Moving Forward with Confidence and New Experiences!

What a tiring, but satisfying week it has been! I have been able to ride up to six horses a day, mainly because I am now pretty confident with my riding and can now ride Leonie's horses quite effectively. I have always been able to ride the ponies and a couple of young ones, but now I am able to ride some of the advanced horses too because I am much more in-tune with Leonie's structure and method of training. It feels great to be able to get on a horse that is trained in the same way as you!
So of course after riding many more horses a day, my riding has improved a lot quicker. This is ideal for the last couple of weeks in Germany before I go back to England. I want to leave here feeling like I achieved the most I could have in the space of time I was here, and I currently feel like I have done a pretty good job at that. Not only have I experienced transformation in my riding, but also in my mind and in me as a person. I have let go of a lot of things in my head that were holding me down, and welcomed new confidence-building thoughts that push me further ahead to new experiences and opportunities.
For example, this week I had the chance to ride a very green 5 year-old for a friend. After my first ride on Monday, I was asked if I wanted to take it to a competition on Friday (today). I rode it twice more in the week, and took it off to the competition today. I was so excited about this, that I was given this opportunity and created it off my own back. It came about from people that I knew, being involved in the right conversations, having the right skills and confidence to make something like riding a completely strange and green horse work, and being open to further opportunities to make something of it.
I didn't actually know that today was his first ever competition, so naturally all of the flower-pots that surrounded the arena were going to eat him, but apart from that he was a star and we get along really well. He isn't an easy horse, he is very sensitive and you have to be so careful, but I like that. The one thing I always have to remember when I ride him is to always ride to the next stride. He is such a forward horse, so if I ride him too backwards in trying to stop him or control him, he works against me. If I ride for every next stride, he can't get ahead of me and I always have the control.
 It was a really good experience for me too, to take a horse to his first show and see what happened. I am really interested in how young horses learn, and how they all have different ways of learning. I love taking the time with them, feeling them slowly starting to trust you and take those small steps to growing into a good, well-behaved, quality horse.
I get to ride the horse every day after work now. What a nice way to end my day! He is based at an absolutely lovely stable yard too, so it feels a bit like playing "My Little Pony" or "Horseriding Barbie" for a couple of hours!