Blog :: Progress Journal
January 2007
A New Approach
Kelly has an interesting post on fear and riding (thanks to LearningHorses for the link). As we all know, the thought of jumping makes me want to pull the covers over my head and cry myself to sleep. Between Kelly’s post and my own thoughts on the fear issue, I’ve reached some tentative conclusions:
- I’m afraid of getting hurt again. [This is where you look sympathetic and say, “So, you must have had a really bad fall and broken a lot of bones or something, right?” And I look sheepish and say, “No, not exactly.” And then, figuratively speaking, I start doodling on a napkin and refusing to meet your eyes while I try to figure out what I’m supposed to say now. And then my eyes brighten and I say, “But I did crack my knuckles once!” because while I hate to justify the constant small but naggingly painful muscle injury periods I went through, everyone understands a broken bone. And how many people can say they cracked all their knuckles, anyway?]
- The fear is not the problem. Anyone who thought twice about jumping would be afraid because… really, now. While my degree of fear is probably a bit irrational, there’s nothing particularly shameful in admitting that jumping is dangerous.
- The problem is that I don’t address that fear. During the three years I took off riding after college, I spent a lot of time thinking of all the could-have-beens and what-ifs. And there was nothing to counteract that—I wasn’t on a horse and riding and having good experiences to reassure me. I wasn’t even on a horse and having bad experiences, which would at least have alerted me to my onrushing fear. Instead, I focused on the negative aspects of my injuries and didn’t even admit that I was letting fear grow.
- And now that I’m back riding, I’m still not convinced I want to address my fear of jumping—although I do (obviously) realize it’s there. You see? The fear itself is not my problem. My reluctance to address it is.
So I should just address it right? Ah. But there’s a catch. A Catch 22, in fact:
I am afraid to jump because I never address that fear and make myself take that first step towards jumping again, no matter how small that step is.
I am afraid to jump because my back cannot handle it, physically, and I inevitably end up injured. This is not a possibility; this is a certainty.
So… if I force myself to address my fear and jump, I’m going to end up hurt because of my back. Thus confirming that I was right to be afraid and setting me back where I started. Or, I do not jump and keep trying to make my back stronger, hoping that eventually I’ll be able to handle jumping physically… but in the meantime, I continue my passive non-addressing of my fear issues, which leaves me exactly where I am now.
The third possibility, of course, is that I overthink these things and I’m a psychologist’s dream come true. Just think of all the tropical vacations my phobia could finance!
I"d love to say that I don’t really care if I can’t jump and it’s not important to me and la-de-da Dressage. That’s true, at one level: I do prefer Dressage to jumping, and I always have, and a large part of me doesn’t mind the thought of never jumping. But I can’t say all of me is ok with that, because if I were, I wouldn’t keep bringing it up here, would I? (Hmm… I’m going to have to start paying my blog for the therapy sessions. I wonder where computers go on vacation?)
Several years ago, I was in a jumping clinic with a more advanced group than I’d normally be in. I was used to jumping 3’. Everyone else was used to jumping much higher. We were supposed to jump around at 3’3”, but you know how things go in the heat of the moment. Three times I turned a corner to an oxer on the diagnol—it was probably 3’9” and reasonably wide. Three times I fluffed the distance. Isn’t fluffed a great word? It sounds so… soft. Massacred would probably be a better choice—the only reason we got over the fence was that the horse I was riding was very scopy, far more honest than he should have been in that situation, and willing to bail me out every time.
But after the third jump, the clinician called me over and reamed me. Did the path I took to the jump work the first time, he asked. No, I said. Did it work the second time? he asked. No, I said. So what on God’s green earth was I doing riding the same friggin’ path a third time? he asked. Well, in all honesty there wasn’t so much asking going on as there was screaming—but I will never forget what he said next:
When the approach you’re taking isn’t working, find a new approach.
We took a new approach on our next go. We hit the proper distance. Amazing.
Since I started riding last year, I’ve been taking one (failed) approach to my fear of jumping: I can’t address the issue in the saddle for physical reasons, and so I’ve assumed there was nothing I could do except sort-of ignore it and hope it would go away.
That approach, clearly, isn’t working. That fact that I’m afraid irritates and bothers me. So if my approach isn’t working… I need a new approach.
Perhaps reading the book Kelly mentions on her blog would be a start. Or there’s another book title that I see floating around frequently—I want to say it’s The Winning Way by Jane Savoie or something like that. At least by reading I’ll be doing something about my fear, instead of letting myself settle into a rut of inaction.
Hunter Riders In Dressage
Back in the day, I took Super Saint to a dressage clinic. Within five minutes, the clinician said, “Oh, so you’re a hunter rider.”
Oh, so yes I am. And?
The clincian’s point was that, since I jumped at home all the time, I could do the cavalletti exercise first because I’d be the most comfortable with it. What, you thought this would be about the differences between a hunter seat and a dressage seat?
Right, it is. His point was also that I didn’t sit deep enough for dressage.
I still don’t. Heh.
On purpose, though–I still want to drive with my seat / use my seat instead of my legs / what have you. So a deep seat would be a bad idea, don’t you think? A lighter, more hunter-y seat, on the other hand, is helping me get the idea of where my legs need to be–and as my leg aids improve, we’re slowly working on how to sit without driving.
It’s a long process. I still look like a hunter rider in the dressage ring. But hey–I have my whole life to get to that long-legged draped look, right?
Tonight, for the first time, I finally believed it would be possible for me to one day lengthen my stirrups to a definite dressage-y length.
Among my many bad habits: using my heel instead of my entire calf. Which, of course, means I shorten my leg and turn the knee and toe out. Which, of course, means I am that much further from a long, dressage leg.
So tonight’s lesson focused on turning the knee in, which brought my calf against the horse, and stabilized my leg so that I felt I could use the calf–instead of the heel. Ah ha! All of which mean that I could drop my leg down while still using it. Amazing. Who knew? (Yeah, yeah: every dressage rider out there. Maybe I’m just a slow learner.)
Another effect of the knee-in exercise: when I pushed with my inside leg against my outside leg, I could feel the wall I was trying to create with the outside aid. Well, for two or three steps at a time, anyway. But I’m not complaining: seeing two lights at the end of the tunnel is a good thing, and they make for quite a nice lesson tonight.
We also talked a little bit about how I revert to my hunter-jumper days when I get in trouble–I want to move up into a half seat and float the reins, which… doesn’t really work in dressage, right?
I’m still thinking through that portion of the lesson and trying to sort it out, but I think it means I’ve come to a cross roads in terms of my position. Prior to this, if I used the half-seat-and-float “out,” it didn’t really hurt the exercise–I wasn’t necessarily riding with enough connection for it to matter. But now that we are starting to bring the horse together more, I can’t throw away my connection like that.
My hunt-seat background is part of the reason I float, of course. The other is that I am afraid I’ll drive with my seat–so I go too far forward instead. But I think (I hope!) this all means I’m reaching a place where my seat is good enough that I should be able to get myself out of those sticky parts without floating–but also without driving. In other words: I need to give myself persmission to stay sitting and maintain the contact when I feel like I’m in trouble.
It’s interesting: I’ve always liked what my hunter background brought to dressage, so to reach a place where it’s starting to hinder me is a little disconcerting. Now to set about unlearning some habits–how’s that for a New Year’s realization?
December 2006
Small Steps. Baby Steps. Almost Non-Steps.
Hi, my name is Halt Near X and I think fire-breathing dragons live under jumps. What I think of gymnastic exercises isn’t really printable–it’s only in the last week or two that I’ve been able to watch other riders go through them without cringing.
So I’m as shocked as anyone that I walked through part of a gymnastics exercise today. Just the first part–raised cavalleties. We were using the impulsion generated by the cavalleties to help me rate the walk through the rest of the arena.
Unfortunately for me, this meant walking towards a jump and only turning away from it at the last minute.
I survived, obviously. I won’t pretend I wasn’t tense, but I did survive. I can walk towards a jump and not have a panic attack. Isn’t that nice?
Against all expectations
This week I had another of those hit-by-a-bus days. Hard to tell what brings them on–full moons, weird weather fronts, my imagination. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t being hit by an actual bus, because I’d remember that.
I decided to go riding anyway, on the assumption that moving around would be good for me. My trainer, who is awesome, turned the lesson into a physical therapy-like session. My job–my only job–was to relax and let the horse move my hips.
Easier said than done. But one of the things I realized is that in normal lessons when I try to “feel” the horse moving, what I’m really trying to do is control that movement–almost like I’m trying to lift his hip with mine and then push his hip back down. The reverse of what should be happening, in other words.
This week’s lesson made it clear that I work way too hard while riding. I’m not using my seat as an aid; I’m using it as a sledgehammer. It’s interesting that it was easier for me to figure all this out and feel what it’s like to be correct when I was feeling so lousy, but as my trainer pointed out–I didn’t have much choice except to give in and relax.
The horse loved it, I think. He marched down the long sides in a lovely walk and as we came out of the corners we’d straighten out and he’d immediately lighten his front end. It was all very cool, and I ended the lesson more relaxed and, in a way, energetic than when I started.
Something to think about next week, for sure. Meanwhile, I’m kicking the cat out of my room tonight. She likes to sleep in the middle of the bed, and while I don’t understand how a twelve-pound cat can shove me over to the side while I’m sleeping, she manages it. It’s just a hunch, but I don’t think sleeping in the Twsited Pretzel position is helping me out here.
November 2006
Learning to Ride
This past week we were working on serpentines–a good lesson. No huge “ah ha!” moments, just several little clicks as things slotted into place. I’m not complaining–it was very satisfying to come away and know there had been definite progress during the lesson and that previous lessons were starting to gel.
But in thinking over the lesson, what strikes me most is how good serpentines are for me as a rider. Forget the horse–I like serpentines.
I like to think ahead. Always. To be planning my next move. If I hang too much on the same thing, I get bored and switch to auto-pilot. This is why the hunters don’t interest me as much–trying to maintain the exact same thing all the time doesn’t challenge me in a way I enjoy. I’m not saying hunters are easy–I think it’s extremely difficult to put together a flawless hunter round–they just don’t challenge me mentally the way going from movement to movement in dressage does.
There’s also that little issue with my fear of jumping that keeps me out of hunters, but that’s an issue for another day.
But serpentines, as I was saying, work for me. Changing the bend isn’t automatic for me, yet, so having to think ahead on each loop and mentally check my aids, as well as ensuring the horse stays coming forward through the movement, is a mental game for me. A constantly changing mental game. And if I get it wrong–if I miss the bend or the horse gets sticky in the transition?–it’s not long before I have a chance to try again. I can’t dwell on what went wrong, the way I might in a circle. If I get it right, the loop lasts just long enough to confirm my aids are correct, and then I have to change again–so I also can’t dwell on my success so long that I lose the edge/preciseness of my aids.
Every change in bend is a chance for me to self-check where I’m at and if I’ve “got” it–whereas in other figures (such as a circle), there aren’t really built-in checks. I can “decide” to check myself at this and that point on the circle, but it’s not the same (for me) as the definite change in bend on a serpentine.
It’s like the free walk/long rein across the diagnol–another exercise with several built-in transitions. I can’t stick, I can’t obsess when it goes wrong (or right). I can only keep moving forward and maybe retry the entire exercise.
I know some riders hate serpentines–they hate the constant changes. They work best when they can, say, ride a twenty meter circle over and over, letting the sameness of the shape help them fix their aids. For them, the stability of the exercise is a bonus. Where I get sloppy on a circle–because I become complacent about the shape, or my outside aids, or my inside hand, or what have you–the circle offers them a structured way to work towards perfection of the aids.
I’ve always sort of “known” this about myself–how I like to ride, the challenges I like to approach–but for some reason it’s making sense this week in a way it hasn’t before. It gives me a sense of independence–a feeling that, if I were riding outside lessons, I wouldn’t be completely lost.
It’s a good feeling. I feel like I can actually ride. Serpentines, at least. Don’t ask me about circles.