Don’t shy away: Dressage lesson!

Man, I haven’t had a good dressage lesson in…2 months? Soo many things came up, unfortunately.

Nov we had extreme flooding, so had to wait for the roads/arena to dry up, and there was a gasoline shortage too. Fun!

So naturally I had to get video. Still wish I’d gotten it from the right, it was a touch nicer.

Dec we had abscesses for weeks (not so fun), snowstorms, holidays. Boy that really adds up! We also had extreme cold- a week and a half of -9 so people had frozen pipes, frozen/black ice on roads and a ton of snow. Needless to say, not a productive month.

Jan my trainer got COVID so we had to wait until she was feeling better, and now she is! Yay!

And I was thrilled with how lovely Oats was feeling. Man this guy- 20 years old and he blows me away with how lovely and accepting he was in my lesson. We worked on a little pole circuit, and to the right he was foot-perfect. To the left, we started off really well but managed to kind of blow it to the pink poles. SIGH. Something to work on, as I know going left causes my body to twist in ways I don’t really want, lol. Oh well, guess it can’t be totally perfect, can it?? It was close!

Good boy Oaty, I love you!

Don’t Disconnect (Mr. Oats is a saint)

Had my first jump lesson in the outdoor yesterday, and the weather was GORGEOUS! I was feeling weirdly anxious, I guess because there is always a bit of a learning curve for me to jump in the outdoor?

This is from last year, almost to the date actually! I remember feeling like I didn’t know how to ride then again either, haha. Oh and this felt like a ‘big’ jump.Hah! 

I start of complaining that I don’t know how to ride, and yesterday I still kind of …didn’t. Ha. Oats was a freaking saint though, somebody nominate this pony! We worked over a course of small jumps and had some good jumps, and some really…ick jumps. I just couldn’t seem to get my eye to synch up with my body? I was feeling backed off and tentative, while Oats was like yeah no, I got this mom! And he’d jump, and I’d get left behind! Shit!

From last May. 

I think I need to get better about riding more boldly, as he clearly isn’t having the problems that I am! Next lesson I am going to focus more on feeling my ride through my body, and learning to really commit, instead of being backed off.

Makes me feel very humble, haha. I am not great, while my pony is like, yeah sure no problem mom, I got this! What a saint!

A Halloween riding lesson

The horse knows when you know, and knows when you don’t know. Ray Hunt.

And boy, ain’t it the truth!

So much candy…Aftermath

Last night was our semi-private dressage lesson with Karen Brain, and we worked on a VERY deceptively challenging exercise- a diamond pattern, using the dressage letters in the ring as a guide for the diamond.

The goal: Straightness to each letter, horse forehead lands on the letter, and then a mild pivot – front legs only- to the next letter in the diamond shape.

The reality? A muddle of lateral movement, extreme wiggling, fussy behaviour, sucking back behind the leg, throwing hips around, front legs move too laterally again…Oh it went on!

Also the reality: Riding lessons during Halloween night= nonstop fireworks. Constantly! UGH it felt like we were riding during some sort of war. The horses were as good as gold though and saved our butts. I think it also helped that the exercise was very technically challenging and required a lot of focus, so not a lot of ‘fluffing around’ time for them to start getting silly.

The exercise was at the walk, and then we’d go walk- canter-walk from each letter in the diamond shape. It became QUITE evident that the pieces would fall apart quickly here- and we, as riders, didn’t really know what we were doing…And the horses picked up on it fast.

Oats expressed his concern at the exercise by ‘dolphin-leaping’ instead of say, picking up a nice canter. HA. He did it a few times and luckily I didn’t get unseated, but I sure did lose my reins and had to collect them up in a hurry!

We got say, 2-3 nice transitions out of oh..100. And that is progress! It was a very tough and technical lesson, but everytime I got frustrated or annoyed, Karen was like this is hard, it’s hard for the horses and hard for you so just keep trying and something will work out. It did!

Lots of learning last night for sure.

Cathartic

I’m not sure if it’s SAD or what (Seasonal Affective Disorder) but I sometimes feel like I was riding a real summer ‘high’ and now I’m falling into a fall ‘low’…

I’m riding through the tough stuff, but I find myself over sensitive to even the most basic things- small corrections at work? Stew and steam for awhile, longer than you should even be thinking about it… Had a shitty ride? Obsess over it. Plot, plan, scheme, whatever. I don’t think I should be necessarily feeling this way, but I am.

SAD-lights necessary? Quite possibly!

I had a good lesson yesterday actually. I was feeling a bit crabby (see above unreasonable responses to normal work situations) but I felt so hyper-focused in my lesson that it all kind of just…melted away… That’s not to say it was easy- it wasn’t- Oats tried to intimidate me out of asking what I was asking, but I didn’t let him, and we achieved some mini-breakthroughs. Phew!

I found this on the Chronicle of the Horse web forum, and it really resonated with me. I love jumping, riding, showing, etc. but it really takes it out of me. Sometimes it’s all I can do to show up! And this is something I LOVE!

A lot of amateurs spend a great deal of their riding time pushed to their limits. It is a great privilege and stroke of luck (which could be taken away by a bad fall) if you are able to canter around serenely well within your own comfort zone. Many more people spend a lot of time persevering and continuing to show up to the barn despite the fact that, a lot of time when they are on a horse, they are afraid. Sure, I get to come to the barn and not spend 90% of my lessons battling fear or anxiety, but this is not true for everyone. They are scared but they are DOING IT ANYWAY.

Half the time they would NEVER be doing what you are asking them to do of their own accord or without you there, but because they want to learn to ride worse than they are afraid they put essentially blind faith in you, rustle their brass ones together, and still try to do everything their brain is screaming at them to for the love of God not do. I feel the same way when one of my trainers put the jumps up two more and wider for the nth time, but because he is expert at pushing people to the limit but never over, the scope of my limits expand in his presence.

(Meanwhile, I feel the same way rarely, when the jumps have exceeded a certain size, and those moments serve to really reinforce my respect for people who feel that way most of the time, about stuff like ‘cantering’, and still want to ride worse than they are afraid. That takes BALLS and tremendous determination, and I am not sure I would continue with the sport if I had to always ride at my limit. So I really respect those who do. You cannot be brave if you are not afraid in the first place.)

It’s crazy. So why do we do it in the first place? Because when I’m feeling blah, having a blah day, feeling crabby and out of sorts…Going to the barn and having a super-focused ride that leaves me feeling cathartic is what I need the most. Even if I am on the edge of comfort (and over that edge) for most of it. I deal with fear a lot, and extreme performance anxiety- to the point where I let it take over for me and I’m drifting around on-course, or tuning out in a dressage ride.

I hope to be ‘more present’ jumping and riding. That’s all I can hope for sometimes!

Throwback Thursday & a Week of Mr. Oats

Here’s me and Lucy again, it looks like it’s time stamped for July 15, 2006. Loved that girl! She was such a lovely ride. We enjoyed our time together at Bear Hill very much.

Now on to my current beast…Hah I can barely remember my rides from the weekend, but they were pretty good I think…

Saturday– Flatwork with Oats, as we rode during a beginner’s riding lesson. I was expecting to feel bored by it, but in my work with Oats getting increased contact, our flat rides have actually felt HARD. They are physically a LOT of work!? What the heck? No horse-shaped balloon here. We did transitions on a circle; trot-canter-walk-trot-canter-walk. And it was tough!

Sunday– Hmmm now I really can’t remember… Oh wait, I wanted husband to take some pics or a video, and promptly rode Oats over a few small fences set up (haybales, x-rails, and a few verticals 2′) and he was great! We even trotted a small 2′ oxer! And no husband…So, no pics. He came down to the arena as we were cooling out. Booo!

Tuesday– More flatwork on a circle. Transition, some nice canter work that felt pretty connected. Trotted a vertical. Oats had a lovely canter.

Wednesday– Group lesson with Sarah and Donato. Yay! Oats was a tad cranky at Donato (who is this monster running up behind me???) but he can deal with. I was very proud of our canter work- over the ‘death circle’ of poles that foiled us many times in the past in the summer. Our canter has gotten SO much better, it felt great! We moved on to trotting, then cantering a crossrail, then working over a small course of 4 or so jumps. It was great! Donato was a very fancy jumper, just a bit quick.

So that’s our week in an nutshell. Taking today off (I do usually ride Thursdays) because I am going to a Mounties concert! YEAH!!!

Throwback Thursday: Bear Hill

Circa 2005 to 2006? Here I am with Lucy again, I loved that girl!

She was a bit behind my leg that day, but still managed to be pretty cute.

I believe it was quite snowy this day, hence we are back in the indoor arena.