Focusing forward

Dressage lesson time! Now, I knew Oats’ big energy from the past week was gone, so how would he be? WELL, hilariously he was good to warm up and when we began the real work, started getting silly about the back door being opened.

I got mad. I mean come ON we had a good warmup and you give me this? Looking for an excuse??

From a few years ago, looking good!

My trainer was pretty funny about it, she said well look at it this way- not EVERYONE wants to go to the gym to work hard and he just isn’t like that. She said we need to channel it, use it for good- not get angry. Fair enough!!

He worked quite intensely actually, I was very surprised. We hadn’t had a ride that intense since…Over a year ago maybe? We did a big power trot, and went into leg yield, shoulder-in, haunches in, and work, work work work work! Bending in a BIG bend, getting the outside rein active (ok, this is the part that I suck the hardest at….and never really got it 100%) and just powered along!

I was tired, Oats was sweaty! We really hadn’t had that kind of big intense riding yet this year, as we were definitely playing it safe.

Though, we did no-stirrups for the canter work and then I had to work harder than Oats, haha. The right rein had some lovely downward transitions, the left was a work in progress, and not so great, hahah. BUT we got some really solid work out of him and were able to amp up the intensity in a way I have been kind of leery about. Go Oats! By the end he wasn’t sweaty but I was 🙂 I guess he’s getting in good shape these days.

No jumps and all poles and bending make me feel something something

Ohh yeah, I didn’t update this from my jump lesson on Thursday because it ended up NOT being a jump lesson, instead more like an exercise in frustration with poles! UGH!

Miss jumping outside, and well, can’t we just just jump it? haha.

We did this crazy zig-zag course with like 10 metre canter turns and wow it sucked and we were bad at it. Like, really bad. Oats was dragging me through my outside hand, and for probably the first time ever my trainer was shouting at me to halt and then canter. Halt? Oats? His preferred gait is ‘standing around doing nothing’ so I was pretty surprised. But it was true…I was getting dragged and he was getting heavy and together we were going nowhere.

So the poles did not get put to jumps because we were kind of sucking at it so hard. I was sweating, Oats was sweating and it was just a lot of work and not the really fun type of work, the really hard type of work.

I then went home and pondered on it. Not fun but hard. Hm.

And practiced it a bit on Saturday (getting schooled again by the idea of a dressage canter and not holding a line to a pole correctly..ha). I let it go a bit on Sunday and schooled some easy lines to the World’s Smallest Xrails. Another trainer or kid likes to set jumps that are so small that I think Oats finds them hard to see, let alone jump! But I was also feeling kind of lazy (weekends, and a long run will do that to you). I left them and we schooled them.

All in all, ok. But man…Feeling like a plateau in my riding for sure. ARGH.

Never Enough

Jump lesson recap: Spoiler- it was a really good one!

Poor old Oats had a rather strenuous jump lesson the day before with Sarah (and it turned out really well, and they had a good lesson) so he wasn’t exactly ‘on fire’ with me on Thursday, but he managed to pull some enthusiasm together and we did it.

I am learning how to take screenshots! Still in the indoor though. Proof that we jump oxers, haha.

We worked on pieces of a course, first trotting some x’s on the diagonal, cantering them, then cantering them as verticals, and then cantering a five-stride outside line. And then it was time to get technical!

The course had two bending lines, riding off a jump from the diagonal to the existing jumps in the five-stride outside line. We practiced one of them, and it went fine, so it went up to a vertical and it was coursework time.

(Note: this all happened gradually and even though we only rode the course once, because we practiced so many of the elements, Oats was huffing and puffing and working QUITE hard.)

We started the course and I was feeling apprehensive. He didn’t exactly have a ton of energy, and I was having to work hard to keep that engine rolling. We did have some ugly jumps (well, who doesn’t) but I was determined to ‘stay in the now’ and keep focused on the course, not on my emotions.

And funny enough, my counting, 1-2-1-2, to keep the rhythm, actually really helped!

I was rolling on course, things were really working for us both! Until I forgot where I was going and had to circle for the next bending line- oops. No worries though, we just circled and Oats was GAME ON. He was awesome! He rocked it and I felt fantastic.

It was among the only jump rides where I was feeling like, this course could keep going and I’d be totally fine with it! Instead of wishing for it to be over and rushing to the last fence. Who is this girl?

We even got a chance to try the skinny set in the centre-line. We had to approach it coming off a diagonal fence, and then a tight right turn (10 metre circle practically) to ride up to the skinny. My turn kind of sucked- went wide- but made it happen!

I was so happy, what a rockin’ course.

Nicole even let us finish on that, as she thought Oats was getting tired and didn’t want to push it until things fell apart. We rode well together and it was sooooo fab!

I love that while I was still feeling a tad anxious, I could acknowledge those feelings and keep riding my horse. Sitting up. Hands low. Riding each fence as it came- so much so that I lost myself in the course and didn’t want it to end?? 🙂

 

 

A challenge

So I went into my dressage semi-private last night feeling prettttyyy good about things. Got my saddle, had some good rides the other day, and was on a PLAN! (work on lead changes).

What? You were expecting greatness?

Yeah, no.

I was feeling cocky, and horses are very talented at bringing you down a peg or ten.

Short story- no lead change work, in fact I couldn’t even manage trot work….When asking for a forward -connected- trot, Oats would only canter. And canter. And canter. And canter. It was exhausting, we spent most of the lesson in canter.

Why was this happening? A few reasons.

He was losing his balance at the big trot, looked for me to fix it, I see-sawed both with my hands AND my body (great move, me. Not!) and he would hop into canter to fix it. Sighhhh…When that happened, I would shift forward ever so slightly and raise my hands= go horse, go!

Except, no.

It was quite a challenge and really brought my good vibes down. But I didn’t let it get to me, it was just a of work on a night when I thought things were starting to come together for us. Sighhhhhh indeed.

Small victory: When we did this work last week, my lesson mate and I both had trouble ‘telling’ when the horses were backing off the contact at a slower trot. This week, I could tell instantly when Oats was getting too fluffy in the contact, and backing off. I couldn’t exactly ‘fix’ it very well or quickly, but I could tell!

Small wins, I guess. Story of our life, hahaha.

Oats desperately needs to be clipped. He was SOAKED in sweat after. I had to cool him out for hours!! UGH..

The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.

I’m reading Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa right now due to my Kobo being seriously out commission and found this quote by her that really appealed to me.

Had my private dressage lesson last night with Karen Brain and Oats, and we got a chance to re-visit the rather challenging ‘simple’ exercise of Sunday, of cantering down in a straight line off the track.

No dressage media, so here is a photo of my husband cuddling Gidget like a baby.

I warmed Oats up and he was coughing a lot with the dust in the arena…It’s weird because it has gotten flooded in the close end of the arena, and then it’s so dusty in the far end. I know it gives Oats trouble, particularly now as allergy season/dust season rears its ugly head. So our warm-up consisted of a lot of coughing from him, until he cleared it and was ready to work. He was fairly stiff, and not moving great at the walk and canter. His trot felt ok though. His canter was heavy and kind of draggy, on the forehand, and I felt like he was kind of dragging me down.

I was telling Karen this and we decided to work on some lateral movements at the walk, as I said his walk felt really sucky. So, we went straight into head-to-wall leg yielding, transitioning straight, and then haunches in, and then transitioned back to the leg yield. Oats was GREAT! So compliant! It was amazing!

He usually fusses and fights a bit, but I was able to lighten the reins and really work with him. Quite pleased.

We then worked on walk-canter transitions (they also sucked at first, wow…) that was fairly tricky because Oats was like…blahhhhhh at first. From the canter transition, we worked on lightening his shoulders by not getting me dragged down in the tack. It felt weird to keep my hands so high, and my hips/shoulders pulled tall and back, but it worked. His canter was more uphill and forward, and we took it to the ‘off the track’ exercise at the canter with a LOT more success than I had on Sunday when I tried it.

He still broke to trot one time when he fell behind my leg, and we got 1 swap as well, but overall it was a higher quality attempt and his canter was really nice.

I was very happy with Oats’ attitude towards our dressage work- it does NOT come easy to him, like jumping does. Good boy!

Struggle-bus dressage?

I noticed I’ve been complaining about flatwork a lot lately- in all honesty, Oats has improved by like, 100% and my ‘wanty’ behaviour is due to the things I now think we are capable of doing…

Another time when he was sweaty too!

Like yesterday- our dressage lesson was pretty good, I wasn’t scared off anything and Oats didn’t bug me too much. But, things like- he wouldn’t trot when I was asking for contact in a medium-low stretchy frame- he would only canter. And canter. And canter. For a pony who has the HARDEST time going forward, it’s quite interesting to ride him when he finds canter easier than trot. I wanted trot though, so I was like wtf horse, why won’t you just trot?!!

But, as my trainer pointed out, if he’s doing the exercise well enough at the canter, leave it there for now. It’s mentally doing the job that you need–you can get nitpickier about the gait later. Fair enough!

So, we cantered–seeking the nice, stretchy lower-frame work that we tried to get in trot. And then we eventually got it in trot!  And the tried for it in a quieter, more compressed trot to transition to a small canter. This was met with mixed results- Oats started being a twit about yanking the reins out of my hands and tossing his head…So, back to the drawing board.

I found (again) that I let him buldge off my right leg going left. Oh and I rely too much on my inside rein to keep him in corners- this has been plaguing me on my jump lessons bigtime!

It was a very sweaty lesson. Oats had rivulets of sweat running down his forehead! If he’d only trot, I’m sure it would have been much less sweaty, but you know, ponies…No sense reasoning with them!

I did give him a very big and long head-scratching session- as dictated by me so he doesn’t rudely shove his big head on me- and he LOVED IT! And he got some more candy canes as a treat!

Long may you run

Return of the semi-private dressage lessons! My lesson partner was on holidays, so Oats and had the luxury (torture?) of two private lessons, and one week off when I was recovering from running the half marathon.

No fear, we were back in action this week and Oats was in rare form…

Flinging his head around and being fussy at any sort of lateral work. NO! I don’t do that anymore!

Good- offering up a LOVELY canter when he was being asked for:

• more trot,
• contact in the trot,
• bend in the trot.

All seem to equal = Ok mom! I will canter! It will be the nicest canter, because I don’t want to do any more of those other things.

I actually even let him canter large, and into a pretty fair circle, when he offered it up so nicely the zillionth time. That is not a bad problem to have right now, haha. I did get pretty annoyed at his arguing about things like mild lateral work, or bend, or going forward with *gasp* any sort of bend…

It makes my lateral work look and feel like the biggest pain in the ass and hard work!

Well, it is a phase right now. Next week he may be more cooperative. And let’s face it- small victories here with his canter. It was just so good. Wheee!

Wild rabbit season

It was good to have my lesson partner back, and never fear, we were completely soaked in sweat (me more than Oats, hm…) after my lesson. Oats gave Karen a good staring at when she was leaving, haha. And I saw three wild bunnies in the paddocks when I was riding Oats back up to the barn! Happy Easter to you little guys. 

Strengths & Weaknesses: Horse edition

And this is all about weaknesses:

So, I’m including a photo here that I think neatly displays one of my major faults: Busy, erratic hands that fly up, and I yank on the inside rein.

Now, I actually like the photo (the composition is lovely! Good action shot!) But DAMN, does it ever show what is going wrong.

I have problems in the dressage ring with this behaviour- oh, he’s not turning in a circle at the canter fast enough?Yank upwards! BANG! A huge buck by Oats and off I go. SHIT!

And unfortunately I got too busy with my hands this weekend. It was a really nice weekend, hot, sunny, lazy…And I got cranky and annoyed with Oats. Unreasonably so..

I guess I was hot, cranky and not feeling it. Oats, in turn, was not HAVING it. So, we rode along for awhile getting on each other’s last nerve. Ha.

I was too busy with my hands- and remember last week I wasn’t keeping his attention with my hands? Well this time, it was too much! I can’t win!

He was fussy, spooky and being ridiculous at the end of the ring. I was being annoyed, pully and grabby.

It was definitely not a win, haha.

So, yesterday I helped out at the barn clean-up day, wore a tanktop and athletic shorts to clear blackberries (ask me again what a bright idea that was) using an electric hedge trimmer. It was actually tough work! My back hurts today!

But, after the work, we had a nice potluck and I did a bit more blackberry trimming, and then saddled up Oats and went for a fun ride in the field, wearing my shorts. It was a quick, fun, and productive ride.

Gone was the pissy-grabby-sucking back BAG of a ride we had on Sunday. We cruised in the field, he was a bit spooky, but we got some really nice forward trot/canter work done. YEAH!

Some days, I guess, you need to toss it up and tool around in the field for 20 minutes…

Lesson tonight with Karen Brain!

(Photo courtesy of the talented Anne-Marie Sorvin)