Up your hands!

Wow, I've been neglecting this for a long time, haven't I?  Lots of things have happened since the last time I posted about the city kids chasing my horses through the fence on New Year's Eve.  I've hauled Zigs out to California to ride at the Tournament of the Phoenix, a major flood came through and demolished our fence, I switched to a much better job, my mom got breast cancer, fought it, and won, we weathered the worst drought in history, I helped my friend put on two jousting tournaments, the list could go on.  The point is, I've been busy, and while I have been riding, I haven't really felt motivated to blog about it; but today, I'm making a change. 

Why?  For several reasons.  First of all, until recently, it's been hard to get out and ride.  Not only schedule-wise (work, etc.), but also motivation-wise.  I'm not going to go in to any detail except to say I'm getting help with and addressing these issues.  Besides, you read this for the clever pony-related banter, not for insight into my mind. ;)  Second of all, I thought back to when I was blogging consistently and I realized that it was a great help in gauging my progress and helping to reflect on the problems I was having.  And lastly, I enjoy coming up with clever posts.  So now that we're on the same page, let's proceed, shall we?

Marvelous.

There is one notable change I need to mention moving forward, though.  Since I was last updating this blog regularly, I've been riding and training Shadow more often than Ziggy.  Not to worry, though, Zigs is by no means retired, It's just Ziggy's a made horse, while Shadow is still green in some ways, and needs constant attention to stay sharp.  I like to think that I've made some fairly good progress with Shadow over the two years I've been working with him, but there's still a fair ways to go.  So, in the spirit of picking a convenient reference point to begin working from for future reference, let's mark the beginning of the metaphorical tape at Tuesday of last week.  Why last week?  Simple, really; LB, an extremely skilled Jouster and Rider was in town giving a Jousting clinic.  Unfortunately, funds are a little tight due to a recent vacation and truck purchase, so I had to audit the clinic, but I did take a private lesson from him on Shadow, and he was kind enough to do some schooling work on Shadow for me.  Despite not being able to ride in the clinic, I got a lot out of watching L school Shadow, and my lesson. 

However, before I start enumerating lessons learned, I need to set the stage a bit.  After Lysts on the Lake, my riding dropped off sharply due to a combination of working 80 hour weeks on a huge work project, Texas summer and me being in a bad mental state.  All of this resulted in Shadow remaining rather under-muscled.  Since I respect L a great deal, and I know he likes Shadow rather a lot (in fact, at one point during Lysts this year, he threatened to take him back to Norway ;) ), I was rather apprehensive of showing up with my riding and Shadow being in such sorry shape.

Ok, let's not mince words: I was flat-out embarrassed.  I felt like I'd taken a few giant steps back rather than forward from Lysts, and Shadow's conditioning is not where it should be.  So, to stop belaboring the the point, I was wound pretty damn tight when I showed up for my lesson.  And oh Gods, did it show!  After a very tense warm up, and a mini-rodeo (brought on by my nerves, not disobedience on Shadow's part), we worked on getting shadow to relax and stretch into the bit.  While working on this, L identified several problems I'm having:

* I hollow my lower back.
* I'm not keeping my core engaged, which causes me to go all noodly (yes, that's a word now.  Deal with it.) and lose the ability to convert impulsion into collection
* I still hold my hands too low, which will now be easy for me to correct thanks to a saying that L relayed to me from a Portugeuese Bullfighting trainer, which serves as the title for this post: Up your hands!

After a while, Shadow started stretching out and blowing (read: relaxing) and we were able to get to work.  Since Shadow desperately needs strength in his hind quarters, we worked on spiraling in and out on the circle.  As is par for the course whenever you're re-training body position issues, progress came in fits and starts.  I'd have it, then I'd start thinking about what I was doing, and then revert to my old habits.  Happily, the lesson ended much better than it began, and I walked away with several things to concentrate on.

The next day the clinic started, and I helped people get tacked up before the sessions started, and just generally emulated a sponge, and soaked up every bit of information I could by comparing my assessments of the issues the riders were dealing with L's advice, and listening closely when L would give the other riders advice on how to work through the same issues I was having.  I like doing this because I feel like it helps me develop my eye, as well as helping to make another connection to the same piece of information in my brain.  In between sessions, L was nice enough to ride Shadow and work him for me. 

Er

Mah

Gerd.

Shadow can MOVE.

Yes, I am bragging.  Sorry about that.  But for Gods' sakes, he was doing canter pirouettes, flying lead changes, and teleporting to either side in a canter on command.  Impressive no matter which way you slice it.

For the rest of the clinic, I tacked up Shadow after the last session, and would work on the things L told me.  There's still a lot of work to do on my position, but I feel like by the end of the week, I was doing a much better job of not letting my core go soft, and I'm able to change the bend thorough my seat and spiral in and out on a circle much more successfully than I was at the beginning of the week. 

To put the icing on the cake, on Saturday, we loaded up and all went Foxhunting.  I rode Ziggy, and loaned Shadow to L.  As always, Zigs was a total rock star, and didn't understand why we couldn't A) Pass the leader of first flight, and B) Become flight 0.  The day that he doesn't want to do either of the aforementioned activities is the day I'll know it's time for him to retire.  Shadow did quite well for his first hunt, although he didn't particularly enjoy stopping for the checks, and tended to dance around.  But that's to be expected.  Horses ALWAYS get amped up when hunting.  That aside, he didn't have any problems with the hounds, and L rode him very well, as always.  Although I think next time I take Shadow hunting, I'll switch him to a Pelham instead of the mild curb we were using.  Not that the curb was a problem, it's just that it's my preference to start gentle and work my way up as necessary. 

We didn't get any talley hos, but the fixture was awesome, and a great time was had by all.  After the clinic, we loaded up and headed over to a new friend's place for a delicious lunch, and I got a firm reminder on the importance of checking your corners when going through a gate.  Fortunately, trailer, ponies and gate post all survived the encounter intact.

The clinic served as a much-needed kick in the ass to help pull me out of my funk and back into riding.  I don't ever again want to be that embarrassed over the conditioning of my horse, and as was rightly pointed out to me, as a horse lover, I have an obligation to train Shadow to his highest level of capabilities.  He's too nice of a horse to let go to waste.  So, to that end, starting tomorrow, I'll be adjusting my work schedule to 0700 - 1500 so that I can get home with enough daylight to ride in, and will be getting back into lessons as soon as finances allow (hopefully after the holidays).  To further encourage my progress, I'll try to post monthly videos and pictures.  Tonight, however, both Shadow and Zigs will be getting a well-deserved rest.