Read my mind: Jump lesson with Oats

Now before I start with the glowing praises of old Oats, I have to start with reports of him being a little shit-disturber and getting out of his paddock last night and causing a ruckus, going from paddock to paddock to rile up and squabble with allllll of the other horses…OATS! God!

The culprit! 

Now this is likely my fault, as when I finished my lesson my friend pointed out that Oats hadn’t been given his hay, so I put him in his paddock, moved his hay bag to his paddock, and …probably forgot to re-latch his gate. Argh!

Oh well… On to the lesson! I was feeling weirdly anxious. I’ve been struggling with just crushing fatigue this week, and a fast-moving cold, thanks in part to travel and breathing in that fine, recirculated airplane air. My muscles felt super weak, and I started feeling lightheaded at the gym almost every day. I was dragging myself around. It sucks.

So, exhaustion + sickness + lessons = success? Ha not quite, but it wasn’t the shitshow I was anticipating. It was fun! We worked on a rollback turn (that I sucked out loud at, I could NOT figure out how to jump, and then look, THEN turn, in that sequence). But I enjoyed the process!

From a few weeks ago. I love jumping this guy! 

We then worked on a small bending line, which rode much better. Oats was great for it, bending lines are his expertise. We strung it together into a small course, and I could feel myself fading a bit, having trouble keeping him straight to the jumps. I even went off-course and forgot where I was going… I think because of the fatigue/exhaustion that I was dealing with. (And I think that’s how I left the gate open too…).

It wasn’t the thrilling jump lesson of a few weeks ago, where we TROTTED a 2’9” warm up fence, but you know what? With my incipient weakness and limp riding, it didn’t need to be, haha. Leave that for another day. I know myself by now, and I’m fine with what each day presents.

Oats was such a good boy though, I just love jumping him! Even if he can be a little turd sometimes.

Learning to appreciate

Me now!

Me a few years ago

 

I was at the gym at lunch today (work has a fabulous gym, good treadmills, TV’s that mostly work and lots of equipment that is in good condition) and I was kind of feeling grouchy about ‘having to’ workout at lunch.

I was feeling kind of blah, draggy – end of week blues- and not exactly looking forward to lifting some weights. I’ve been yawning a lot in the gym this week, the weather has been mediocre to outright bad, and I blame not running for most of it. Cardio tends to jazz me up and I’m not relying on it this week, as I am trying to save my legs (perhaps unsuccessfully, given how much I have been riding lately!).

But then when I was looking at myself in the mirror, with my hand-weights, I realized something: Man, I am SO LUCKY I get to do this at all. Lift weights. See a measurable difference in my body. Go to the gym at lunch. Work out, push myself. Run races. Ride horses. So fortunate!

This, coming on the heels of a pretty shitty ride on Oats last night. I let my ego get the best of me, and the ride flip-flopped between ‘good’ and ‘a fight’ where I was unreasonable, edgy and frustrated with him and myself. I hate those rides, and I often say I need a witness or an audience, to help me be better to myself and more forgiving with my horse. SIGH. Why do I always learn that lesson the hard way? The only thing I am happy with is how great my lessons were this week- two of ’em! And they rocked! And that these instances of frustration/edginess/anxiety/tension/anger are getting further and fewer apart. One day, I might not have them come up at all.

Until then…I can be very glad with what I have. And what I have the opportunity to do! My pony is a babysitter, he took great care of me in my jump lesson and he is a very forgiving sort. I need to be the same.

I also have a great physical body that is showing me every time I push myself how much I can do. Wow! It’s crazy! I enjoy seeing photos of myself in my athletic endeavours, because a few years ago I would never even dream of doing the stuff I do now. I love it.

Like trying to describe a dream

Had an intense dressage lesson last night. A semi-private, and man, we worked it.

Mr. Handsome- photo credit to Hannah R.

It started off pretty simple, picking up where we left it last week with the deep inner bend & forward. And then it moved to deep inner bend & collected/short but very forward trot (sitting), and then a ‘5’ trot sitting, and then a ‘6’ trot sitting, and circling at all 4 corners of the arena, and then 4-5 strides of canter in each circle, all while maintaining a good ‘sit’ and forward.

It was SO COOL! I was like, woahh…It felt like what what I think a canter pirouette might feel like? Given I have never in my life done those…

It was a big lesson- exhausting and very thorough. I was really pleased with Oats. His try was 100% last night, and I was very impressed with how he was handling the exercises. Of course, he’s never perfect but man, he has been going really nicely lately and trust me I am not taking it for granted! I was thinking about how hard and boring dressage is to describe to people. It’s like trying to describe your dreams- either they don’t care, or they don’t understand.

He was like this sweaty…Except he is now clipped. Phew!!

He was very sweaty when we finished, and I was admiring his neck muscles. He looks like a different horse now, from when I first bought him, to even last year when we had finished up our 1 year of dressage training. Look at what our 2nd year has brought us! I love it! All the tears, frustration, anger and pissyness on Oats’ end have been really paying off.

Naturally, I am not dumb enough to think that we’re on the smooth path to success now- hah, with horses? Nope, not realistic. BUT, I’m seeing/feeling some really awesome things. I even let myself do a little day-dreaming about how nice that ride felt, very powerful, when I walked to work this morning.

Oats being Oats, he also had to do something to make me really annoyed after my ride…I was raking down the arena- it has terrible deep spots now where the clay is coming up from the ground! And he rolled with my saddle on! GAH!

Yeah, guess he was that sweaty and it felt sooooo good…argh.

Taking a breather

So, after our challenging- but then good- dressage lesson on Tuesday, I decided I didn’t want to overface myself and take Oats for round #2 battle in the outdoor and I would have a ‘fun day’ in the field with him on Wednesday.

A spunkier Oats on the weekend. Photo courtesy of Hannah R.

I find myself often wanting to ride in the field- I guess because I feel freer, less constrained and less ‘trapped’ into pushing Oats for a workout in the ring? More freedom, I guess, and a lot less fighting, as it turns out! And I have to learn to re-train my temper- as my trainer said, work first on me, then on Oats, and then bring both of us to the challenging situation. Don’t jump right into the challenge, because it will kind of blow up in our faces…

So, with that knowledge, I deliberately set out for a fun ride, not a fight.

And it WAS FUN!

We rode in the smaller field that has a hill, and some cavalettis. I dragged out a cavaletti- they are light because the wood is completely dry-rotted through, but a mega pain the butt to wrangle, ha. Oats was patient here.

Put your butt into it! Photo courtesy of Hannah R.

I set the cavaletti up in the middle setting, friendly and low, and we warmed up and then trotted and cantered it both directions a bunch of times. I got bored by it after awhile (things were going very smoothly!) and decided to take Oats up to do some hillwork.

Newsflash- the hillwork was so hard for Oats. He was tired! It was hard work! I noticed a real weakness in his right hind while cantering up the hill and trying to maintain the canter. He swapped a few times and broke into trot the rest.

I left the canter alone and we trotted up and walked down the steepest part of the hill, focusing mostly on getting his right hind to step up the hill. It was definitely hard but good work for the pony. You should have seen him after, in the cross-ties…He was exhausted! Poor guy.

So tired.

That’s beyond our skill set! Well, how do you expect to learn that skill then?

Wish it was summer!

Hah, we had an interesting and challenging dressage lesson last night.

We worked on picking up the canter on a 10-metre circle from a walk and GASP- keeping the canter!

Now, to note, we were definitely not really successful with many components of this exercise…The circle part, the transitions, staying in the canter…But overall it was a very good learning exercise.

What did I learn from it? To trust that Oats will do it, to not lean in and drop the contact, effectively ‘dropping’ him in the transition (which he doesn’t like!) and trust that he will complete the transition, not be a jerk about it, and will continue in the canter.

We didn’t quite achieve all of it, but I did find that I was expecting the worst. Expecting him to be a little shit about the transition, dropping out of the canter, etc. I did all of my worst habits- leaned in, dropped contact, let my hands get defensively high, took my leg off, etc.

And it was tough! I was like ”this is above our skill set!!” and Karen was like, ”well how do you expect to get that skill? Keep trying at least!”

HA, no excuses here. Though I did feel like a bit of an excuse machine! We moved on to the left, which did still have issues but was smoother, and then back to the right.

We were definitely not ‘successful’ but I was learning, inch by inch, to trust that Oats wants to do this and we CAN do it (or something close to it). I also got the mother of all butt cramps in my high hip/leg area and holy god it hurt.

It was also death by 1,000 transitions night, which was a challenging time in itself. But it felt pretty good, better than it has been. We ended with getting a big trot, and working down to get their heads low, on the ground low (note- this didn’t happen either, but oh well…learning process right?).

A good, mentally challenging and apparently physically challenging lesson as well. For me and Oats! Haha.

Oats after our lesson (not actually, this was him tranqed for a clip)