There is a little trick that can be very effective in riding.
It is called visualization. Before your ride, during your ride.
(However, you have to be willing to play along; to search your memory, to look for really good images in your head and to take the time to look more closely.)
It starts very simply:
Remember a moment in the saddle when everything fell into place. Everything was easy. You got it and you suddenly knew: this is how it should be.
How was that? The first time you felt what it means when the horse opens its withers? Or when your horse smoothly jumped a change of leg on a straight line? Or how did that one lesson go when you heard the advice to shift your hand a little bit to the outside?
When something clicked inside your head and there was a new sensitivity in your riding?
Which moment was that for you? Which was the moment that once delighted you? Search your memory.
Try to create an exact picture of every second inside your head once again.
Follow that feeling. Close your eyes and dive into it once more. Really sense it. The first smooth change of leg – what exactly was that like? You cantered through this corner, waited for the second track and changed it, gave the new command to canter, pressed the new inner hip forward – and tadaa! There it was.
Take exactly those personal highlights with you today. Once you arrive at the stable pause for a minute. Bring up that feeling. When you get into the saddle and start to walk switch on your inner slow-mo function. What exactly was that like? And then just ride. Without expecting anything from yourself or your horse. Find out what the image can do for you.