Your horse spooks at a flag flapping in the wind. You spot the judge walking to the arena. Your mind reels. Confidence sags.... Suddenly the excitement about the show turns to classic show jitters.

Why does this happen? First, be assured, nervousness before a show or any stressful event is not a character flaw. As human beings, we are simply wired this way. Like all animals, nature programmed us with a "fight or flight" response to keep us alive. We have plenty of practice overriding this response, but that doesn't stop us from feeling its effects.

When the body perceives a threat of any kind, several things happen. Depending on the severity of the threat, blood from your extremities is pulled in and held by the core of your body. This is to keep your heart and lungs working at maximum efficiency and to keep you from bleeding to death

if a saber-toothed tiger bites your arm or leg. Adrenaline is released, giving your muscles a boost in strength and ability. If you don't use up the adrenaline, your body begins to shiver. Muscles tighten and prepare to flee or defend. You try to relax but you feel helpless and uptight.

Your horse, being finely tuned to the twitch of your every muscle, believes you sense a threat. He, too, becomes upset and tense, trying to locate whatever it is you are threatened by. He is on high alert, waiting for the tiger to jump out from behind the judge's stand or from behind the flapping flag.

The affects you are feeling are functions of the autonomic nervous system, and, therefore, not controllable by your conscious mind. But does that mean you are simply a pawn to your body's ancient programming? How can you change your physical and emotional reactions to stress?

There are simple tools you can use to consciously change how your brain functions under stressful situations. These tools can ease, and sometimes even negate, the response of your autonomic system.


Let's start where it all begins, with the brain. The human brain could actually be considered two separate brains connected by a large bundle of nerves. This nerve bundle, called the corpus callosum, allows communication between the left hemisphere of the brain and the right hemisphere.

In the typical person, the left hemisphere and the right hemisphere have different jobs. The left controls things such as logical and linear thinking, focuses on details, breaks things down into parts, and includes your primary speech center.

The right hemisphere specializes in emotions and intuition, and is the center for creativity and imagination. It also enables you to see how details relate to each other and how they fit into the "big picture."

When faced with a stressful challenge, most people respond by automatically over-identifying with only one hemisphere, drastically limiting their response potential. The corpus callosum naturally shuts down under stress, leaving us with what could accurately be called, half a brain!

You can imagine how this automatic response could affect your show experience. If you over identify with the emotional side of your brain, you might lose the ability to tap into the very logical and linear design memory of a dressage test or a jump pattern. How many times have you or your friends gone to a dressage show and simply forgotten the test? The test was stored in the left hemisphere, so if you feel afraid and you are stuck in the right side of your brain, you no longer have access to the test!

If you over identify with the logical side, you may lose your emotional or intuitive contact with your mount. You may also disrupt the concepts of both the big picture and artistic expression so necessary for good scores in dressage and freestyle.

You may remember the pattern, but you might lose the rhythm as you lose touch with the feelings in your body as it moves with the horse.

You may remember a time in your life when you had strongly over-identified with one hemisphere of your brain. Perhaps you can recall an intense emergency where you felt no emotion at all, but took charge and took care of business (acting from the left hemisphere) without being hampered by fear or emotion.

Later, you might have been surprised when the corpus callosum started working again and emotions you didn't know you had, finally were expressed.

Or perhaps you remember a time when you or someone you knew were so overcome with emotion (acting from the right hemisphere) you were stunned into inaction and simply froze, unable to respond in any way. You may not have been able to talk or had trouble thinking of the words you wanted to say.

When things calmed down and the corpus callosum again became active, you slapped your forehead and shouted, "AGH! I should have said THAT!" The words were not available when you were in an emotional state because the speech center is in the left hemisphere, not the right.

Both these scenarios demonstrate what happens when the corpus callosum becomes a barrier instead of a bridge between the two hemispheres of the brain. It is easy to see why this hampers performance in any activity.

In our next article, we will teach you a simple technique that powerfully activates the corpus callosum and gives you back your WHOLE BRAIN POTENTIAL. This technique, called the VAK (visual, auditory and kinesthic) Balance, can be learned by anyone, and can even be performed while in the saddle.

You will be amazed at how quickly and easily you can halt the automatic response of over-identifying with one hemisphere of the brain, and how effective having your whole brain working for you can be when you are under stress. You will be able to watch your scores soar, as you will have the ability to use all your brain's potential without being short-circuited by jitters, nervousness, or fear.