Stay gone

So, after my spectacularly grouchy rage-flounce on Friday, how did the weekend go?

Well, fine I guess.

I spent Friday in a determined angry funk. Saturday was ok, nothing amazing happened and all of the events that got cancelled on Friday stayed cancelled, so I didn’t really do too much anyways.

I did go on a short run with my husband in the late afternoon Saturday- we did some hill work, which was pretty good, cold but good. Oats was fun to ride, though my shin took a beating when we misjudged a turn and took out a jump with my leg…Ouch! Have a bruise on there now, hahah.

Some light jumping, nothing too fancy, also some no-stirrup work which has me feeling pretty righteous actually!

Missing tail!

Sunday- I came to the barn and to my ultimate dismay…Oats IS MISSING half his tail??!! ARGH. His neighbour horse-friend, Jim, is eating his freaking tail. ARGHHHHHHHH. It looks so goofy now. I talked it over with Jim’s owner and we will be addressing this with fencing when she has the $$ to put into more fencing. In the meantime…She braided his tail to keep it away from hungry hungry Jim, and I had my friend Emma braid it last night when I saw it had come loose again. Maybe move to keep it in a tail bag next? SIGH.

Close up of tail.

Oats also got a bit of jump torture on Sunday as well. I had a wild desire to jump the mounting block, so I set it up like a big arrow, and jumped him both ways–with the arrow, and against the arrow-head. He was quite amenable to jumping it with the arrow, but against it? WELL. He was very perplexed! He wiggled, wobbled, stopped. Was quite sure that this was wrong! This is not a jump!

Jump the mounting block? Sure!

I coaxed him over the arrow-head at a trot twice, and let him canter it in the direction he was most comfortable with–I wanted to leave it on a good note for a good pony. He did try hard, even though he was very confused with what I was asking him, haha.

Um, no.

Last night I had another session with my equine counselor, and we confirmed that I am on the right track. She said I’m at maybe 50% right now, and with time will gain my confidence back, slowly. I am developing a level of body awareness that feels really cool though, and I’m giving myself chances to make the right choice for me. Sometimes that means bowing out of jumping the course a second time, or maybe I do it, but I acknowledge how it makes me feel.

More and more, I feel like I can make things happen when I am riding, I have agency. They do not just ‘happen’ to me anymore. The great distances I’ve been getting? Making that happen by allowing Oats to move forward more freely. Basically, managing will be the name of the game and I will have to work on maintenance with this issue.

I love it, weirdly. I am creating my reality, rather than letting it steamroll over me as a victim.

Tips for visualization: Equestrian style

Now, I’m not the strongest believer in this, but it’s been hammered over and over again in my head that positive visualization is a GOOD THING TO DO.

Summer Oats

Yeah yeah yeah I get it…So why does it feel so uncomfortable and awkward?

Why do I never think about doing it until someone reminds me?

I think it’s hard to do and awkward feeling because it feels forced, like you’re being asked to ‘imagine’ something without any boundaries of ‘what’ to imagine, or ‘where’ to imagine? We as adults, do not have that skill as easily as children anymore.

But, it is something I need to practice- like my knee exercises, which also feel kind of gross and uncomfortable, but something I do NEED to do.

So, where to begin? I felt like was bad at visualizing because I felt adrift…Like, what? How? If you let your mind go free, it usually starts thinking of all the BAD things that can happen- particularly riding. Falls, chips, long-spots, refusals, run-outs, ugly ugly ugly.

So, I thought long and hard about my recent jumping lessons (which obviously, since I’m going to the crossrail olympics, are excellent…)

Winter Oats (a few years back)

And voila! The hard part of visualizing positively started getting easier.

Here are my tips:

1. Make time. I make a point of visualizing while I am walking to work, takes me about 3-5 minutes during my 20 minute walk. My mind can ‘go blank’ for a bit during this.

2. Pick your most recent lesson and ‘see’ the course or gymnastic you were riding. See it in your mind, and go over it as if you are picking up the trot, transitioning (cleanly) to canter, and the heading to the first jump. ‘Ride’ each fence in your lesson in that course in your mind. ‘3, 2, 1, jump’ all the way to the final closing circle. You only need to do the 1 course per visualization session, because it’s kind of tiring for your mind.

3. Try to ride this course – from your most recent lesson- until your next lesson. Then you can ‘ride’ that course in your mind until the next lesson, and so on. I also try to think things like sitting up, elbows in, shoulders open while I ‘ride’ these in my mind.

4. Being repetitive really helps. By going over and over in my ‘minds-eye’ my most recent lesson, I can ‘see’ distances in my mind easier, and I have less ‘crash and burn’ visualization moments. It’s funny, but I actually found it quite difficult to even see my distances in my mind. When I thought about them I always got them wrong.

5. I even sort of make the motions of canter, jump, release while I’m walking and thinking. For me, it’s easier to be in motion while I’m thinking about the ride/visualizing, as it makes it a bit more active for me and feels more real and less forced/awkward.

Not that I’m an expert- I’ve only really started being more focused about making the effort for positive visualization when I realized I had a lot of ‘blank mind’ time while I was walking to work, so I might as well try to focus my ‘minds-eye’ a bit harder for a least 5 minutes of that walk!

And my jumping lesson (x-rails, yess) last night went very smoothly. So…It’s easy to get really discouraged and forget about visualization when you have a lousy lesson, or can’t stop running a loop of disasters in your mind, but ride those lesson that WORK in your mind, over and over.

Get fresh material without stressing your brain- use your lessons! They’re easy to think about (I think obsessively about them, so might as well use them as material for visualizing).

Love/Hate

Yep that’s me and Oats most days~

Rode him on Saturday and he was a twit! I was super annoyed, because I was still kind of riding off a pretty good high of him being really good in my lessons last week- decent lesson on Tues and great lesson on Thurs and then Saturday rolls around….And he’s cow-kicking when I mount up again, acting pissy and bucking at the TROT even, and dicking me around like crazy.

Me: Trot please. More forward!

Him: No! Eff you!!! I’m going to hop! Hop! Hop! Instead of trotting, how about a canter instead?!!’

Me: No, I asked for trotting.

Him: Pop! Canter! Up!

Me: Oh okay..fine then, canter.

Him: Wait…Cantering is hard. Balk hard. Return to slow trot.

Me: Cluck cluck! Kick kick!

Him: Did I hear you thinking of using your crop? *Threatens to buck*

YEAH….so…

Not very broke to my leg these days, still, again.

He did get to go for a walk with a young lady who will be hacking him for me and he was good for her! I was glad for that, it’s been a good year or longer since he’s been out on the trails…And his behaviour in the ring indicates more than a good amount of ring sour pissyness.

Sunday, I warmed him up outside and he was way more interested in life. Forward, happy, ears pricked forward and didn’t feel balky, poppy or draggy. Good! Moved him indoors for more work and he lost a bit of his ‘pep…Bad.

Monday he had off, and the temperatures have dramatically plummeted!

Tuesday I had off, so I rode early- no lesson for us yesterday. He was surprisingly good! Got some really nice trot, didn’t push the canter too much as I wanted to work more on my ‘eye’ exercises (3,2,1- jump!) over poles. Good news is that they are getting much better, phew! Maybe I’ll develop an ‘eye’ for jumping yet. I’m trying to stay a bit more consistent with my eye-counting exercise, at least 1X a week.

Also did two laps of 2-point w/no stirrups at the trot and almost died.

And thank the saints that Oats is not a reactive type of pony…His quarter sheet, to keep him warm, flew off his butt when I was leading him to the arena, fell off his behind when I was RIDING him (had to get off and pick it up off the rail!) and then fell off him for a third time when I was leading him to the stables, where it got stuck under his foot. JESUS.

I have to figure out a better way to stick it on him, or it will cause a major disaster for me one day…Luckily Oats literally didn’t even notice it once!! Even when it slid off his butt in the arena.