Beginner or re-ginner

There is a big difference being a beginner compared to being a “re-ginner” in many ways.

As a beginner, you are a clean sheet, everything you do, you do from the beginning and provided you have a good teacher you can quickly and easily acquire new skills. I remember an adult beginner that in a relatively short time learned to ride and with great enthusiasm during a lesson exclaimed .- Do I make a passing now?! (referring to a side pass) He had everything to gain and nothing to loose, it's the novice privilege.

As a re-ginner you have to face challenges on several levels.

To re-learn is more difficult than learning a new because you have to struggle with your acquired reflexes or so called habit. Since you already have some knowledge of the subject, you have to put up with reflexes that allow you to automatically act when something happens.

Sometimes you are aware of your reflexes, sometimes you are unaware of them and the latter can cause problem. I saw a lesson where the riding instructor wanted a pupil to raise the hand and the hand rose but it was simultaneously brought backwards. - No, the riding instructor said, not that way. I want you to just raise your hand. The rider made another try, doing the same as the first time. At that point the riding instructor walked over and showed the student what actually happened to the hands. –Oh, I see, the pupil said and at a new request the hands were raised without pulling the reins backwards. You can only change the things you are aware of, you need to become aware of yourself and what you are actually doing.

Once you become aware of what you do "when you do what you do" you will face the next challenge.
You need to find out what your new habit is going to consist of.

So intellectually, you are in the game but your body is unable to go for the new. It feels as it is resisting. If it is any comfort I have heard that it takes 10 000 repetitions to consolidate a habit. If the habit turns out to be something we need to address later on in life, it takes 10 000 reps to work it off and 10 000 to consolidate a new habit.

It is the stubbornly and tirelessly saying no to the first impulse (your old habitual response) and giving yourself direction for your planned new route that brings about change. Being bewildered, clumsy and wrong belongs to that part of the task. To make it easier and to give yourself the space needed to change it is great if you can blur the paradigm of right-wrong within your mind and instead see your chosen path as an experiment. Were the results of your experiment the expected? How well did you keep to your new direction? At what point were the urge to do as you usually did the strongest?

Once you know what you want, have a clear vision of how to do it and manage to prevent yourself from getting stuck in some old habit - then it is possible that what you want to achieve is done by you and for you almost without effort.

And if you can ease the demands of perfection on yourself with some good humoured self criticism and accept that being a re-ginner is going to make you feel lost and stupid at times, then you have given yourself a fair chance to succeed.

"If you stop doing the wrong thing the right thing does itself."
F.M Alexander