Leela was on the Indian equestrian team; she was at university but had no time for her studies; however she had to do them to pass her exams and that was what I was hired for. 

It was a very taxing appointment as she was obsessed with riding and wanted to spend every waking hour with her horses at the stables. She was also very competitive and wanted to be first in every riding event. I had to find a way of making her competitive in her studies as well. 

At first she resisted studying. She said bluntly that she did not have time to study and didn’t see the point of it. I began by asking her to give me just half an hour a day and she reluctantly agreed to this. During these half hour periods I gradually convinced her to think in depth about her future: did she just want to be an equestrian or did she want to broaden her interests and experiences and even own her own business one day? Slowly she came to see that she needed a degree to diversify her interests and she reluctantly agreed to give more time to her studies. 

Half hours became hours and gradually she was willingly spending four hours a day studying with me and enjoying it! I was amazed at how she channelled her determination towards her education as well as her dressage and jumping. 

In fact she is very intelligent and she became an exceptionally good student; she had simply duplicated her enthusiasm for riding and applied it to learning. This took some time, but once she had done so she really enjoyed balancing both equally. Passion for horses had taught her a lot about perseverance and commitment to see things through. 

It was wonderful to be a residential full-time tutor to somebody who applied such determination to whatever she did and I ended up enjoying my time with her immensely. However there were times in the first days when I thought that I would never get her to leave her horses and study with me sufficiently to assure success in her final exams, but she did and with great success! LJ