What People Will Go Through...

Wow. Haha. I was reading yesterday on the Chronicle of the Horse forum and was browsing through the replies to "Funny, Mean, or a Combination of Both Quotes." Right now I am still laughing at the funny ones, but marveling [sp??] at the mean ones. People were talking about some clinicians calling them fat, stupid, and horrible riders. An especially infamous clinician [He is hunter jumper or something, I can't imagine an eventing clinician being this harsh - loyal to my sport. ^_^] He is a BNT... Big Name Trainer. There were several stories people were telling that I wasn't sure whether to cringe or laugh at. His name is George Morris... I'll just say GM.
One girl was sitting on her horse, listening to GM, and she yawned. He THREW DIRT IN HER MOUTH, and said, "Are you yawning while I am talking? You aren't a good enough rider to yawn. I can yawn, because I am better than you [big name rider here] can yawn, because she can ride better than you. You, not so much."
*cough* Yeah. I would have left, no matter how much money I'd paid... I didn't pay to be abused, I paid to be instructed....
Another girl was sitting on her horse listening to GM, and she looked down on her shirt and picked something off of it [a fuzzball or piece of hay or something] and GM MADE HER GET OFF HER HORSE AND ROLL IN THE DIRT because she was cleaner than her horse, and still picking things off her shirt. Don't ask me how he made her. I am a very quiet person when around people I don't know, which would include clinicians. But I would have been like... "No. You're being paid big money to teach me how to ride, not to tell me to roll in the mud."

One time GM made someone mad [though this time it was really a legitimate complaint that GM had... don't wanna go through the whole story] and the guy was like, "That is so rude! You're just being mean!" And... GM turns to the clinic auditors and deadpans: "But that's what I'm known for, isn't it?" and continued on with the clinic/lesson. hahaha. THAT one made me laugh. =P Because that time the guy deserved it. The other ones, not so much.


All this to say... I admire Jim Graham a lot more now. He yelled at me a TON at his clinic [so much so that my trainer's daughter asked me if I was nervous, then asked me why I hadn't been, because "He yelled at you... A LOT!" Of course, I got to tell her about my scary Russian coach for my figure skating power classes about five years back... I learned to take yelling early on, I guess. ;) haha.] but he would always say a little bit later, "You know I'm not mad at you, right?" Course, he DID get mad at me once... "GET YOUR HORSE IN THE BLOODY WATER!" were his EXACT words, I believe.... haha. But then he was like, "Okay, THAT time I was mad... but that's in the past now. Now I'm just yelling because I feel like it, not because I'm still mad at you." ^_^ Yeah... I'm going to stick with my nice, if a bit gruff, eventing clinicians that my trainer knows. I still want to ride with Laurena Bell...

And I know I've lost most of you by now, so I'll stop. =] haha.
Tina