Did you know Avicii wrote a song about dressage?

I had a discussion with a client the other day about acquiring feel for things, and I explained that sometimes you just have to feel your way through the darkness for a while.

Feeling my way through the darkness
Guided by a beating heart

That awkward, trying to paste all the pieces back together, 'am I even doing this right?' darkness when you're trying new things with a trainer, trying to determine if you can actually feel what she saw when she said, "there! That was it!" and you sit there thinking that it felt the same. But you try again, feeling toward another 'there', guided by your trainer.

I can't tell where the journey will end
But I know where to start

 Riding is a lifelong journey, but waiting to get the training I need certainly doesn't get me closer to my goals.

They tell me I'm too young to understand
They say I'm caught up in a dream
Well life will pass me by if I don't open up my eyes
Well that's fine by me

 My whole life is riding, training, teaching. I read books about training, I mostly only talk about training, and I spend the bulk of my days in the saddle or teaching people about riding. I have a lot of family who thinks that this monomaniacal focus is going to burn me out, or that I'm missing something important in my life. My best friends are my horses, and learning to serve them better by being a more balanced, more informed rider certainly isn't missing life... not by my measurement.

So wake me up when it's all over
When I'm wiser and I'm older
All this time I was finding myself
And I didn't know I was lost

 As I've embarked on this training journey with JM and Matheo, it's only served to further open my eyes. I've been making incremental progress in my own riding for years, but JM is only serving to show me just how many holes there have been.

I tried carrying the weight of the world
But I only have two hands
I hope I get the chance to travel the world
But I don't have any plans

 Many of my proudest moments have been watching my students get out there and perform to the best of their ability. I'm excited to see how far these talented riders go in their riding career, but mostly I want their education with me to serve as a grounding point for more than just learning how to ride. Also how to set goals, how to lean into discomfort, how to think about problems from many different perspectives, how to lead and how to follow.

I wish that I could stay forever this young
Not afraid to close my eyes

 I'm blessed by so many things - I'm a very lucky woman.

Life's a game made for everyone
And love is the prize