Time owes you nothing

And enough with the running, how is the riding? Pretty darn good! I know my dressage these days is…Not great (that’s what happens when I do it unsupervised, it kind of sucks, ha) but each ride I come off my pony thinking, I’m so lucky to have such a great schoolmaster! 

Oats in his other job- carting my husband back to the barn. 

And isn’t that what it’s all about? Being happy with what you have, the horse you have in this moment of time? Even when it is distinctly non-glamorous work (walk- canter departs yesterday, I have to limit how many I do because it is tiring for Oats).

Yesterday Oats even had a chance to play school pony, for my friend’s adult niece. The young lady had a ride on my friend’s horse and he acted kind of out of character and freaked the niece right out! I was very surprised, this is a horse that I have literally gotten on and like, whaled on him to get him to go! And he’s spooky and acting silly with a beginner rider? Wha?

Such a good boy 🙂

So I offered up good old Mr. Oats for a pony ride! We felt it was important that she have a good experience with a horse, and I offered that Oats is smaller, closer to the ground too 😉 Ian said why would you say that (hahhh) but it makes people feel safer!

So we got her up on Oats, and I just held him still. She teared up! But I said look, it’s ok. He’s not going anywhere. He stood still for a bit, and then we walked around and everything went totally fine 🙂 I said- you’re in charge of the ride, you tell me when you want me to stop. And everything went fine, and no fuss or drama. Yay! What a good boy.

It just gladdens my heart to see him being such a solid little guy. Not only am I enjoying my rides, but others can too.

And on Saturday I worked on the most boring of things, but it seemed to be a little rusty…halt-trot transitions. Yay?? Ha. Oh well! Such is the tedium of the day-to-day eh?

Try

Had a jump lesson last night, after a really slack week of riding (mostly in the field, and an equine counseling session). My focus for the jump ride was twofold: work on managing my anxiety during jumping with a few more techniques that I was developing with my equine counselor, and see what I can do about the ‘spur-suasion’ situation with Oats.

Screengrabs from jumping in the field last week. So fun and so HOT! I miss that!

And did I achieve these? YES I did! It was by no means perfect (haa…) and I almost bit it hard when I decided I would ‘see’ a distance, and jump for it by spurring Oats – whoops- while simultaneously jumping ahead onto his neck. He declined my dumbass move and I wound up on his freaking neck. Yikes!

However a few good takeaways- I was able to vocalize and manage my anxiety, to the tune of having an excellent first jump on-course both times! And my first course was just lovely, no complaints. And we rode through a grid many times and it went quite well (grids are usually my absolute nemesis, ha).

Love our homemade x-c course.

I even kind of fumbled the grid after riding the course – I got a bit backed off and less generous with my body- so I decided unilaterally that I would ride it again!

That to me is big- I quite often get backed off and decide that NO that’s it. Even during the second course, when the wheels kind of fell off and the cracks started showing…Part of me was really bummed that our first course was pretty great, and the second sucked. But I had to put that part of me away, and just. deal.with.it. Pretty? Ha no. Challenging? Oh yes. But workable? Definitely!

I think slowing things down, really allowing myself to ‘feel’ all of my nervous energy helped me have a lovely first jump each time. The rest will come.

Rain, rain go away

As I am far behind in my recaps…I did a jump lesson in the pouring rain on Thursday and I did it pretttttyyyy grudgingly- hello, it was pouring!!

Nicole however, insisted we do it to practice for the upcoming SSITS Avalon Derby Cross that we had signed up for and I guess she was right, we needed the experience jumping and toughing it out in all weathers, as it poured rain on our warm-up day Saturday at Avalon as well! Hm..good thing I had Thursday under my belt.

I was feeling weird before my lesson. Kind of angsty- thinking about the show, bummed about the weather, just kind of strange. We came down to the arena and Nicole was bundled up in a tarp like this:

Photo courtesy of Sarah C. Horses didn’t even blink!

Ha! And Oats, good pony, got a good look at her but then didn’t bat an eye when she was rustling around moving jumps, even when we were like behind her and the tarp was louder. Good pony! The jump course was the same as last week, which I was thankful for, as it gave us another opportunity to work on some aspects that kind of bungled for me–the turns, and forward, and bravery.

Trainers have to stay dry somehow! Desensitizing horses=win/win! Photo courtesy of Sarah C.

Not that I didn’t still make mistakes- in fact, the final jump (10) I bungled so we looped around and just jumped it on it’s own, and it rode really well! Also the jumps that had oxers went up to oxers- which did make me nervous, and they didn’t ride well for me- I kind of tried to chase Oats past his distance, so they were weirdly chippy.

I was much happier with most of tracks I chose, and we didn’t have any stops or anything. He was a good and honest pony in the pouring rain- I was soaked- and didn’t put a hoof wrong, even with a bunch of new stuff piled behind the indoor arena, his favorite spooky zone.

I did notice that I was much more comfortable with a closer stride and distance, and so was Oats, funny enough. It wasn’t lovely, but it was pretty darn good. Considering the strange nerves I had going in, I was pleased with the ride and looking forward (with more than a little trepidation) to my first-ever Derby Cross event on the weekend.

That recap is to come!

Ghost on Ghost

So, this weekend. A lot of good and not-so-good things happened. We had a relaxing time at the beach on Friday with my dog, enjoying life as the sun went down on another work week.

We bought a townhouse this week too! Crazy!?!

Saturday my husband was up early to volunteer for the annual Quadra Village Day. Gidget and I joined him for some pancake breakfast–which was great, as we got there early enough to not have to wait in line for very long! Sometimes the lineups are crazy. The only thing I’d recommend is that the music they have- live bands, which is super awesome and generous but SO LOUD. Like, nobody sits in the audience because it literally drives people away it’s too loud. I feel like an old crank for saying so, but still…

The course except for the gymnastic. That darn two-stride!

I headed home after and got ready for my jump lesson, moved from Thursday. It was pretty hot, so I was wondering how Oats would be at it. Turns out, I should have been wondering more about how I would be at it! We worked over a gymnastic, and I struggled- again- with the third fence in the line. I didn’t trust Oats through it. At all.

Why? And why now? I’ve been rocking gymnastics in the indoor- short ones- and then kind of blowing it outside. Curious. So, we worked on developing more trust through the gymnastic with Oats that basically culminated in my not being allowed reins and riding through it without hands! Hahah.

I just wanted to jump jumps, not mess around with gymnastics! I complained kind of a lot about it, haha. Then, finally we move to coursework. This, I can do! (We still had to work in the gymnastic though). Went through the course and it went fairly well, with only 1 mess up moment of me fighting with Oats through a turn to the outside line. We recovered in time to catch the outside oxer (it was 2’6” which EEEK I didn’t realize!) and it went fairly well.

No-hands screenshots!

Took a break, and Nicole set the fences to 2’6” for the most part- some were still 2’3” I think, except the gymnastic now had an oxer at the end of the four jumps.

Still, it was looking fine to me for the most part. Oh, hubris and overconfidence…How you take me down a big step.

We hopped over the first fence, cruised to the gymnastic with no problems, and then headed to the two-stride. It rode great the first time and then this time I…jumped up Oats’ neck and CRAAASH. I took out the jump by myself.

SHIT.

Messed up my bad left shoulder- I honestly thought I was gonna stick this one, until I didn’t…

Got my shoulder back in place, got back on, and rode it again. It was ugly (3 strides instead of 2) but we did it. Oats was a bit backed off. We headed to the next diagonal jump, and rode it fine. Then we went for the outside line, that rode so nicely, and bombed it with a stop at the oxer. SHIT again!

I was frazzled, and not relaxed. It was pretty obvious.

I re-approached, and calmed.the.fuck.down. Loose shoulders,  low calm hands, leg on, back relaxed. Smooooooth….We got over the first little fence great, and over the oxer – a little messy, but ok. Calm….We circled over the liverpool, and then zipped off to our last fence, a cut-away through the gymnastic. It went very lovely.

And then Nicole asked me to circle back and re-approach to the two-stride! Could we pull it off again? Yep, as it turns out, when I don’t anticipate and jump up his neck, we’re fine.  It rode great, in and out!

So, some things to think about eh? Not an easy or totally smooth lesson. I’ve been cruising in the past, and this would 100% make me not want to jump like at all. But this time, I got frazzled and a little hurt actually, but managed to re-assess and something MADE ME want to try it again. I didn’t even ask Nicole to bring the jumps down? I guess because it didn’t feel to me like the jumps were the issue–it was my steering and anticipation that was making it a problem.

Interesting.

 

 

Lock it away in your heart under unfinished business

Jump lesson last night, and I was quite unsure how exactly we would set up a jump course or gymnastic exercise given half the ring is kind of flooded right now…And we are supposed to stay out of it! It’s super mushy and gross.

No fear, apparently. Nicole set up some jumps in a ‘circle of death’ variation, oh joy of joys…As pictured above, but it was 3 jumps on a circle with 4 strides between jumps.

Oats and I tend to really struggle with jumps on a circle- see our recent challenges with the green box on a circle, ha. So, this was going to be a very challenging lesson for us, not in jump heights or nerves, but in sheer frustration.

We worked over it from the left, trot over x-rail, canter the two other jumps set just as poles on the ground. Then we gradually brought them up to x-rails and it went quite smoothly, some bobbles when I lost my track or forgot to look where I was going, but overall quite nice.

THEN…

The right lead, dun dun dunnnnnnn….

It was not the success that the left lead was, at all. Oh man, we struggled. Jump the pole to the x-rail too long, miss my turn for the x-rail. Rinse, repeat. Swap leads, fumble to the x-rail. Swap leads, miss the last pole. It was struggle-bus time, by like a million.

My eye kept getting ‘stuck’ when I was looking to the right, so instead of looking right, I’d kind of keep wanting to look straight, or even sort of left? ARGH why? We set up guiding poles on the front and back of the x-rail to help us even further, because it was pretty clear that we were noooot winning this exercise.

Newsflash- Oats is better on the left, haha. We never even got to put the rest of the x-rails up on the right, because I just could NOT get it sorted out! Finally we did it 1 last time, Nicole asked if I wanted to stop or could do it again, and I was fine with doing it again, and we finally got it. I left it on that, I mean, we could start bringing the x-rails all up, so there are 3 of them, but I didn’t want to over-frustrate Oats and tax his already dwindling patience with me.

Nicole said that Oats smelled nice when she came over to give him a hug. Cute eh?

Triggering?

Had an interesting dressage ride last night- it was not just tough, but more like very mentally difficult.

Random pics of Oats doing dressage: Photo courtesy of Eila

We worked on quick steps, and then moved up to sitting trot to leg yield, and then leg yield to canter on the short side of the arena. And MAN this fired up my defensiveness in a hurry! I felt anxious! Oats started ‘hopping’ and I felt very worried, and it showed through my hands raising, my leaning forward and taking my leg off. The hopping and his anticipation of the canter made the bugaboos in my head run wild- all I could think of was this is it, this is when he leaps up and turfs me! (I’m no stranger to getting dumped by my pony!).

BUT

When I started blanking out and getting nervous, Karen was like just focus on what *you* want out of this- a trot. Not canter (at this point) nothing else…Keep your hands low and stop raising them defensively, don’t stop riding and freeze up…Just…keep going with what you want!

It was very challenging. Him rising up and hopping triggers all of my anxiety and brings bad bad memories, not even in my head but in my body too! I SOoooo did not want to continue, in the worst way I wanted to stop, call it quits!

STILL…

We kept going! I put my leg on, ignored the hopping into canter, focused on low hands and sitting very still, and asked for bend bend bend bend. Oats got with the program. and started to acquiesce to my demands. We noticed a pattern- when he got to the far side of the ring- the open side- he would try to either spook, or hop into a canter, because it was easier than what I was asking- for more trot, and more bend through his right side. This was clearly an evasive tactic.

Once I could see it for what it was, I started thinking and riding more effectively and clearly.   The anxiety fog in my brain lifted, and as Karen said, Oats wasn’t even being naughty or anything- he was honestly having trouble with what I was asking, and he was trying to find ways to deal with it. He CAN be a little shit, but this isn’t it. Not at all. And the rising up/hopping behaviour is him lifting off his forehand (a positive sign) that I am actually having a hard time learning how to ride! I want to pull back and pull him to a stop.

So, I learned a lot but it was learning that was hard-won.

Oats learned a lot too, and I need to be more open and flexible in my approach when he struggles to do what I’m asking. He doesn’t want to be bad at this point- he is learning and having a tough time with it sometimes.

Oh and he was really good to the left. Ha.

Is this love? Or the love of the chase

Funny, two songs I’ve been hearing lately have this refrain in them:

“You never loved me, you love the chase.” From ‘The Stars’ newest album, ‘No one is lost’

-and-

“Is this love? Or the love of the chase…” From ‘Future Islands’ newest album as well.

So, there is obviously a theme. Why are they resonating with me so strongly?

I’ve been struggling with connections lately. Last year’s showing season with Oats had a lot of ups and downs (I fell off almost every show! what the heck!) and I couldn’t figure out why this was happening. I know how to ride, Oats knows how to jump so…???

I have been making progress on this by committing to dressage lessons and that has been good but tough. I want to make even more progress, want to go into jump lessons and horse shows ‘eager’ not backpedalling and wanting to get off, or freezing when we step foot in the show ring.

I even decided not to show at the Appy club shows this year because I wasn’t looking forward to it!  Showing costs way too much $$$ to not have fun with it. At all.

So, my trainer Karen set me up with an equine wellness facilitator, to figure out what is going on in my head. And as it turns out, a lot of anxiety.

Anxiety- So, this seems appropriate.

The rushing, too-fast, speedy feeling I have all the time is my brain not connecting well with my body. I tend to have ‘out of body’ feelings when I step into the show ring, and I feel like I am ‘watching myself’ instead of doing it- riding, experiencing, anything. I don’t hear my trainer when I am like this, I hold my breath and end up gasping, and I rush rush rush through a course- my brain is moving too fast for me to keep up!

It’s funny- the facilitator ran me through a meditation exercise, and all I could think was how much I wanted it to speed up!!? That’s NOT the point, silly me!

Taking the time to align my poor brain with my body is a process. I am going to try and see how it goes. I’m trying to manage my anxiety, something I most likely have been cultivating for years through work, family issues, horse issues, etc.

And I felt like, last year at this time, I was ready to try dressage lessons. Oats and I could take that next step.

Oats at Sooke Saddle Club dressage: Photo courtesy of Eila

This year, I am ready to manage my anxiety, and work to strengthen my relationship with Oats.

So, this is a positive progression (even if the other side of my brain is like horses aren’t rocket science, why are you so worried? Anxious? What are you so afraid of?). I guess I’m not always sure- I’m afraid of getting hurt (see- the recent accident with my mom), and I’m afraid of looking stupid and screwing up my horse.

I’m not sure how I got to this point, but I do feel like it is manageable, and the next logical step I can take to have a more positive relationship with my horse, and my trainers (maybe my husband, family, and my work? Better not get too greeeeedy)…

Run wild

I am still doing positive jump course visualizations every day while I walk to work- I pick my most recent jumping lesson and try to ‘see’ how I rode it. I think it is helping as well.

My rides on Oats this weekend were fine, Saturday was better than Sunday (was a bit distracted Sunday, had friends visiting so was chatting instead of paying attention! bad me!).

Other than that, this week started with a real BANG of bad vibes. Sick bunny (he is doing better already, pheww) Work flying off the handle……eeeek!