Scared to Dressage

I mentioned the other day about the adult camp my riding trainer hosts down in South Carolina in March. Today I bought the airline tickets, so I am now committed to going. I am both excited and a little nervous, but I think overall it should be a really good time and I should get a lot out of it, hopefully coming home a better rider. As I wrote the other day, I really want to also use the scheduled trip as a target date for some initial fitness goals. I think it's just close enough to keep me motivated and far enough away that I should be able to make some progress by then.

This weekend the barn is hosting a dressage clinic with some fancy, impressive dressage rider, trainer, whatever. The clinic is on Saturday and then it will be followed by a critique ride on Sunday. Alison was asking me today if I was going to do the clinic and I said, "no, I really don't feel ready for that". I still feel somewhat self-conscious and not yet up to intense dressage scrutiny. I know that I've made a lot of progress, I'm doing much better, but still, I feel ... not ready. Or probably it's more the self-conscious thing. I want to feel like I'm further along so that I can benefit more from the fine-tuning that I would hopefully get out of a clinic like that. Rather, right now I feel like I'm still a little bit all over the place and flailing to just get smooth-ish transitions and a decent frame and true bending and, uh, the left lead canter consistently. Alison insisted that I am more than ready for this clinic and that there will be less experienced riders attending. I guess you can call it my own insecurities, but I'm still going to pass. I don't know why I'm feeling so fragile about it, but I do. Weird.