The Underrated Secret of Top Equestrians: Warwick Schiller's WEG Journey

I know you’re all here because you’re interested in improving your mental game. You might be all in! Or you might just be curious and not sure exactly what mental performance even means. And there’s a good chance that even if you see the benefits you’re wondering how common is this stuff? Do other athletes use it? Do other horsemen? (Quick answer: YES! Mental Performance is a big deal and actively practiced and coached in pretty much every big league sport except horses. We’re a little late to the party, but getting there).

Today I wanted to share a story with you of professional horseman Warwick Schiller. He competed in the 2018 World Equestrian Games (WEG), and as part of his preparation he spent almost a year working explicitly on his mental game and mental preparation.

Here’s his story. (This story is adapted from an article he wrote after his experience to share how important mental performance is to the rider).

Warwick starts his story by sharing that when you ride your horse and you compete, there are limited things you can control. But you can control your thoughts and your actions. (And ideally, through your thoughts and actions you have some level of control over your horse).

Well, where do actions come from? It’s a reasonable supposition that our actions originate from our thoughts – making them of utmost importance. As you ride, you’ll find that you need to either think about something; to focus your thoughts and attention. And, in stark contrast, sometimes you’ll need to not think about something. (It’s cryptic, but Warwick gets more into it).

Let’s set the stage: you’ve got a horse show next weekend, and as you think about it, you start getting more and more nervous. As a matter of fact, you aren’t prepared at all, you think to yourself. It’s pretty typical to feel anxious before a horse show. You’re worried something might go wrong, that you and your horse will blow it and not perform a maneuver well. Warwick brings up that it’s not a problem to have those thoughts, but what matters is what you do with those thoughts. That’s what determines whether you experience your success or failure.

Did you catch that? Your success or failure is determined by your mindset and your response to your thoughts! Note: You are not your thoughts! And, you have a choice how you respond and interact with your thoughts!

Before competing at the 2018 WEG for Team Australia, Warwick and his wife Robyn received what he called “fabulous” coaching from New Zealand Mindset Coach Jane Pike. I love and totally agree with Jane when she says that, “You can’t move away from something, you can only move towards something.”

Yes, preach it Jane!

Warwick shares a story that Jane uses to illustrate this point. She says, “Ok, I want you to not picture a big blue tree. I don’t want you to picture a big blue tree, and I also don’t want you to picture a yellow bird at the top of that big blue tree. And while you aren’t picturing a big blue tree with a yellow bird at the top of it, I want you to not picture some green grass at the foot of the tree.”

Three guesses what you are thinking about, and the first two don’t count.

You are absolutely thinking about a big blue tree, with a yellow bird at the top, and some green grass at the bottom. You can’t not think about something – you can only think about something else.

So how do you NOT think about that big, blue tree? Imagine something else! Warwick thinks about a basketball. If you’ve ever held a basketball, you can feel its textured skin, the weight of it in your hands. You can feel how full it’s pumped up with air, and if it’s a new, bright orange ball, or an old, faded ball. You may even feel the black lines in the leather, or smell the rubber.

As you imagined holding a basketball, you saw it, felt it, maybe even smelled it. You sure didn’t see a big blue tree, did you? This viscerally illustrates how you can’t not think about something/ can’t move away from something; you can only move towards something.

As it applies to performance, we have to think about what we are choosing to move towards. We have to actively imagine what we want to have happen instead of what we don’t want to occur. So if you are nervous about your lead change, when that anxious thought enters your brain, you need to change your thoughts from, “it’s going wrong,” to “here’s what I need to do to make it go right.”

Warwick says for him it’s a combination of doing the training at home with your horse, trusting the training you’ve done, and mentally rehearsing what you are going to do before the show to ensure a clean lead change (aka visualization). He likes to say the words of his visualization out loud (I’m glad I’m not the only one!), and that doing so helps him slow down and regain his composure.

Warwick gives a detailed example of what that might look like for him. “I’m going to get straight a little early in the center, then I’m going to leg yield him off my right leg a touch, keep looking and thinking straight, then slide my left leg back, and when he changes then I’m going to slowly look right and start to steer that direction.” Note just how detailed he is in his visualization. I always say the more detailed and vivid your visualization, the more benefit you get.

Our minds are so powerful, and where we place our attention and focus matters. The more we focus on what might go wrong, the more likely we are to have something go awry. Consciously placing our thoughts on what we need to do to have a successful go means we are more likely to have a successful outcome at the show.

Warwick shares that he’s honed this skill of learning to shift his thoughts and shift his focus over many years of competing as a reiner. But for the 2018 WEG, he learned a new skill. The skill of not thinking about anything.

He and his wife Robyn decided to make a go to qualify, and in addition to entering bigger shows to practice performing under pressure, he worked with Jane Pike who has a background in Neuro Linguistic Programming. He says her approach blended well with the meditation, yoga and mindfulness practices he’d been working on that year.

Leading up to the WEG, Ms. Pike coached Warwick and Robyn on their mindset, and taught them some breathing techniques. Warwick says these techniques came in very handy in the days leading up to the competition. Any time he got nervous (i.e. he caught himself thinking about future events and not being present), he would just do the breathing exercises Jane taught them, and his anxiety “would disappear.” I mean, if that isn’t the best testimonial for conscious breathing I’ve ever heard! As Warwick puts it, their horses were solid and it was a time for not thinking about what they were going to do.

“I would employ the breathing techniques Jane had taught us, and my anxiety would disappear.”

During the first round of individual competition, Warwick says it was the most relaxed he’d ever been showing a horse. Period. While there were a few times he felt anxious in the warm up pen, he just did the breathing techniques Jane showed him, and “a clear, calm focus would come over me.” Robyn had the same experience.

When they arrived, they both figured if everything went right, they and their horses could score a 217 ½. That first go-round Robyn got a 218 and Warwick marked a 217. As good as they could’ve hoped for.

The second day, again, anytime they felt anxious they just focused on their breathing which helped them relax and take their mind off the competition. Amazingly, Warwick says he’d heard about being “in the zone” in sports, but he’d never personally experienced it until that day. He scored a 220, and Robyn a 220 ½, both just out of the finals but much better than they had hoped to score as a personal best!

Warwick shares this as testament to the power of the mental side of competing with horses; especially as he felt he was out of practice after not competing for three years. He says his physical game was not as good as it had been, but that his mental game was much better. In fact, it was at a much higher level due to the mental coaching he received and his new ability to “not think about anything.” (AKA present moment awareness). He ends by noting that it took a lot of work outside the show pen to ensure that whenever a moment of anxiety came up he was mentally prepared to handle it and bring himself back to the present moment and embrace a calm state. (A gentle reminder that mental training does take concentrated work and effort).

I love this story! How empowering to think that even if your physical riding skills are a little rusty, your mental game is so powerful it can quantum leap your performance! And that even top riders employ visualization and breathing techniques to stay on their A-game, and conquer anxiety.

This is why I LOVE this stuff. It really just works. I love practicing it personally, as it is so powerfully transformative. And I love sharing it with all of you! I hope this inspired you to keep at it!

With grit and gratitude,
Nicole

PS- We’ll be opening up the barn doors to a small, select group of students for personalized mental coaching soon. Go HERE to get on the waitlist to be the first notified!