I hit the ground hard and felt his feet flying over my head. Just moments earlier, we had been standing quietly by the wall.

I’m a professional rider who spends a lot of time looking for what happens before what happens happens, as the saying goes. Sometimes you just don’t see what’s going to happen before it happens and it’s in these moments that we get hurt.

I was lucky this time— a mildly separated AC joint in my right shoulder and a bruised leg. After a few weeks, I’m already back in the saddle. But those weeks out of the saddle gave me something important to reflect on.

With extra time spent sitting with my a$s in a chair instead of a saddle, busy with lessons, office work, and liberty training, something obvious hit me: When my students struggle, I often take the easy route—stepping in and handling things myself rather than breaking it down and guiding them through it.

But what happens when I can’t step in? I find the holes in my teaching. I struggle to be clear, I lack creativity, and I have trouble rephrasing instructions when something isn’t clicking. Ironically, sitting in a chair all day exhausts me because even from outside the arena I can’t help but ride every stride!

So, if so much of my teaching relies on stepping in and “doing,” can I challenge myself to truly teach without doing?

Professionally, my job is training horses—mostly young horses across various disciplines. Working with horses is my life, my trade, my passion. But there’s another part of my job I didn’t train for: teaching.

I worked with my first paid client horse and taught my first lesson at age 16. Until then, all my education was about horses—not teaching. To be honest, I wasn’t adequately prepared to teach back then. And truthfully, am I today? I still haven’t attended school specifically to learn how to teach. Have you?

If your answer is yes, you’re in the minority. Most of us in the equestrian industry teach, but few have formal training in teaching methods, myself included. I find this lack of education unsettling as a whole. If you’re like me, you’re probably teaching without formal qualification. I figure it’s time to change that… and it starts with a conversation.