Blog :: Progress Journal
November 2006
Sometimes, things click
I had the shortest lesson ever this week. And one of the best in a long time.
It didn’t start out so great. Things were running late, so I was warming up a bit on my own–and warm up in winter = two point. Two point for a couple minutes so the horse’s back can warm up? Not my favorite thing, but worth doing. Two point for twenty minutes? Oy!
Once the lesson started, we were doing some work with bending and quarterlines and turns–and I was in that “I sort of get it but I’m not entirely sure I get it” place that I seem to be in so much lately. So my instructor had me leg yield from the rail to the center line and then ride into the halt.
And it clicked.
The feeling, I mean. It’s so much easier to stay centered during a leg yield if the horse is on all the aids. It’s so much easier to do a leg yield when the horse is really moving forward. And the feeling when a horse is really reaching underneath himself on the cross steps is incredible.
But the halt. Oh the halt. It’s the halt we’ve been waiting for all summer. It was a truely different thing than the park-horse halts I’ve been struggling with. It was the sort of halt where the horse is so round and underneath himself that you know he’s ready to step off into any movement you want to ask of him, and he’ll step off already on the aids. A beautiful, beautiful thing.
My instructor would have continued on with the lesson, but I was close to being done anyway. It was the perfect place to stop, and it’s a great feeling to be carrying through the week.
October 2006
Blowing the budget, for a good cause
We all know I’m on a budget, saving for The Wonder Horse To Be. I even cut back my book buying, which is a Big Deal. I buy books like other people buy cigarettes.
I’ve also been on a long, slow lifestyle adjustment. This time last year, I was fifty pounds overweight. Not a national crisis, I agree, but I could feel the effect of the extra weight in my back. Not good.
Also, I went to put on my field boots and they didn’t fit. Not even close. Ditto my full chaps. One or two other things convinced me that I would be happier if I could lose even forty pounds.
Because I know myself well, I knew a quick, dramatic diet was not the answer. It had to be the whole “lifestyle” thing, and I don’t change habits easily. I knew this would be a long, slow battle.
Given the “long, slow” bit, you’d think I’d have gone out and bought some temporary field boots or half chaps or something, right? Oh no. See, I keep my old boots and chaps in the closet and tell myself “I’ll wear these again some day, so no need to buy new ones.” Some people have “skinny” jeans; I have “skinny” boots and chaps.
I’ve been riding with sherberty pink polos wrapped around my legs.
Oh, I know. Believe me, I know. If I had to go the polo route, at least I could have shelled out ten dollars for cheap black ones, right? I mean, I hate the sherberty pink color. I think it was supposed to be a regular reminder of what I was working for, but… oy. I’m lucky my instructor just let it slide. I’m lucky the junior riders thought it was a cool fashion statement.
It’s been a year since I started this weight-loss thing. My boots and chaps still don’t fit. But!
But I have lost twenty pounds. A pant size and a half (I’m in that icky in-between stage). An inch and a half off my calves. I couldn’t fit into extra-wide half chaps last fall; I tried on large half chaps at the store this weekend and they fit.
I just couldn’t help it. I bought the chaps. They are purrrrrrrrty: full-grain leather, close contact, brand name $$$ chaps.
At least when I blow the budget I blow it big. And for a good cause.
In which I ride a school horse and feel like an idiot
I rode the Fourth level school master this week. I always feel like I’m going to break him, which is ridiculous. The horse not only has my number, he also has my address, banking information, and email passwords. The only one about to be broken in this situation is me. Fortunately, it’s only my pride we’re talking about.
Case in point: the very simple instruction to “turn left.” I couldn’t do it.
The problem is that he’s a school master, through and through. Very well trained–so he does exactly what you ask for. Exactly. What’s asked. Not what I want, even though I’m sure he knew I didn’t really want to do a quarter spin, reining-horse style. Or a turn on the haunches. Or a turn on the forehand.
Good grief. Turning is one of the things you learn in your first lesson, right after the instructor says, “Here is the horse. These are his ears; this is his hind end” and right before she says, “I did tell you that he would jump over that oxer if you didn’t turn. Now, would you like to get up out of the dust, hop back on, and turn this time?”
Eventually, we did turn. Fortunately. I don’t think my ego could have handled it if we hadn’t. It’s bad enough that I can’t get him to halt properly. Stop, yes. But he parks out behind like an Arab halter horse. Which would be fine, if he were an Arab halter horse. But he’s a dressage school master, and he snickered all the way back to his stall. My goat, the cows, the chickens… heck, the whole farm. He’s got it all.
He’s just a very different ride than the two horses I normally ride. They’re greener, so we can muddle through things together. If my aids are a little fuzzy, it’s ok–because their responses are a little imprecise. The school master? Exactly what’s asked. As soon as it’s asked.
It means I know immediately if my aids are wrong–and I know immediately if they are right. Instant feedback is a good thing. It also helps that he is so clear about what is right and wrong; there is no middle ground. It’ll make a difference when I go back to the other two horses. One would hope, anyway. I also realized my seat and legs are definitely better than they were last time I rode him–even on my once-a-week schedule, there IS progress.
Progress is always good. Maybe next time I’ll even be able to halt.
After a year, I lead a horse ten steps
Earlier this week, one of the stall cleaners asked if I could move a horse. It’s a common request–the younger stall cleaners are supposed to ask someone experienced to put the horses in cross ties. Without thinking, I agreed. Then I asked who she needed me to move. She told me.
“Oh,” I said. Just “Oh.”
I’ve been back working and riding at the barn for a year now. During that time, the barn owners have been very good at re-teaching me about ground work–not in a concentrated lesson, so much, but in bits and pieces. I’ve learned a lot by observing how they handle the more excitable horses, and they will often talk to me about any unusual situations that come up. Between observing their body posture/tone of voice, and their explanations of what happened and why, I’ve learned a lot about ground work this past year.
My confidence in handling horses has also increased–I found that it wasn’t the individual horses that intimidated me, it was not knowing how to react in certain situations. Once I learned how to react, I felt more confident. I never thought much about the fact that we have to learn ground work just as we have to learn how to ride, but we do.
Nevertheless, the one horse I haven’t handled in the barn this year is the stallion.
The stallion, of course, is the horse the stall cleaner wanted me to move.
The stallion has never done anything to make me think I couldn’t handle him. He’s well behaved, and I watch the barn owners handling him all the time. I handle far more excitable horses every day I’m out there. And as with everything else, over the past year the barn owners have been great about talking to me about the stallion–his progress, why they handle him in certain ways, what they do if he starts to misbehave, etc.
If I’m confident about bringing in the young TB even when he’s determined to show me just how high he can buck, you’d think I’d be confident about the stallion, too.
Unfortunately, stallions, like heights, intimidate me by their very existence. They don’t have to do anything; the fact of their existence is enough to make me turn chicken and molt feathers. Actually, I should be honest: I’m not afraid of heights. I’ll go up on the roof any day for you, and I’ll stay on the roof all day. It’s the coming down that scares me. If you send me up on the roof, you better have a cheering squad, an hour of spare time, and a fireman to get me down.
For the past year, if anything came up with the stallion, I just found one of the barn owners. And they were perfectly happy with the situation; I’ve known that I could handle him, if I wanted to, but they didn’t expect me to.
I don’t know what was different this week. I watched the Fantastic Four over the weekend; maybe the super hero powers rubbed off on me. More likely, I looked at where the barn owner was teaching a lesson, at the stallion in his stall, and at the cross ties ten steps away and realized how utterly ridiculous it was for me to refuse to walk a perfectly well-behaved horse ten steps.
So I decided I would do it.
Even better: the cross ties were full, so I ended up holding the stallion in the barn aisle for the ten or fifteen minutes it took the girl to clean his stall. He was a perfect gentleman the entire time.
I realize it’s not a huge deal to walk a horse ten steps and then stand there, but I’m darn proud of me.
September 2006
More Power
Arrh! Arrh! Arrh!
Clearly, somebody’s been watching a little too much Home Improvement. Ahem.
For the past few weeks, we’ve been concentrating on really riding the horse up into the bit. Not, let me be clear, creating a headset with the reins and then trying to catch up with the rear end. I start with a working-length rein and ride forward-forward-forward until the horse steps up through her back and reaches into the bit–she’s the one who takes up the slack in the reins, and, if the word doesn’t make you cringe, she’s the one who creates the frame.
All I have to do is maintain the contact and remind her to keep the energy coming forward.
“All” I have to do. *snort*
It’s a completely different trot when we get it: her step is larger and more powerful, but it feels like there is more room in the arena because she’s straight and listening to the aids. There’s time to adjust little things, without worrying about the big things. And although it can take a lot of work to get her to really move forward, once she’s there, maintaining is easy. (Not true of all horses, unfortunately. The super-cute gelding I rode this week will actually step up fairly well when you ask him to, but you better have legs of steel to keep him going forward. Ye gads!)
Although I know I’ve had this trot before, it’s been so long it feels like the first time again. And I finally have a glimpse of why upper-level riders can be so motionless on their horses: when the horse is engaged behind, and pushing through the back, and reaching into the contact, the rider doesn’t have to half-halt them to death to maintain the frame, or constantly cue with the leg to maintain straightness. The cues can be focused on creating the next movement and not correcting errors in this one. Right? I think so.
And it’s not at all the same thing as riding a hot, forward horse–in that case, you spend as much time rating the forward motion as you do trying to push a cooler horse up into real engagement. With the mare, who is a little cooler and takes convincing to get her to engage, once she’s engaged she actually needs very little leg to maintain. And the hotter gelding I rode actually slowed way down and started stretching out his stride once he engaged–vs. his earlier quick, frantic trot. But he took much more leg (reassurance) to maintain the engagement than the cooler horse. I doubt that’s true across the board for hot/quick vs. lazy/cool horses, but it was interesting to ride both types and feel real engagement on both types.
I also love how subtle my aids can be once the horse is engaged. We were reversing through the circle and it was finally a case where the “close the fingers on this hand, now close the fingers on the other hand” actually worked to create fluid, balanced turns and changes of bend in the reverse. Except for closing my fingers, the rest of my body could stay still and centered.
It’ll take time before I’m able to consistently maintain the back-to-front engagement, but it’s great to have had that feeling again. And to have had moments where I felt like the horse was truely on my aids and I was riding, not harrassing or nagging her through an exercise.
My trainer has been telling me forever to “love” the forward trot, and I finally really get why: the next step up from “forward” is “engaged,” and an engaged trot is something to truely, truely love.