There is a well-known anecdote about the famous UCLA basketball coach, John Wooden. He coached his team to ten NCAA championships in twelve years. His men’s basketball team won an astonishing record eighty-eight consecutive games.

Apparently, one of the very first lessons the players received from Coach Wooden was how to put on their socks, and how to properly tie their basketball shoes. This would take these college-aged players by surprise, but out of respect they complied. It might not have been the initiation that was expected, but the Coach’s logic was this: he didn’t need a good player unable to get on the court due to a nasty blister from a scrunched-up sock.  It’s pretty hard to coach someone who can’t play, and little things can take you out of the game.

I’ve struggled with bad circulation and cold feet my whole life, suffering through every winter of riding with chilblains, a medieval sounding affliction in which the hands or feet turn ice cold as capillaries contract and draw blood away from the area. When the circulation finally returns to the capillaries, it’s quite painful and the skin swells.

On one memorable ride when I was nineteen or twenty, we were gathering cattle in January. There wasn’t snow in the canyon rangeland where the cattle wintered, but it was well below freezing. My feet were numb and even getting off and walking didn’t help. We had to stop and build a fire so I could take off my boots and socks and warm my bare feet by the flames.

After seasons of trial and error with various socks, warmers, and overshoes, I’ve finally found a system that works to keep my feet warm and dry. It sounds minor, but it has made riding through the winter so much more pleasant! I know I’m less tense and irritable when my feet are comfortable.

In his wonderful book about his three years of daily riding at the Spanish Riding School, Charles Harris wrote brief notes from each of his lessons, accompanied by clever sketches. One of his earlier entries is about the correct fit of riding breeches, as he had a disastrous first day on the lunge line in a lesson with no reins or stirrups while in new breeches that weren’t tailored correctly. It was apparently very painful for several days.

He also recommends (with a drawing of toast) having only a light breakfast of bread and jam before lessons, especially lessons on the lunge line. Anything fatty or heavier should wait until after the ride, he says. We can only assume a heavier breakfast revisited him in an unpleasant manner while sitting the trot with no stirrups.

The lesson here is to get your systems in order, to support yourself. And, to support your own efforts in every way possible. This can mean doing some gentle stretching even though you are tired, it can mean making sure your boots and gloves are dry after your last ride. It doesn’t have to be an expensive new saddle pad or more lessons. It can be turning off your phone at night so you have more energy in the morning or silencing your notifications at the barn. What is a small change you can make to reduce some friction, figuratively and literally, in your dressage practice?