What Does Mario Kart Have To Do With Horses?

Abby Karecki and trainer Kris Wallace as Mario/Princess Peach and Luigi/Yoshi at the 2011 Haunted Hunter Pace

This past week I was on a family vacation at the Lake of the Ozarks. While there was plenty of fun to be had (and I did sneak one trail ride in there), I didn't get to spend my usual quality time with horses. But you can't stop me from thinking about them and turns out you can draw equestrian learnings from anywhere. Including Mario Kart.

Those of you who know me in person are aware that I am very pale. So as much as floating around in the lake all day sounds like a great idea, it's not very practical for those of us who are lobster-inclined.

Which means I had to find indoor activities to fill my time. We finished a puzzle, I worked on some art things, and in a more social vein, someone brought Mario Kart. I will admit, we played a lot of Mario Kart.

About Mario Kart

The nice thing about Mario Kart is that it's easy to share. Every couple of races we would swap controllers, someone would arrive, someone would leave and we ended up playing with many different family members which was fun.

The other nice thing about Mario Kart is that it's pretty friendly to a range of ages. I think our youngest player was 6, and our oldest in the 40s. As with anything, people were a wide range of experience levels. Some had played it a bunch, some never, some a long time ago, and some only intermittently. But we could all play together regardless.

It's hard for me to imagine someone who isn't at least somewhat familiar with the concept of Mario Kart, but here's a run down if it's totally foreign to you. Basically you choose a Nintendo character to race against your friends and/or computer generated competition. The tracks are in all sorts of crazy shapes and locations. You pick up various power ups along the way which will either give you a boost or will interfere with the other racers. The game meant to be more goofy than real and often gets pretty chaotic.

Regarding Race Results

As you might assume with any race, the goal is to finish in 1st place. Or at least, that is a pretty common interpretation of the goal. But we have to realize that it's not actually a race, it's a game. And the goal of a game is to have fun.

I think we all can appreciate that winning is really, really fun. But if only 1 person wins out of 12 racers, does that mean only 1 person will have fun? I certainly hope not!

Here is what I observed as we played during the week. Age didn't matter that much, it was those who had played the most (read: practiced the most) that tended to win or score well. Those that had never played or only intermittently might occasionally have a good race, but in general were at the back of the pack.

I think pretty much everyone improved from the beginning to the end of the week because of the increase in play time/practice. Makes sense overall.

Race Mentality

Here's where age did matter. The younger the player, the more unhappy or disappointed they tended to be at not coming in first or not consistently placing as well as the more experienced racers. These younger players were also more likely to be apologetic to their teammates if we were playing on teams.

In cases where the experienced players were also older, they knew how to tease each other and make good-natured jabs. There's a skill to lauding wins without actually making anyone else feel bad. The younger racers who performed well would try to mimic the same thing, but often ended up boastful or accidentally sapping the good feelings out of those who were doing less well.

My Race Experience

In general I did not play very well because I have never owned the game and only ever played intermittently. I would finish last or almost last quite often. As the week continued I  would start to finish middle of the pack more often and even occasionally have a good race and win.

What was interesting was that at the beginning when I was finishing last it was fun and laughable. When I was finishing middle of the pack it felt good because I could tell I was improving. And when I finished in 1st or 2nd a couple times it felt great. But somehow once I had done that, it was hard being happy with middle of the pack anymore.

Middle of the pack was enjoyable because I knew it was progress. Middle of the pack with occasional wins is even more progress. But all of a sudden I was wanting to compete and compare myself with those who have been playing much longer, and I was frustrated and disappointed that I couldn't keep up.

And this is how I was feeling, a supposed adult with strong mental fortitude and logic reasoning. I think the younger the player was, the more exacerbated these feelings became.

How Does this Relate to Horseback Riding?

Because we do the same dang things all the time! Not just in competitions, but even in day to day lessons. We have a strong tendency to compare ourselves to the other riders. Watching and learning from other riders is a great thing. But we need to remember that regardless of age, even in lessons that are grouped by skill level, everyone has different amounts of riding experience.

You may have made amazing progress and earned a place in an intermediate lesson after only a year of riding. You absolutely have the right to be there, and you should be proud of yourself. But that doesn't mean you should compare yourself to another intermediate rider who has been riding for 5x as long.

Be Careful How You Compare

In Mario Kart, if you decide not to care about your placement at all, that may work for some people, but usually that causes players to become disinterested. If placement doesn't interest you at all, the whole game becomes meaningless. Instead, the key to having fun is to pay attention to what place you finish in, but compare it to how you have done previously, not to the other players.

Progressing and learning and growing is what is fun. We can all improve ourselves, but we can't jump ahead to where someone else is. We have to put forth the time and effort, just like the other person did.

It's hard because we often don't see the other person's time and effort.  It seems like magic or innate skill instead. Have patience with yourself and stop trying to measure against someone else's experiences instead of your own.

A Tangent About How We Talk

In Mario Kart the older players were able to tease each other and boast their wins while still having fun and making everyone feel good. This applies to riding as well. Talking with each other is great. I love the team spirit we have during lessons at CEC.

It's natural that a younger rider still needs to learn the tact and perception to be able to tease and build up other riders. Mistakes will happen, but as long as we keep the mentality that our words matter to each other we will be on the right track.

We also need to be mindful of how we talk to ourselves. It's easy to fall into negative self talk internally, things like:

• I'm letting my team down
• I'm the worst in this class
• I'm probably annoying people with my questions or shortcomings

Try to identify those negative voices and rewrite to something more positive. This is where some friendly teasing can often be helpful. Humor and patience are key.

If you see or hear another rider getting into this funk, try to help them remember to have fun. You can't rewrite their internal narrative (they have to do that for themselves) but you can help break through the monologue.

They may seem upset, like they don't want to talk, but in my (admittedly limited) experience engaging them in conversation is exactly what they need. They need the distraction, a reminder to come back to earth, a chance to feel the horse, enjoying the animal, to remember that this is supposed to be fun.

Back to Mario Kart

Over vacation I was among the oldest cousins, and one of the "adults" (scary!). Which put me in an interesting position to observe how the other kids were playing with each other. I felt that as an "adult" it was my job to try to steer everyone to as harmonious play as possible.

Emotions can run a bit high in Mario Kart, just like they do in riding. Emotions are not a bad thing, but sometimes they need some helpful redirection. Whether that's by taking care in what we say to each other and ourselves, or by making sure we are aiming for the right goals and making worthwhile comparisons.

It's strange to get equestrian epiphanies from playing Mario Kart, but my brain is just wired that way. We have to remember that riding isn't really a race or a competition, it's a game. And the goal of a game isn't to win or be the best. The goal is just to have fun.