Passion/Torture??

Tonight the 'road to a show' continued. We were working on going S L O W E R at the walk. Which kind of means, actually walking! It gets a little intense sometimes with the trainer bellowing in the middle of the ring and the rider silently making adjustments on the rail. I didn't realize just how intense it apparently looks until I rode past a family watching their daughter with her lesson. I wasn't frustrated or flustered at all, as I've said before I've been down this road and know pretty much what to expect. I know that in the end I will once again have my mannered, prancing, show-stopping horse back, and it just takes some determination (and LOTS of sweat) to bring that out. But unfortunately this process was new to a Grandma watching from the rail. As I passed by her (red faced and sweating) she remarked that 'I thought riding was supposed to be for fun! That looks like torture'. Hmmm. It kind of made me laugh a little, but also to think. Whenever you see someone achieve something, i.e. winning an Olympic medal, winning a football game, running the fastest marathon time, winning a spelling bee, etc what you don't see is the HOURS of time it took to get there. You don't see the blood, sweat, and tears. You don't see the determination in their eyes when they realize this is much more difficult than they ever imagined it could be... You only see the end result. As my trainer put it tonight: 'Showing is easy, it's the training that's hard'. But in the training is when you find out what you are made of, and for me that's been the most rewarding part. Torture? Maybe, but only to the uninformed.