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So: The whole riding thing
I know you’re wondering: I talk big, but can I actually ride?
Well, yes. And no.
My background as a junior rider was solid enough: at home, I was training all Second Level dressage movements and riding around 3’ and 3’3” courses (hunter, jumper, and eq style). But in the show ring, I’d say I was solid at First Level and the 2’9” to 3’ fence heights. I did show Second my last year–a little before the Super Saint and I were ready, but we learned as we went. And I did show a few courses at 3’3” with one of my trainer’s horses, but they were remarkable only because my show nerves didn’t get The Horse of Many Names and I killed.
Then off to college, where I jumped around at 2’6”-2’9” forever. And ever. Until I was bored to tears with the fence height. Of course, there were mitigating circumstances, like my tendency to injure myself. And my irrational fear of fences higher than 3’. I am deeply sympathetic to horses who think there are alligators in the bushes, because I am convinced there are alligators in the gap between the 3’ and 3’3” holes on jump standards.
As all re-riders know, however, previous accomplishments mean jack squat after you take time off. It’s all very well to know how to ask for a shoulder-in, but it’s another thing to convince your hips to do this and your shoulders to do that while your arms do this other thing and your eyes are looking out the back of your head. My body’s just not convinced it’s really supposed to move like that.
I’ve also discovered that my injuries during college have taken a higher toll on me than I expected them to. The problem was my back: the problem is always my back. And the riding program at my college is not to blame. Actually, funny but true: the swim team is. I know. Everyone says swimming is great for your back. Well. I pulled my back out freshman year on the swim team and it’s never been the same since. Not that it’s ever been great; I think I was born with an eighty-year-old’s back.
But with three years off riding, my back had finally reached a point where it didn’t hurt all the time. Or even most of the time. It only hurt when I did something stupid, like attempting a head stand and then falling over onto a chair. Now that I’m riding again, I find I’m very protective of my newly-healed back. As much fun as jumping is, it’s also where I tend to injure myself: the horse jumps funny, or takes a long distance I’m not ready for, or looks at the distance I’m riding for and thinks Are you kidding me?! and stops so I can get an up-close-and-personal view of the insane distance… and suddenly there goes my back again.
Better not to jump. I realize injuries can happen on the flat, but the point is: they happen to me over fences. The only time you’re going to see me going over a jump now is if the horse I’m riding decides to exit the dressage ring at B.
Which brings us to where I am today, about a year after I started re-riding. I take lessons about once a week. It’s all I can manage right now. For the last year, I’ve mostly done walk-trot. Hee. I never expected to call myself a walk-trot rider again. It’s not that I can’t canter, or won’t canter, or don’t want to canter–I do–it’s that I want–and my instructor knows I want–to ride the horse correctly for dressage. As a teen, I think I “needed” to canter. You know: more speed, higher fences (but not too high! Alligators!). Right now, I “need” to find my right leg and stop trying to fix everything with the left rein.
Even though I’m a walk-trot rider (heh. No, really, I’m laughing. It’s just so funny to me), what I’m doing is far more technical/detailed that what I did at, say, college, where the emphasis was on long, low, and forward, and not so much on precision. It’s a different kind of progress, but it is indeed progress.
Not that you would have believed it if you had seen me after my last lesson. I got off and felt like that time I hadn’t been riding for a year and then took my cousin’s big, round quarter horse out for a three-hour trail ride. With no stirrups. And lots of trot. My cousin came home and found us standing in the yard. Wanted to know why I wasn’t getting off. I had to admit that I couldn’t lift my leg over the saddle’s cantle, since I didn’t have a stirrup to push up against and my thighs were done. Dead. Lying on the street somewhere in protest and awaiting relief from the U.N.
You’d think after a year of re-riding I wouldn’t be getting that sore still, but with only one lesson a week it’s an all-or-nothing deal. Besides, I’m sure it impresses all the junior riders when I gimp around the barn for the next hour. Shows how dedicated I am. Right?
Right.
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Comments
Exactly: once is never enough. No muscle memory, so I fight the same weakness/muscle fatigue each week. Fortunately, it’s normal workout soreness and it goes away quickly. Riding more often would probably help me back, too; fortunately, it’s actually been injury free this past year or so, and it’s gotten stronger during the time I’ve been riding.
Mostly it’s my schedule that makes a second lesson difficult. That’s going to take some time, yet, but I do want to ride more often. Don’t we all? http://halt-near-x.com/images/smileys/smile.gif
On Sep 26, 2006, RiderOne said:
Gad, I’m so sorry about your back! Is it possible you could increase to 2 lessons a week and that it might decrease your general and overall soreness (I’m working on a post for today on that very topic)? Not that I don’t trust you to know what you can and can’t handle; it’s your body and you reside within in and know it better than anyone. Perhaps, as the James Bond movie title has it, “Once is Not Enough.”