going to walk in there and win. I want to accomplish the perfect pattern that I imagine in my head. If we can do that, awesome. If not, then I know what we need to focus on more, next time. If I happen to place or win with a good run, so be it!

Focus more on the run you and your horse want to make, rather than thinking about how you are going to place.

DoubleJ2, don't feel bad! Me too.... mabe worse than you. Im actually getting ready to post a thread later about it! I've worked myself up so much for a show coming up this weekend that I've developed my chronic anxiety disorder again! I havent had any symptoms for 3+yrs and it back! : (

I am terrified until I finished my run, then Im smiling ear to ear! But when we're waiting and getting closer to name calls I wanna puke. When my name is called Im havign a heart attack!

Ride for the Ride not the ..... ribbon, time, prize, purse.

That's the most important thing I've learned when it comes to competitions.

Im certainly not doing that, lol... my horse is green broke and just starting a lope. Im nervous at crowds, lol... and being watched and judged and picked apart, b/c Im new to riding and make mistakes.

LOL, got news for ya, most of us are way to busy making our own mistakes, fixing our horses mistakes and mostly trying to stay alive in the show/competition arena to judge, pick apart or be otherwise than SELF absorbed. I don't know where you ride, but at most of the shows I'm at any more, there's nobody watching that isn't also competing.

Once you've been around a little while you'll figure out that getting into the moment and seriously, Riding for the Ride, is all it's about and pretty soon you won't even know there's anyone else there. I just got done at a pretty big show and went in a class with over 20 competitors and my trainer and a friend were 2 of them. After the ride I told them both, "I wished I could have seen your rides but when I'm riding Moonie (my western pleasure gelding) we're the only 2 in the ring.". They assured me that there hadn't been anyone else in the ring for them either.

Honestly,nerves is a terrible feeling!I sure know it too!I have the exact same problem.But one thing that helps me is...music.Inspirational confident music.I loaded my IPod with songs that made me feel like I was on top of the world,and the event before mine,I listened to them.

It really helps!

Also,I get nervous when people make really good runs then it gets me thinking,"OH NO!!!I am not that good!!I won't do good and people will laugh!!!"So,I stopped watching other people's runs.It let me go in there not knowing what I had to beat,so it let me do my best and not go out there and hurry and make mistakes!It helps! :)

Honestly,nerves is a terrible feeling!I sure know it too!I have the exact same problem.But one thing that helps me is...music.Inspirational confident music.I loaded my IPod with songs that made me feel like I was on top of the world,and the event before mine,I listened to them.

It really helps!

Also,I get nervous when people make really good runs then it gets me thinking,"OH NO!!!I am not that good!!I won't do good and people will laugh!!!"So,I stopped watching other people's runs.It let me go in there not knowing what I had to beat,so it let me do my best and not go out there and hurry and make mistakes!It helps! :)