Popular Manipulations: Jump jump!

So I am feeling MUCH better this week. Halleleujah!!!! The nausea and sore throat, coughing, cramps and general miserable-ness finally abated on Wednesday. Now I just randomly cough up horribleness and my nose runs, but hey, I’ll take it!

While my immune system was attacking me, I had a lot of time to feel awful and stew about it. That stewing made me take action- and I am making lots of appointments now to get on top of my health!

From last week, when I was actually riding worse, ha. 

And my riding felt soooo much better last night- I had more energy, even though I protested about jumping the course for a third time and instead opted to just jump the 1 line and diagonal that I botched during my second round. Hey, baby steps right? We discovered that I am still riding quite defensively while on the slight ‘downhill’ leading to me kind of hunching with my shoulders, instead of wide open shoulders and elbows in, instead of chicken wings.

This affects my release and makes me feel defensive!

So, I’m writing this down to make sure the plan next week is ride a whole bunch of smaller fences…All going downhill. I am happy to say that I didn’t get left behind as much this week (phew!) and my brain didn’t fall out when we raised a few of the jumps (though they still looked small, ha. Why is that?!).

So, I am getting more comfortable with ‘riding’ my jumps and line in the outdoor but I have the occasional defensive hunch that happens when we are going downhill. I think practice and time will fix that, in fact I feel pretty confident that it will!

Oats was a good boy as always, even when the wind picked up and it got really grey and rainy out! I was SO OVER riding in the rain by that time hahaha and just wanted to be done! 😉

Nothing really gets him excited, haha.

Like riding a broke horse

Had a TOUGH dressage lesson last night. Wow. I went into it feeling tired, and came out feeling exhausted! I was even talking in my sleep last night, I was so tired. Ha. But, it was the good physical tired, rather than the insane stress insomnia I was suffering from for months.

Me this whole freaking week. Also Oats after last night..

To recap- I ran-commuted yesterday (roughly 4k to work and 4k home), went out for a fabulous breakfast with my colleagues to The Ruby (where I enjoyed an absolutely obscene breakfast of fried chicken breast on waffles, highly recommend), and I then I worked on some mild sprint intervals on the treadmill- tried to fight off puking, ugh breakfast was too soon and too big, and then I jogged home, got ready for my lesson and rode in a sweaty, exhausting, tough, challenging dressage lesson.

Whoa. That is a lot even for me!

I guess part of me felt a bit constrained by racing so much, because I was trying desperately to not get injured, overtired, too sick (failed on that) and trying to recover from the one race in time to race the next weekend.

That is no joke and quite frankly takes its toll.

So how did I cure pounding my body into the ground for six weeks? OH, by doing it in one day of course! (ha, but not really. Jogging is much easier than racing and a lot more friendly on the body).

But yes, going into my lesson I was tired.

But no rest for the righteous, eh?

We worked on getting the horses to accept the contact and be ‘over the back’ without using bend as a quicki shortcut. We did a LOT of canter at first, and then broke it down to the walk, then trot, (and a lot of halting since Oats DID NOT LIKE THIS WORK and was making life difficult)…

It was rough man! Wow. I was dripping with sweat, so was Oats. My poor fingies were cramping up. Oats kind of hated the work, having small hissyfits and dancing around, throwing his head up/around, protesting, etc.

We did achieve some really nice steps, and Karen said something that made me feel totally stunned- that you can achieve that level of work ‘the automatic’ contact where the horse goes into-and-stays-in contact the whole time?! But HOW?

Simple but never easy.

Also time.

Of course….

Mr. Oats, a non-genius

Had my dressage lesson last night and it definitely came with some frustrations.

Item 1: Oats, not wanting contact at the trot, hops into canter. Repeatedly.

Item 2: This makes our exercise, going over trot poles, hazardous and irritating.

Item 3: I was tired!! It was a very physical lesson. They always seem to be right now.

he was not this sweaty, but close!

So…We attempted the exercise- a good, bouncy trot over poles in a circle. Many times. To the left, he was actually getting it and I had some connection through my right/outside rein. To the right? Trot-CANTER-trot-CANTER-trot-CANTER

We bumbled up/over/through/crashing/rolling/jumping over the poles.

GAK.

We’d go large, attempt to establish some sort of semblance of connection and even then, it just wasn’t happening. It was still trot-HOP-trot-HOP.

So, the next time he went to canter w/o me asking, I hauled his pony butt into a very firm hand gallop of a canter. VERY firm. A ‘no joking, no hanging out, no easy-going lope’ canter. A hell of a canter. And I had to repeat this little message more than once. It was tough! I wanted to trot! I wanted to take a break!

We went back to the poles, and wonder of wonders, after oh, the third time of really spanking him into a correct canter, he ‘gasp’ trotted~nicely too! I was too slow to let him stretch, which Karen reminded me was important. So, I tried to be quicker about rewarding his efforts in the trot, which were very nice when he did give them to me.

This work- particularly on the right rein- exposes a lot of my and Oats’ weaknesses. It’s pretty ugly sometimes and I was complaining about the hop-canter ‘phase’ we seem to be in, and Karen was saying well, it’s part of the process and it will take you as long as it takes you to get over it, eh?

Also- he is getting much better about a nice forward canter when I am in the canter, something that we really struggled to achieve last year.

Progress?

And the non-genius part- I was grabbing my water bottle and drinking from it, when Oats gave a very vigorous shake…Shaking half my water bottle all over the both of us and almost dislodging ME! ARGH.

That pony!

No lessons, but still learning

Rescheduled my lesson from Thursday again to Saturday, due to coach time changes.

No prob, I thought I’d go early on Thursday, and see what kind of horse I had with me- well, I didn’t factor in that I was rudely interrupting Oats from his dinner (grabbed him to tack up before he had dinner and boy, he was pissed). He was antsy in the cross-ties, fidgety, snatchy and irritated.

When I went to ride, he was GOING PLACES.

I actually appreciate that on him, as most of our rides are me convincing him to get his pony butt in gear, but wow…He just kept on it. Our canter transition in the warm-up was a buck!

Not an obnoxious buck, a very enthusiastic one. He was like the Energizer Bunny of horses last night- going, going, going, going. I was getting tired?! We schooled over some (very low but fun) fences, trot a x-pole, canter the hay bales, canter the lattice jump, canter the x-pole and he was not tiring a single bit. Apparently angry Oats is energetic Oats?

I got tired of jumping and he was literally still raring to go. Need I remind you of how extremely unusual that is? His preferred movement is ‘stop.’ We worked on more canter, and then worked over tiny x-pole on a canter circle, both directions, starting with the left.

I know, me doing circle jumps on my own, voluntarily. Who is this person??

We switched to right, I wanted to try it at the trot and he would NOT trot. Only canter. Okay then…We cantered, and it was at times great, and other times, very awkward.

I then continued to work him at the trot, a bit of spiraling in and out – I know, it was A TON of work to ride him last night, just very physical- and he was okay but not really tuned into me at the trot.

We did some deep bend left and right, and big trot- he continued in big trot, which was surprising. He was much better at it on the right, which is not his good side.

I finally walked and even his walk was very motivated. I hopped off to cool him out, because by this point, he was so sweaty and needed a good long cool-down time.

I was tired! Wow! I do wish I had this kind of energy when I really need it- like during my jump lessons or in a horse show.

 

As Alix Spiegel puts it on Invisibilia, “If you have a lot of fear, fewer bad things are likely to happen, but it’s very probable that your life is more painful to you. So is it better to be fearful or fearless? Which side of the continuum do you choose?”

Funny enough, this article on women’s safety (at night, on the streets, walking alone) also kind of echoes how I feel riding- sometimes, with a lot of fear.

I picture bad things happening, have a lot of anxiety during my ride, and sometimes let it rule what I do with my horse. I also let it manage me physically- like I don’t trust Oats to do the right thing, and I end up doing the WRONG thing because of that lack of trust and existing history/fear.

An example of this from my lesson last night- dressage is historically a tough subject for us. For Oats, it’s like doing math- hated, hard, challenging- both physically and emotionally! For me, it’s difficult because of how he has reacted in the past (poorly). So what do I fall back on when I feel fearful, anxious, worried? I let him fall in off the track when we canter, putting him at a big disadvantage. I raise my hands too high, bringing his head up and bringing up his ‘hoppy’ canter that always feels like a precursor to a buck, even if it’s not right now!

In short- I set us both up for failure because I can’t *quite* let go.

When I forced myself to stay ‘with’ him, brought my hands down lower and kept him on the track, our canter went soooooo much nicer. Of course it also fell apart quickly, but hey, that’s what learning is for, right?

I’m learning that my fear shouldn’t always dictate what I do, but overcoming it can be very, very difficult because it is not just a physical response but an emotional one.

Also- our trot work is DEFINITELY improving. YEAH! And our lateral work- while not amazing this week, is coming along much better and I can still sense that Oats is trying to accomplish it, rather than just being rude or a jerk about it. I can get behind that progress, for sure. For a few months, I felt like I was constantly behind, like making no progress and nothing good was coming out of anything!

Now- I have a bit of a better perspective. It’s a continuum…

Surf sisters!

This weekend we went surfing in Tofino (yes in January, ha) on kind of a whim.

Surf sisters!

I’d been looking to kind of ‘escape’ from the hassle of everyday life, and what better escape than surfing? It’s literally the activity that makes you focus SO HARD on what you’re doing- so you can’t think/obsess about anything else.

I had a great time, my friends is very good at surfing so she gives me pointers when we go. I asked for a beginner-friendly soft-top this time, because last time I kept falling over the front of the nose of my board! I figured I could get up better if I had the bigger board, and I was right!

I achieved my goal of standing up, and even rode it through a few times- very briefly- before either falling or stepping off. Success!

I think they keys to that success were waiting more- instead of jumping up right away, I felt like I could ‘sit chilly’ and then get up without flinging myself up and falling over the front of the board. Also, the bigger board was helpful too.

We had a barbecue on the beach, and then I started getting cold so I took off my wetsuit a bit earlier and changed into sweatpants so I could do a bit more beach exploring. The peeling off of the wetsuit was like a 30-minute ordeal…Jesus.

I was sweating and swearing and fighting trying to pull the damn thing off! haha.

I had a great weekend, and a super busy one. It felt really good to ‘leave my life’ for a little while and get out of my normal zone. I think it’s important you make time for that in the winter, because it’s just too easy to get ‘stuck’ bored and depressed.

I did even ride Oats on Sunday when I got back (he was good and cute to see again!) and I even went on a quick run with my husband, and we went to see Interstellar at the IMAX theatre. Very neat. Still confused…

I guess that’s why I have a super fun filled winter season ahead of me- the run series, a vacation in Hawaii, auditing a clinic with Jim Wofford, Olympic eventing coach/rider, and other fun things coming up. Winter has never been busier and more fun!

I also think it’s important that I do these things to kind of distract myself from the real-life drama right now. Otherwise, it’s very easy to get dragged down and sad all the time.

Here’s to going and DOING IT!!