100 of anything

Monday I had an equine counseling session, in which we reviewed my dressage tests to discuss how they went, and things to improve on (more emotionally than physically). There were lots of points to get better on, but what Vicki said was the biggest win for me was when I felt Oats getting tense in the ring in the canter – historically our biggest challenge- I ‘let go’ of his face and gave more with my hands, so he didn’t get bottled up and angry. It led to a really good feeling and a strong test.

Throwback Thursday to…Sunday! Photo thanks to TriStars Dan Clayton.

Even in the warm-up, I ‘gave’ more when I felt him wanting to get bottled up and start swapping his leads (he does this at horse shows, not so much at home). And guess what, when I ‘gave’ he didn’t want to swap anymore! A metaphor for life perhaps? By letting go you get more back, rather than grabbing and trying to control the horse (life). Interesting!

On to what I had to practice though- transitions. So many transitions. Our weakest points are too abrupt and head too high/loss of contact.

Photo thanks to TriStars Dan Clayton.

So how to fix? UGH, by doing a lot of transitions, of course. My favourite. (not).

On Tuesday I came out ready for action. I was going to do 100 transitions, and I found that this would take most of my ride actually. Up, down, big trot, little trot. Halt-trot, halt-walk. Walk- canter, big canter, little canter (this never actually happened, as our more focused canter work needed to not be during a shitshow lesson that was happening at the same time…).

It was tough! I was sweating, Oats was working hard.

It was a good effort though and a really interesting way to structure the work I found. Rather than riding around aimlessly, we had a purpose. Something I do struggle with, particularly when I am working around other riders in a small indoor during their lessons, when I am trying to stay out of their way and they are all over the place!

Go Oats Go!

Bandwagonesque

Ha, I picked this title due to a certain situation that is playing out at my barn. But, I’m a lurker and staying out of it!! 🙂

Last winter was very snowy. Right now? Freaking cold.

Riding this week- rode Sunday after my race and Oats was good, it was cold though. We worked on some canter, off the rail to focus more on straightness.

Monday– Trying out some movements from our upcoming dressage tests, Training 2 & 3. Moderate success, noting some issues popping up through the contact, and transitions. Also our stretchy trot is not a thing. Hm…

Tuesday– FROZEN. So horrible. I was in so much pain from the cold in the arena that I wanted to get off and go home. I was NOT enjoying it. Oats was good, but just..ARGH. It was really awful. We worked on transitions. Lots of transitions. Walk-trot. Trot-halt. Halt-trot. Sitting trot-posting trot. Halt- walk.

But man, oh it was cold.

Kind of hating the cold this week. Running to work this AM felt like pure torture and I never even warmed up during the 4k it took to run. And I WAS bundled up! ARGHHH. And, chiefly due to the drastic weather change and the hard-run 8k, my throat hurts on and off, and I have had sinus pain all week.

Getting sick? God, I hope not!!! Everyone at my work is sick and I am desperately trying to stave that off.

Every night you’ve got to save me

So, polo not happening tonight- can’t get off early enough for it. Luckily there is a Sunday opportunity that I will be taking advantage of 🙂

Had a challenging but fairly decent dressage lesson last night, where we worked on transitions and MAN it was hard. HARD. Transitions upwards were great, but our collection sucked out loud and my transitions downward were…special. To the point that we are going to have to devote a good ride to only downward transitions. Oh well! Kind of does burst my ‘we’re moving up!’ bubble by feeling fairly incompetent during a basic ride. HA.

And I had an excellent equine counseling session on Monday- I had been trying to manage some strange emotions/feelings of anger, angst and disappointment when Buster passed away. I wanted my family to acknowledge my loss and my grief, and they didn’t. It made me very angry and I wanted to explore why, and why that was coming up so strongly in the wake of his passing. It was a good session that made me experience/feel the need for acknowledgement and be able to *mostly* let it go. (I say mostly, because I need the emotional peace it brings, but know myself too well to let things go entirely, ahh).

I’m a natural (wallaby) mother!

Anyways, it just made me realize that the only communication I need to have with family can be talking about my own very lovely family, which consists of (GASP) animals! My horse! My dog! (and the other animal, my husband, hahaha). And since they don’t care, I don’t have to care either= a natural limitation on our communication. It’s a relief.

They have made it very clear that once I came out (they forced my hand in the most ridiculous, emotionally abusive way) as childfree by choice, they could also choose to hate my animals.

So, feel free! I am living the life I always wanted- or close to it, I could always have a guinea pig farm with a mini donkey, and a mini horse to pull a cart; some riding horses, maybe chickens for my husband…Yeeps!

A life well lived requires no apologies.

Free to be me!

I had my dressage lesson on Tuesday and my legs were still kind of killing me (see Halloween half-marathon and my apparent lack of fitness…). I was SO tempted to cancel the lesson, just take it easy again.

Mr. Handsome- photo credit to Hannah R.

Did I? Nope! I am proud of myself for committing, even when I was tired, my legs still hurt, I was having a lot of trouble with stairs- going down them was not easy until yesterday- but I did it. Oh and it was absolutely pouring cats and dogs. Yeeeesh.

It was a good, thorough and challenging lesson.

Things Oats is allowed to do now: Express himself appropriately. His major hissy-fits of yesteryear are no longer, apparently, and now he is okay to say ‘THIS IS HARD!!’ and then…move on and accept it.

Phew!!

We worked on lateral work at the trot, and he had a few ‘moments’ but funny enough Karen really liked when he was haughty with a little more attitude, because his trot suddenly became very ‘prancy’ and bouncy, instead of flat and draggy like usual. So, we could use it! Ha, take that, pony 🙂

After some fairly extensive lateral work, we brought in transitions- walk/trot in shoulder-in, and haunches in. This was tough, I’m not going to say it was easy. But, it was good work, and I was very pleased with the solid effort-not without minor drama- from Oats.

Then we moved on to holding a nice mid-level neck with a lot of bend inwards, from a slow trot to a canter, holding the bend. Easier said than done…We struggled with that more. I had a hard time keeping the bend, not letting Oats throw his head up and out, and keeping the canter with the bend. Ah, things…

We finished the lesson by working on ‘spins’ sort of. Getting Oats to disengage his hindquarters and let me ‘spin’ him, instead of bracing against me. It wasn’t 100% successful, but I could feel a real change from the left spin to the right. A very interesting technique, and not something I am used to doing.

Bonus- all that work let me forget how tired and achy my legs were!

A good pony.

 

Lollygagging

Had my dressage semi-private last night and it was HARD. The hardest part? Turning!

Feeling sorry.

I know, weird eh? Stopping at jumps, can’t turn properly…Bring on the training wheels, Oats and I are apparently regressing to kindergarten.

We warmed up well, though I could feel his tension/anxiety in the ring looking for things to spook at and be distracted by. We then moved to leg-yield all the way around the ring with walk/trot transitions up and down and up and down…It was challenging. Oats thought he could blow through my aids, and when that didn’t work, bluff me by moving his neck in but not his haunches. He was also staring around the ring like his eyes were on stalks, argh.

I am on to you, rotten pony!

Sometimes, I hate you!

He had a few ‘I don’t wanna!’ moments, throwing his head around, swinging his butt in, hopping, kicking out angrily when I was like, no actually, you ARE doing this and you WILL do what I say. We worked through it, and I was fairly pleased with the end results (not perfect but still not terrible). Until…

We went to turn left and he blew through my turn-signal and dragged me through the turn. Oh no he didn’t!

That ended the more formal part of our dressage education. What followed was just freaking strength and making a decision, on my part- this was hard. My trainer Karen yelled at us to turn left! HARD! Then GO and release! Then turn again! And turn right, and go!

Oats – and I- were getting an education in turning. He has to turn (move front feet) when I say so, and I have to pick a direction and stick with it. No wishy washing, no lollygagging, no shitty little attitude trot from him. Nothing. Drag me through the long side? Sudden HARD LEFT.

Be spooky about the right corner? HARD RIGHT.

Literally all we did was turn- and go- and release- and hard turn- and go- and release.

I was dizzy!

I lost my balance a few times even!

Trainer says he was having trouble connecting his front half with his body and his hind part. So, he’s like oh sure turn my neck and swing butt out…Middle section???!!? = profit?!

It does feel strange to ride, that’s for sure. But by the end, I was freaking exhausted and he was trotting and turning nicely.

It felt very strange to have an lesson where I literally spun in turns, and trotted out so fast I got left behind. It improved, for sure, but woah. My riding definitely feels like it is in the training wheels stage right now.

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!

 

The cure for anything is salt water — sweat, tears, or the sea.

I’m reading Isak Dinesen/Karen Blixen’s Out of Africa right now due to my Kobo being seriously out commission and found this quote by her that really appealed to me.

Had my private dressage lesson last night with Karen Brain and Oats, and we got a chance to re-visit the rather challenging ‘simple’ exercise of Sunday, of cantering down in a straight line off the track.

No dressage media, so here is a photo of my husband cuddling Gidget like a baby.

I warmed Oats up and he was coughing a lot with the dust in the arena…It’s weird because it has gotten flooded in the close end of the arena, and then it’s so dusty in the far end. I know it gives Oats trouble, particularly now as allergy season/dust season rears its ugly head. So our warm-up consisted of a lot of coughing from him, until he cleared it and was ready to work. He was fairly stiff, and not moving great at the walk and canter. His trot felt ok though. His canter was heavy and kind of draggy, on the forehand, and I felt like he was kind of dragging me down.

I was telling Karen this and we decided to work on some lateral movements at the walk, as I said his walk felt really sucky. So, we went straight into head-to-wall leg yielding, transitioning straight, and then haunches in, and then transitioned back to the leg yield. Oats was GREAT! So compliant! It was amazing!

He usually fusses and fights a bit, but I was able to lighten the reins and really work with him. Quite pleased.

We then worked on walk-canter transitions (they also sucked at first, wow…) that was fairly tricky because Oats was like…blahhhhhh at first. From the canter transition, we worked on lightening his shoulders by not getting me dragged down in the tack. It felt weird to keep my hands so high, and my hips/shoulders pulled tall and back, but it worked. His canter was more uphill and forward, and we took it to the ‘off the track’ exercise at the canter with a LOT more success than I had on Sunday when I tried it.

He still broke to trot one time when he fell behind my leg, and we got 1 swap as well, but overall it was a higher quality attempt and his canter was really nice.

I was very happy with Oats’ attitude towards our dressage work- it does NOT come easy to him, like jumping does. Good boy!

Oats is Oats

After all that running, I bet you think my poor pony is being neglected!

Oats, looking as impressive as always.

Well, not so!

I rode him Saturday, and while I was determined to try some ‘collection’ work, I was equally determined to NOT drill the pony into the ground. And how did that pan out? Well, not so much on the collection, but he did get very sweaty and it was a fairly physical ride, but overall I was pretty ok about it.

We didn’t really get any collection, but I did figure some stuff out. Something I figured out too late- to really ask for that type of work, I have to start my warm- up very differently, ie- my hacking for a jump school warm up does NOT work if I am going to be asking for more ‘dressage’ type work later.

I needed to do more sitting trot, smaller circles, lateral work, transitions.

Hm. Ok.

So, yeah that was that. It wasn’t Oats’ fault- it was mine, on a expectations vs. reality type gig.

Anyways, I also rode after my race on Sunday to kind of ‘trick’ my legs into cooperating. I tried to ride last Monday after racing and wow, did it feel horrible. Burning legs, jello-o, wobbly…Not good. So, Sunday it is!

Our ride was very short as I also realized I was totally exhausted after the race, but I think Oats likes it when I’m like that…He’s very cooperative and fairly gentle with me. Puts up with me anyways! We did a light school, hopped over two small fences (left long to one, and short to the other. sighhh!) and did some brief transitions- walk/trot/collected/tiny trot/canter/walk…And that was it!

He was great, and I sure didn’t want to ride any more than that to be honest.

Riding on Tuesday and I’m SO glad I took Monday off this time. My legs were throbbing alll day yesterday, wow it was so painful.

Oats was good on Tuesday- the old problem of ‘no contact in trot= dolpin leaping’ reared it’s ugly head but I worked through it, in a way I am feeling more comfortable. Oats got SO sweaty though! Poor guy, it was running in rivulets down his face! I did try breaking in some new boots (Treadstone Tuscanys) on Tuesday and it made me feel like I didn’t know how to ride…Haha. On the bright side, they seemed to be MUCH easier to break in than my previous boots.

Riding tonight, and jump lesson on Thursday.

Quiet Nights- A better ride & perspective

So- Jurassic World was fun! Not as good or as ground-breaking as the original, but hey, these days what is? I quite enjoyed it. Pizza, a beer and a movie- what’s not to like? I just wish I could have my pizza and beer with my movie, but that is a rant for another day, ha.

I had my jump lesson last night and it turned out to not be about jumping! I told Nicole about my frustrations with Oats- how we have been struggling with him being weird and spooky in the outdoor, and how I felt like I didn’t know how to RIDE anymore. How it was escalating, and I needed someone to run me through a ride there to just ‘deal with it’ and not let things get out of hand.

Because if there’s anything I know how to do, is escalate with Oats…UGH!

So, we promptly left the indoor and headed outdoors- it was drizzly but hey we’re not gonna melt. We dealt with the weird behaviours (I think what was rattling me so much was that this was SO unlike Oats?! It felt like someone replaced my normally unflappable pony with another, more terrible one?) And I did NOT like that feeling!

And we manged just fine. In fact, that issue very quickly turned into a non issue and then we were on to another issue (yes me trying to get Oats into a canter using only my hands…which is EXACTLY what I was dealing with in my dressage lesson on Tuesday..eeek!) We were also dealing with him breaking down to trot the long side on the right rein and this is chiefly due to him being unbalanced and wanting to break. Greeeat…

But, at least it felt nice to know I DO know to ride, I WAS riding, and these things pop up.

Phew! It felt like an alien had taken over my pony’s brain?!!

Milky Chance- last dance! Oats Update

A weekend update from our favourite pony- Mr. Oats!

My Saturday ride felt rather uninspired. He felt a bit like ‘not bendy’ and a tad balky but not rude (he has been behaving well even after a week of holidays) but I was a bit frustrated. Like, come ON get with it, Mr.!

Oats looking cute in Feb. Why hello, there.

I tried to focus on keeping an open hip angle and not tipping forward through my transitions. Caught myself even wanting to do it during a downward transition- argh, the river of bad habits runs deep sometimes.

Also looking scrawny

No jumps, as there was a lesson happening.

Sunday, I let things flow a little freer and he was better! We cruised over a pole, I did some more one-handed stuff- canter circles at the left and right, canter over the pole, and trot over a x-rail one-handed. I think we are starting to get the hang of this one-handed business, I’m sure of it! It feels good to be developing new skills, even if I kind of suck at them at first…

And the weather was GORGEOUS! Springtime for us is here! Also my allergies have returned with a vengeance, ughhh, cue steroid-city. Blah!

Oh well, I can’t complain at all about the weather- we are so lucky.