In Which, Progress is Made

I missed making a post after yesterday's ride, but honestly, I'm kind of glad I did, because it would have beeen very whiny. I did not have a particularly good ride. He was lighter in the bridle, which was good, but I could feel that I was almost literally hanging on his face. I could feel it, but I couldn't stop it, which was extremely frustrating. I wanted to blame my bridle and my boots, but I knew that was just the frustration talking. And also--never blame your equipment. And that's about all the time I want to spend on Sunday, because today was much better.

I still hate the boots I'm riding in currenty, tho.

Today, there was improvement. After warming up, we worked on halts through the walk into reinback. At the start, they were messy. Way too much in my hands, completely leaving out my core, and not keeping my legs on. Shockingly, once I started actually paying attention to using my core and keeping my legs on, the halts gradually improved. I do still have to go to my hands more than I'd like in the halt, but just like with all the things I'm having trouble with, it's going to take time, and lots of wet saddle pads. When we moved to trot, we worked shoulders and haunches in. Now this, this is my jam. I have finally started to get the hang of getting and keeping the movement from my seat, and only using the reins for a brief half halt where it's needed. That's pretty much going to be my win for today.

The canter work started out pretty well, I got some nice collected canter and counter canter on both reins, but when we started working collected to mediums on the diagonal, I started falling apart. I was doing a good job of collecting him on the short side, and coming out of the corner straight onto the diagonal, and the mediums were... OK. Not nearly as uphill as they need to be, but passable. The real challenge is bringing him back from mad pony status to a collected canter. He's a big pony, and if I let him, he'll just dive on the forehand, and I try to collect him with my hands (that'snothowanyofthis works!!!!!!), he gets heavier, and careening through the short side we go. Just like riding my canter walks, I need to ride the hell out of that collection, sit him back on his hindquarters with my seat, engage my core, MORE LEG, a strong half halt with the outside rein if, and only if he's blowing the seat and core off, then get out. See, my brain knows this, I can visualize it, the muscle-brain connection needs work. In an attempt to make it easier, we went back to the 20m circle and worked on it there, but quite honestly, I was running out of steam, and flat out not being effective. We switched from the left to the right rein, and I got something workable enough that we could call it a ride.

Despite how the preceding paragraph may read, I am, in fact, very happy with how the ride went. Each time I made a mistake, I could feel in my body what was happening, and knew exactly what was going wrong, The muscle-brain connection just wasn't yet fast enough to intercede and issue the correction at the right time. The reason I'm happy about that is because I've figured out (or at least think I have) how my learning process goes:

1. I try to do the thing. Then one of two things happens
   1. I do the thing!
   2. Thing doesn't work at all.
2. If 1 a) happens, Yay! Memorize that feeling.
3. If 1 b), strap in, because this is gonna take a while. Continue trying until finally:
4. I can feel what's wrong. (A critical component in this is Christine constantly telling me :-p)
5. i can feel what's wrong and know what I need to do to fix it.
6. I feel what's wrong and implement the correction, just too late
7. One day, everything clicks, and it happens.
8. Next several rides, super inconsistent.
9. I stop thinking about it, and just fucking do it.
10. The cycle begins anew

Going back to the subject of equipment, my new bridle showed up today!! It fits Selten just fine, and he looks quite handsome in it. Of course, it came with a crystal-lined browband, because yes. Although, I'll need to swap it out with the purple browband I was given. I'll post a picture once that's done. And on that note... I should do more of that--posting pictures on the blog. This isn't the late 90s/early 2000s anymore. Blogs that are just walls of text show my age.

I'm old as fuck, y'all.

And to close on a personal note, I've been interviewing for a gig at the same company my prior boss moved to. Last week, I had the third round interview which I thought went Okay, but I was pretty sure I didn't impress the interview panel, and that's where it would end. Well, that assessment was apparently incorrect, as I've just checked my email, snd I've made it to the fourth, and last round of interviews. I'll be scheduling those this week, so we'll see what happens. But for now, it's late, and I have a full day of meetings that starts fairly early tomorrow, so I'm going to ahead and wrap it up here. My next ride should be Wednesday, and hopefully I'll be able to ride Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday. Until then.