Hard but worth it

I had a sports psychologist session with the great Dave Freeze yesterday, right before my riding lesson and it was really insightful. Weirdly I cried on and off the entire time, but I didn’t feel sad- I felt pretty good. And my face didn’t get all red and hot like real tears, I felt fine, no puffy swollen eyes, nothing. It was just emotion, coming out like how it wanted to!

Whee! Jump jump. From a lesson a few weeks ago.

(As a non-crier, it felt weird).

Anyways, it was a lot to go through and I felt kind of wrung out by the end, but I have some valuable tools to work with and the best part- I was able to head straight over to my lesson after and put it into practice!

Basically to sum it up all I have to do for riding:

1. Show up
2. Give it my best
3. Manage my mistakes
4. Learn
5. Look for high powered FUN!

Easy right? Ha! But yes some good things to work on.

Go Oats go!

I went into my lesson feeling pretty good! Almost immediately I had some ‘external bubble’ things to deal with- it was freezing, so I was shivering and had to grab my gross old barn jacket to wear. No problem, addressed.

Then, Oats was really draggy and non-interested in my warmup. High headed, kind of frustrating, slow off the leg, reins not there, spooky and generally not paying attention. Spooks? Over and done with. Letting it go.

Funny thing, this was a very awkward jump. Looks fine in a still eh?

Lazy? Deal, don’t dwell.

I was actually pretty good at managing my emotions well in the warm-up, whereas I know I wanted to get frustrated. But you know what? Regardless of how he warms up, I can manage MY emotions- I can’t manage his. So, I will do that!

Anyways, the warm up for the course was good for the first half, and then the second half I got left behind a few times, Oats was hesitant and backed off. No problem. I will go around and try it again! See how that goes. (better).

Jumping the coop. It is so pretty!

Course time- I was a bit nervous- see the backed-off part…But I thought, hey let’s just see how this goes? I make a mistake, I manage it. No biggie. And you know what? It rode really nicely! Not perfect (HAH) but pretty darn good.

We did the course once, and I had some fleeting thoughts of doing it again, but decided against it. I have to minds of this. Sarah A and Sarah B.

Sarah A: You are a chicken! Why didn’t you ride it again? It went so well, what are you afraid of, screwing it up??

Sarah B: The course went well and you managed all your minor errors. Nice work. Why don’t we take that good feeling home and know that you can be kinder to yourself on a day that you already did a lot of personal work? There is always a next time to ride a good course.

See where I am going with this? It’s tough. I want to be Sarah B all the time 🙂 And if I was, I probably wouldn’t even be writing this! Moving on…ha.

In control or being controlled?

Had my dressage lesson last night (shoulder was still kind of bugging me) and also I did a session with my equine counselor on Monday. A double-whammy, of sorts?

My life right now.

It was a good time to top-load my learning. After a disappointing weekend, I needed to take stock of what was happening to me. I did this in two ways- processing it with my equine counselor on Monday, and then physically riding it out in my dressage lesson on Tuesday (working on balance).

Wish I was on the beach today!

Monday- We discussed my fall, how it happened, how I can regain my sense of ‘self’ when I am riding, to bring me down when things get really ‘up’ and ‘high’. She brought up an interesting question- was I really ‘in control’ and calm when I jumped up and got back on and rode Oats through the course, even though I was hurt? Or was I forcing myself to do it?

It’s hard to say. I am going to say I was present and there, but it still freaked me the hell out. I just knew that I HAD to get back on, and go do it! I’ve done those jumps a million times before, so I knew what I had to do. I was still frazzled though, and that led to another stop.

In the past, that would have 100% led to me stopping entirely and giving up. Like, I can’t even fathom dealing with this even a few months ago. No WAY would I have gotten back on, not asked to have the jumps lowered (this went through my mind in a flash, but I left it alone and just jumped it).

So, is that also progress?

Maybe?!

This led to my work on Tuesday with my dressage trainer, Karen Brain. She asked how my weekend went, and I said it was bad. I came off from jumping ahead at a jump and hurt myself. She asked how I fell off, and what did I think caused my jumping ahead?

Well, I said in the outdoor I feel like my balance isn’t great going downhill, that I tend to hunch/curl in a fetal position even though I know it doesn’t help. Oats jumps flatter, I overcompensate, and bang- not successful jumps. How do I fix my insecurity and confidence riding downhill?

Well, we do it through a LOT of very uncomfortable, gross, bouncy and jarring transitions. Up and down. Up and down. Walk- trot. Trot-canter. Canter-walk. Down the hill we go! And wow they kind of felt…AWFUL! But did they work? Yes ma’am.

We worked through the transitions rapid-speed, and by maintaining a leg-yield feel through the whole ring. Yes that’s right- Oats had to be polite or else! Leg-yield city! (well it was modified). I rode them through in ‘the backseat’ position and tried hard to not get jarred out of position or pulled through the transitions. It was a lot harder and uglier than I expected, and this is probably the ‘training’ that I really needed to do, but didn’t want to do because of how nasty it feels!