46

So, remember how I said something to the effect of "this blog is primarily about my riding journey, but I can't pretend that my riding happens in a vaccum"? This is going to be a short, "riding doesn't happen in a vaccum" life update post. I'll start with the big news: As I'm writing this, 11/07/2020 15:24 the AP has called the presidential election for Joe Biden and Kamala Harris. It's worth noting that it's not official official yet, but given the electoral vote lead Biden has, as I understand it, there is simply not a mathematical path to victory for Trump. It's also worth noting that as of this writing the Trump/Pence ticket has lost by 4 million votes. It will be a wild ride to the inaguration, I'm sure.

On a personal note, the big news is this--I've accepted a new job at Indeed, and I start on the 30th of November. It's been quite a ride at Expedia, but quite frankly, I am burnt out, and need a change. Here's to hopng that these two things are the first of many positive changes to come.

As a follow-up: it's currently 19:07, and we're waiting on Biden and Harris to speak. It's been quite some time since last I watched TV news, and my god, the vamping while we wait. I get that the anchors need to fill airtime, and keep the audience engaged, but I'm utterly uninterested in what they have to say. I just want to see what the President, and Vice President-elect have to say. Immediately after the speech, we'll switch over to watching the UFC fight card. Tomorrow, I'll go out for a hack on Selten, maybe even introduce him to a lance and see what he thinks of that. There's not too much more I feel like saying, and it looks like Biden's arriving to give his speech, so we'll cap it off here, I think.

FLYING. CHANGE.

I've been slacking on updates the past two weeks. Cliff's notes: A couple of terrible rides, followed by some significant improvement to counter-canter and collected canter. But here's one thing I have to say about today's ride:

FLYING. CHANGE. I DID MY FIRST FLYING CHANGE TODAY!!!!

I am excited about this, in case that were not patently obvious. It was a left to right change. We tried for a Right to Left, but I just didn't have enough in the tank to ride it properly. Unfortunately, I didn't get video, but I will be sure to ask someone the next time I do changes. But, all in all, a great way to start the day, and week. Later today, Selten is going to see the chiro, and the body worker Friday. Spoiled pony, but worth every penny. :)

In other news, today is my last two interviews of the last round of interviews with Indeed. One hour of programming interview, and 30 minutes of wrap-up with the HR peep. I've prepped for it the best I can, and I'll do my best, and we'll go from there. I'm going to keep this entry short today, I need to get to work, and try to do some last-minute prep for the interview.

ACCURATE.

I should get this tattooed on me. Or, at the very least, it will be a sign hanging in my barn.

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.

Barn Rules

So on my way out to the barn yesterday morning, for some reason, I started thinking about what the rules for my barn would be. No idea where it came from, but since the plan is once we're on the other side of the current pandemic to build the new place, which if I get to have anything to say about it, will include at a bare minimum a barn, and ideally a lit, covered area, it doesn't seem entirely out of line. Yes, I realize that a lit, covered riding arena will cost almost as much as the house. I also don't give a fuck. Anyway, here's what I've come up with so far:

Spiderfox Ranch Barn Rules

1. If you're smoking in here, you or the barn better be on fucking fire, and it better not be the barn.
2. All of the ponies in the barn are the best pony.
3. Clean up after your horse.
4. Clean your tack after your ride.
5. There are no politics in the barn. Take that shit elsewhere.
6. If you come off, it's hospital, or back on.
7. Always find a good note to end the ride on.
8. No Rollkur.
9. If you're the last person at the barn, make sure the aisle's sweeped, the stalls are mucked, gates are shut, and lights are out.
10. If you see Fox continually checking an already closed and latched gate or stall door, please check it with him, and assure him it's closed.

There will probably be more added along the way, but this feels like a good start. I might re-visit this list every so often, and make a new post to add to the list as I come up with new ones. Another idea that just came to mind was to perhaps in the near future do a "these are Fox's rules for riding" list, and revisit that yearly. Maybe I'll do that post around Thanksgiving. Which, given the insanity that 2020 has been, may as well be a year from now. We've got the rest of the presidential campaign, and the election to get through before then. Pretty sure that whole mess is going to feel like a fucking year between now and then. I'm just going to leave it there, because rule #5.

Onto the riding, then? Do let's.

After the saddle fitting, and, frankly, a couple of tune-up rides from Christine, Selten was significantly lighter in the bridle. Shocking, I know. And it seems there is a culprit for the heaviness I was experienced that I did not suspect--It seems that I am not giving enough in my outside rein. I have developed a tendency to get in, but not get out, which causes him to hang on it. I also realized one of the things making my rein back so herky jerky and not fluid: I'm clenching with my knees, so of course he doesn't want to move. I'm completely shutting down the shoulders with the upper leg, my seat and lower leg are saying "back up", so I'm saying, "Ok. Back up, but don't... like.... move your front legs." To which, he's rightly responding, "....the fuck?". Something to think about. I also need to make sure that I'm keeping my legs on in my halts. I seem to have gone back to just shoving my feet forward like I'm trying to do a western sliding stop. Except I have no idea how those actually work. Plus, I'm a Dressage rider, so I don't see how that's going to be in any way helpful.

In addition to those productive discoveries, during the lesson, we worked on some collected canter, counter canter circles and serpentines, canter/walks, and simple changes through the walk on the short diagonal. During which, I had the following additional useful observations of things that need to improve:(listed in no particular order)

• In both my walk->canter, and my canter->walk transition, I am hunching my shoulders, and losing my core engagement. I noticed it more so in the upward transition. My suspicion is that this may be another hold-over I have from riding Shadow--bracing for an imminent rodeo that never comes.
• I need to ride my canter->walk to the bitter end, and not stop riding until he's several strides into the walk. I have the tendency to stop riding as soon as I feel him about to slow down, thinking "got it!". So, because I'm not finishing the transition by telling him, "yes, you're slowing down, and I want it to be into a walk", he's picking what's easiest for him, which is to fall on the forehand, and dribble into a walk, rather than sit down, and walk.
• Corners. USE. THEM. WISELY. Especially on the short diagonal. Once you turn that corner and are on the diagonal, there is not a whole lot of time to put your canter together, transition to walk when you hit centerline, and then pick up your next canter lead 3 walk steps later. I of course knew this intellectually, but I got a very visceral feel for it when on one of the diagonals, I really made him sit down, and came out of the corner collected and organized, and the short diagonal didn't feel as short, because I was already prepared for it.
• For fuck's sake, BREATHE, Fox! (This is a continual thing. There is a good chance that I will need to remind myself of this my entire riding career)
• Relax in the counter-canter. I've gotten so afraid that my horse will do a flying change on me (happened on Summer at a show, got railed for it by the judge), that I'm making this so much harder on myself than it needs to be. What keeps the lead is not me getting all tense, it is keeping the outside leg back, the inside seat bone of the canter lead driving, and the horse ever so slightly shoulder fore on the lead I want to keep. The flying change is going to come when those flip. I need to start getting this drilled into my muscle memory.

There may have been more, but those all feel like particularly solid things to keep in mind. I always try to come away with at least one takeaway from my lesson, and that's 5, so, we're just going to notch up a W on that one. These are all things that will come with some more concerted practice, and lots of wet saddle pads. One of the thought processes I've adpopted recently, (shoutout to Fallon Taylor) is that you just need to be 1% better each ride. Slow, or incremental progress is still progress.

And having typed that, I realized that we worked on one other thing--Rein back to trot. That was pretty cool. For those who don't know, Rein back to trot is a 4th level movement. So, all in all, a really good lesson, and a great way to cap off the week. In other news, Christine told me about a recognized show that's occurring the first week of December down in Manor, and asked if I'd be interested in going to it. My initial plan was to do a schooling show in December, and go recognized in early 2021, but I feel like I could certainly put together a capable first level test on Selten, and feel pretty good about being ready to do second level by then as well. It's close to home, and plus, it's at the same barn that I did my first ever recognized show at, so I think it'd be kind of cool to do my first recognized show on my new horse at the same venue. I need to get on getting Selten's USEF/USDF registrations transferred over to me. I will try to remember to do that tomorrow after I get back from the barn. That's enough for tonight, I think. I'll try to update after my ride tomorrow.

Heavy.

This is going to be a bit of a catch-up entry. Last week was a bit of a light week for both me and Selten. Partially by design, also partially by my guilt over breaking my trainer's bridle. Yes, I realize that it is just a bridle, and the important thing is that Selten is OK. I'm not going to try to defend it, so let's just let it rock and move on. Cool?

Cool.

My rides were OK, I suppose, but they were characterized by a single word: heavy. He wanted me to carry his head, and I tried everything I could think of to get him off his forehand and sitting again. Halt to reinback to forward again, trot halt, walk/canters, etc, and none of it worked. I'm trying to figure out why. The only things I can think of are that 1) I wasn't demanding enough impulsion. 2) I was stiff in my upper body, 3) I was curling my wrists and not giving him the inside rein. My trainer rode him today, and when I asked how he was, I got pretty much exactly the response I was anticipating:"A little heavy at first, then very good." My plan for this week in my lessons is to understand what it was I was doing wrong last week, and start training more effective corrections. As for last week, the positives I'm going to take from the experiences is:

• That I was able to recognize he was too heavy.
• That I actually tried to do something about it.
• That I now know exactly why you don't let them scratch their face with the bridle on.
• That my horse is a saint.

Continuing with the positives, tomorrow, the Bridle Suite will be coming out and I will be buying a new bridle (well... two), and SOME. NEW. FRIGGIN'. RIDING. BOOTS. Now, I'm not gonna blame my equipment... but I'm gonna blame my equipment. I hate how it feels to be riding in my winter boots. The fit more like muck boots, (which, well... they are) and I don't have the same feel with my foot and thigh in the stirrup as I do when I'm weearing riding boots. At the very least, it's been distracting, and at the very worst, I feel like for sure my lower leg has been far too busy. Being back in proper riding boots will at the very least remove that excuse. Then, tomorrow, the saddle fitter will be out, because Selten's put on so much topline already that the saddle needs to be re-flocked.

#humblebrag

Well, not really. Credit for that really should go to Christine, not me. She's been riding him more, and I've just been doing my best to not fuck up her hard work when I ride. So after Thursday, there will be absolutely no excuses, or equipment to blame. If there are problems, they will clearly exist between the saddle and reins. I mean, that's where they've always been. So really, nothing will be different, I'll just have shiny new tack.

10 PANIC 20 GOTO 10

Oof.

Not the best day, or ride. Standby for pity party. Actually, fuck it. Hang on one sec more, Imma pour myself a bourbon because it's been one of those. Alrighty, now I can start the pity party.

My original intent today was to wake up early and go ride in the morning before work, but there was an early morning meeting scheduled today that made that not possible. No problem, since I would be able to be done with work in the afternoon, with plenty of time to ride after. Early morning meeting went fine, I helped get the groceries in, and I dialed into my team meeting not expecting anything out of the ordinary. This was my first mistake of the day. (Wait until the last one, though. It's even dumber, and more expensive.) I won't go into the exact details, because A) I'd like to try and maintain some level of privacy, and B) as a rule, I'm not terribly fond of airing my work dirty laundry out in public. But the executive summary is this: I was asked about some goings-on in our test environment, which brought to light that our development may come to a screeching halt, with a very long lead time to recover and become productive again. While we're in the midst of a project that we're trying to launch by the end of the year. And worst of all? It was going to be 100% my fault, and I had done nothing to mitigate, warn, or plan for.

You know, the kind of shit people lose their jobs for.

In an attempt to try and get ahead(??) of my impending unemployment, I sent a series of messages to various Important People™, and since by this time, it was lunch time, nobody was responding. With nothing else productive to do while I stared at Slack waiting for responses, I did the only logical thing--had a panic attack. And no, I'm not speaking figuratively. It was a genuine, honest-to-Goddess meltdown. I have the heart rate data to prove it. Poor Zhi, who was out of the house at a doctor's appointment walked in the door while I was midway through losing my shit. Not a good look on me, if I'm honest. By and large, I tend to be pretty good in a crisis, but for some reason, this particular issue was a bridge too far for my addled psyche. I finally managed to get it together and get back to trying to dig myself out of the mess I had created, when I finally had a chance to get on a call with someone who knew what the hell was going on. And, fortunately for my job, but decidedly less so for my ego, I had completely misunderstood the situation. Everything was fine. There was to be no great cataclysm in our Test environment that I has completely failed to prevent. Good news for my employment prospects. Bad news for my endocrine system. The rest of the work day was fairly uneventful, but honestly, I was cooked, so I was more than happy to knock off early and go to the barn to see my pony.

Since I knew I was cooked, I made the conscious decision to not work on too much today, mainly keep things to a walk, and work on making sure he was using his hind end, and not leaning on the reins, as well as work on some rein back. Difficult to say whether this was just me being in an overall bad state today, or if there was a genuine issue, but I never did really feel like I successfully got him light in the bridle today. I tried all the tricks: lots of transitions, halt to rein back, counterflexing, exaggering the bend, etc., but it was one of those rides where not a goodamn thing you do seems to work. Deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, I called it quits, and hopped off, and went to go muck out the arena. Here's where my more expensive, and dumber mistake happened. While I was mucking out the arena, Selten rubbed his face on his leg, managed to step on his reins, set back, and broke the bridle. It snapped just above where the crown piece joins with the cheek piece. I do not think there is a way to fix it. Fortunately, Selten is OK, and I'm OK. Unfortunately, this was my trainer's bridle that she had graciously loaned me from her now-retired GP horse, and I feel like a grade A asshole that my horse broke it on my watch. Of course, I will be replacing the bridle. That goes without saying. I called and let her know what happened, and she was really cool about it, but honestly, I still feel terrible about it, to say nothing of the fact that my stupid ass called her the night before championships to let her know that my stupid ass had broken her bridle. I know it's just a bridle, and I know I'll make it right, but I'm all kinds of out of sorts today, so I think it's probably best that I wrap this up, get over myself, get some sleep, and start over in the morning. Hopefully tomorrow, I will come to you with 100% less whining.

You Ain't 'Bout That Oval Life

So, I totally forgot to ask Christine this morning about her riding Selten for half the lesson, and me riding him for half. We'll do that Monday. Friday was a lighter day, we mostly worked on bits and pieces of all the things we had been working throughout the week, at a slightly more relaxed pace. Not surprising, since Selten worked pretty hard all week, and I figure it I want Fridays to be light days at work, then it doesn't hurt to extend the same courtesy to my horse from time to time. Plus, I'm giving him a full weekend off, he's earned it.

As well, in the interest of full disclosure, I'm writing this on Sunday afternoon, and not Friday, because I got home, did a whole bunch of chores, cooked dinner, and promptly passed out. Yesterday, I went to help a friend out with some house stuff, Dawn came over to drink Margaritas with us in the orchard, and then we watched the UFC fights. I slept way in today (I guess I needed it), and after doing dishes and watching YouTube videos for a while, realized I should go ahead and finish this entry up, so here we are. Back to the pony stuff...

Like I said earlier, Friday was a bit more low key. We sort of worked on all of the things that we did over the last week, but the main thing I remember about the lesson was an insight into collected vs. extended canter. When you are cantering, your seat travels in an oval. If you want an extended canter, think of the long side of the oval being horizontal. When you're collecting, think of the long side of the oval shifting from horizontal to vertical. It was a helpful visualization that I'll need to work with some more, and as luck would have it, I ride again tomorrow, so there'll be a chance to test it out again.

After our lesson, Selten got some body work done on him. In just the month I've had him, he's already started to muscle up, and it's time to get the saddle fitter out again to adjust his saddle, since there are a few pressure points that he's getting, so that'll likely happen at some point next week. Speaking of next week, Regional championships are next Thursday - Sunday, and the barn will be packing up and heading out to those Wednesday, so I'll be holding down the fort at the barn for the rest of the week. I did qualify for regionals this year at first level on Summer, both GAIG, and SWDC, but since A) We're in the middle of a pandemic, and B) I just bought Selten, and would much rather devote my energy to working with him, and hopefully qualifying for championships on him next year, I decided to stay behind. That's really all there is to report this time, so I'll leave it here. I should have more to say tomorrow.

The Tyranny of the Left Rein

It's been a really good week of riding, but I think both Selten and myself are a bit tired. As a case in point--I got home from the barn a little after 16:00, and after doing a few small things around the house, laid down on the couch, and promptly zonked out for about 45 minutes. I suppose I shouldn't be too surprised, according to FitBit, I've burned an average of 3000 calories a day, and have almost certainly not consumed anywhere close to that many. Even with all the candy and cupcakes I've been eating. (They're all gone now, in case you were wondering. And for the record--they were delicious.) I woke up later than I intended, 07:00 instead of 05:30 (Oops. But... I'm on vacation?), and made it to the barn just before 09:00, and brought Selten up, and started tacking.

Happily, Christine asked me what I wanted to work on today, and as I noted in yesterday's entry, I asked that we work on turn on the forehand, turn on the haunches, and reinback.

Ok, also: is it rein back, or reinback?!?

Just checked the USDF 2-3 test. It's rein back.

Now that that's settled, onto the lesson. We started out working turn on the forehand on the left rein, and, put mildly... it did not go terribly well. At the moment, turn on the forehand is hands down my weakest movement, and while I always kind of suspected why, today it was made very, very plain. Which for sure was frustrating, but by breaking the movement down piece by piece, (and, candidly, still failing to successfully execute the movement), I've identified several issues to fix.

1. I am trying to make the movement happen with my hands, especially on the left rein, which is his harder side.
2. My left leg goes completely MIA, so I'm not helping him execute the movement at all.
3. I'm not making enough of a distinction between my leg being at the girth, ahead of the girth, and behind the girth
4. The left wrist is at it again. I noticed that whenever I get frustrated, or am trying to make something happen, my left wrist almost immediately starts curling in, and the rein comes across the neck, which of course only further impedes what I am trying to do. Then I get tense in my upper body, then the horse gets tense, etc.
5. I tend to try and make the whole turn happen, rather than being content to get a step or two.

To shake these issues out, Christine had me walk down the quarterline, and leg yield the shoulders in, and once I was in that position, bring his haunches towards the rail. Pretty much immediately, the issues highlighted above started making themselves apparent one-by-one. Job #1 is to stop curling my wrist, and keeping my inside rein hand low and open. Since the barn will be gone next week at championships, I intend to spend a lot of time working on the exercise of leg yielding the shoulders to the center, and bringing the haunches around while staying out of my hands.

There's not too much to report on the rein back today. I made a few incremental improvements in making sure to use leg rather than reins to make him back up, and got a little better about making the differences in my seat clearer between "back up" and "walk off". I do need to come into the halt more straight with more impulsion, but that's going to continue to be a work in progress.

So, all in all, a good lesson. A bit frustrating at points when my brain couldn't make my body do what I knew I needed to, but that's just going to come with more time and reps. It was just a year ago that I was having no end of trouble with walk/canter, and generally keeping my horse straight. Just keep grinding, don't beat myself up too much, and a year from now, I'll likely have a completely different set of nagging issues. Such is the way with Dressage, it seems. And on that note, over the past year, or so, I've noticed a very definite shift in my overall mindset in how I approach Dressage. It's all about the training and improvement, not the hardware and satin from the shows. What was good enough today, is not going to be good enough tomorrow. And, I'll be working on riding inside leg to outside rein my entire career, I'll just be doing slightly fancier stuff while I'm doing so.

Not gonna lie, though... I definitely enjoy seeing all my ribbons when I walk into the guest room, and drinking wine out of my first place HDS wine glasses. As for tomorrow, I think the plan is to do a training session where Christine rides for half of it, and I ride for the other.

G r a t i t u d e

Another good ride today. So far, I've ridden every day this week, and Lord willing and the creek don't rise, I'll ride tomorrow and Friday. Getting out to the barn this week has been super simple, since I decided to take a week's vacation off of work, with the express intent of spending every day at the barn. I'm tired, and maybe ever-so-slightly sore today, but I've been getting a ton out of my lessons. To recap the past two days, we worked on:

• Collected canter
• Shoulder in (at trot)
• Haunches in (at trot)
• Renvers (at trot)
• 10m Canter circles with haunches in
• Trot down quarterline, renvers, take that shape to the rail
• Canter down quarterline, shoulder in, take that shape to the rail

In an excellent example of why I need to recap my lessons on the day I have them, that's mostly what I remember from them. Well, that and a couple of general themes. First off, I'm starting to get the hang of how a proper, uphill collected canter is supposed to feel, and relaxing as I'm riding it. Earlier, I had the tendency to tense my adductors, and curl my shoulders (for reasons that are still lost to me), making things so much more difficult than they need to be. I also had the bad habit of trying to make the collected canter happen by tryng to use my hands to rate the gait rather than using my core and seat to set the length of the stride, and only using a half halt in the outside rein when needed, and staying he hell out of his mouth otherwise. By no means is it yet perfect, but it is starting to get more consistent. Plus, I've had several good circles of the collected canter, so I've memorized what it should feel like. And I know they were good because my trainer was yelling, "YES! EXACTLY LIKE THAT!". So what, exactly was that feeling? My legs were relaxed, but my inside leg was on when needed to keep the forward, my seat and core were keeping the horse compact, and my hands were quiet, inside rein open to invite the shoulder to come in towards centerline. The overall feeling was that he was sitting on his haunches, and if I had the desire, I could have put his shoulders anywhere I wanted them by just using my upper thigh. Since the collected canter was going so well, towards the end, my trainer had me canter 10 meter circles with haunches in. Which, I think is a preface to canter pirouettes.

Generally speaking, I'm also starting to get much better about using my core, and getting out of the nasty habit of trying to fix so much stuff with my hands, which Selten made readily apparent. That trait is one of the things I like the most about him--he is an excellent tattle-tale for my bad habits. And speaking of bad habits, when my reins are too long, or when I'm tired or tense, rather than having the rein aids come from my elbow, I will tense my forearms and curl my wrists, which, you guessed it--translates to tension in the horse. I wish I could tell you that's getting more consistent, but that is very much still a work in progress. Some days it's better, (like today), other days, decidedly not. It'll get there, just need more time and reps (and probably my trainer screaming at me about it a bit more won't hurt.)

The final thing worth noting from the last few days' rides was a realization I came to yesterday, towards the end of my ride: I have the tendency to over ride. And I know exactly how I got that. It's a coping mechanism I developed riding Shadow. Towards the end of my riding him, he had taken to breaking in half, so to try to avoid that, I would try to ride very precisely, and micromanage every single body part to try to A) prevent the Rodeo and B) get some sort of advance warning one was about to take place. I came to this realization as I was cooling out, and replaying the lesson in my head, and noticed the parts of it that were the best were the parts when I stopped micromanaging every. single. little. thing. and... just rode and did what Christine was asking me to do. I even told her as much, and she agreed that that assessment was right on. So, something to keep firmly in mind, moving forward.

And forward we go! Onto today's lesson. Today, we worked a little bit of collected canter, and then Christine asked me if there was anything in particular that I'd like to work on. I had to think for a second, but came up with two things:

1. Trot extensions
2. Rein back

On the trot extensions, Christine had me do a 20m circle, extend on the open side, and collect on the rail to start with, just to get him using his hind end, and then I went large around the school, going up the quarterline instead of the rail on the long side, collecting on the short side, and extending as soon as I got straight on the quarterline. As always, the corner is where you sit your horse down and tell them something's coming, and you ride inside leg to outside rein as you're extending the gait. To help with this, one of the exercises I moved to next was leg yielding out to the rail in the extension to both develop the feel of the inside leg riding to the outside rein, and to get Selten keeping his hind feet together and pushing up and forward, rather than letting them go wider than his front feet, allowing him to fall downhill. I did get one really nice quarterline of the extension, but I unfortunately couldn't memorize the feel, I was so busy trying to force myself to not tuck my knees up, keep my stirrups, and sit the trot, rather than flopping around like a narcoleptic fish. Oh, yeah, and keep breathing as well. That's important. The upshot is--I know I've got it in the tank, now to just chip away at each of those pieces, and in time, it will come.

Now, before I move on to the rein back, a brief aside. About a week ago, my beloved Mountain Horse field boots that I've had since 2012 blew a zipper. Which, according to Austin Shoe Hospital would cost $150 to fix, and take 4-6 weeks to get done. So rather than wait that long, I decided to go ahead and buy a new pair of boots. As I write this, I have a pair of Airat field boots on order, and I've been riding in my winter riding boots, and let me just say... there is a reason I stick to my regular riding boots, even when it's freezing out. What I really want is a pair of these:

Don't tell my sweetie, but a pair of those may wind up being my Christmas gift to myself. :D

Anyway, onward to the rein back. The main takeaways on that for me today are:

• It is an excellent way to develop your horse's hindquarters in a low-impcat way,
• A square halt is paramount to the quality of your reinback.
• You can, in fact supple a horse while they are backing.
• Add. Leg. to. rein. back. The backwards movement does NOT come from your hands!!!
• Rather, the reinback comes from your seat rocking forward ever-so-slightly, adding leg, and when it's time to step off foward again, tuck your seat back under, and, you guessed it--add leg.
• The reinback to the forward walk should be a fluid movement. 4-5 steps backward, to an immediate forward step. No pause in between.

To finish the lesson off, we ended with working a little on turn on the haunches at the walk. The sticky wicket for me in this movement currently is keeping the haunches in and walk active, as well as ensuring I'm putting my outside shoulder back. When I was working on the left rein, I for some reason decided that my left shoulder needed to be back, and was very confused as to why it wasn't working. I also need to do a better job of staying on my inside seat bone to pin him down to the spot and not let his haunches out of the movement. If I'm given my druthers tomorrow, I think I'll ask to work turn on the haunches and turn on the forehand again, and see what that brings. Looking forward to it.

In closing, I'd like to take the opportunity to 1) make the title of this entry make sense(unlike me, I know...) 2) give a brief snapshot of what's going on in non-riding life. As much as this blog is intended to be a chronicle of my riding efforts, I can't pretend that my riding occurs in a complete vaccum.

So, why gratitude? Put mildly, world and domestic events have been kind of a shitshow in 2020. We are still in the midst of a serious world-wide pandemic of COVID-19, which to date has killed 200,000 Americans. I forget how many globally, but America far and away has the most people who have died from the illness currently. Protests against police brutality and racism have been met with asymmetric uses of force by city, state, and federal government, and we are in the final 40 days of a seriously contentious and divided Presidential election. Not only that, but the economy is seriously hurting right now. There's a lot more, but I think that's enough to set the tone. Also, it's currently 23:40, and I want to wrap this up and go to bed so I can ride tomorrow.

So--again, why gratitude? Every day I go to the barn, having made sure I have a face mask to wear, I remind myself how INCREDIBLY AND UTTERLY fortunate that I am that I am in a position to own and ride such a wonderful horse, that I am currently still employed, and finally, that thus far Zhi and I remain relatively healthy. The rest of 2020, (and, if we're being 100% honest here, probably all of 2021 as well...) is going to be a crazy ride, so I'm going to do my best to be grateful for the things I have, and not devote much energy to worrying about things beyond my control. And that, I think, is kind of at the heart of why riding horses is so important to me. I can't be worrying about the results of a presidential election when I'm trying to collect a canter. I can't scroll through social media, or the news when I'm mucking out stalls, filling water buckets, sweeping, feeding, tacking, untacking, or cleaning tack. There's only the moment, and task at hand. Even the bad days, when I can't do a goddamn thing right in the saddle. From here on out, I intend to be grateful for every stride, be it a 10, or a 4.

New Horse, Who Dis?

Well then. It has been a hot minute since I've last posted on this thing. Nigh on EIGHT. GODDAMN. YEARS. if you're counting, which I am. As you might imagine, quite a few things have happened between then, and now. I reserve the right to do a longer retrospective post at some point in the future(hm... maybe for New Year's?), but for now, Imma just lightning round it.

• I got serious about improving my Dressage, and set myself a goal of earning my USDF Bronze medal.
• I've started competing in recognized Dressage shows, and qualified for SWDC regional championships at first level in 2019
• Scored > 70% in a recognized show
• I wound up Jousting both Zigs, and Shadow.
• I changed jobs twice since.
• I traveled to India, Germany, Iceland, and Belize.
• Shadow bucked me off, and I suffered, and recovered from an unstable burst fracture of my L2.
• Both Zigs, and Shadow had to be put down the same summer, within a month of each other. That was rough.
• The last time I jousted was 2015.
• I rode Icelandic ponies in Iceland. It was amazing. Also, Iceland in general is just epic.
• We did a trail ride through the Jungle in Belize
• Since Shadow and Zigs passed, I leased both an Irish sport horse, and a Morgan, both mares.
• Coincidentally, I discovered that I AM in fact, a mare person.
• So, of course, I bought a Gelding.

A 10 year old, 17.1 GOV, as a matter of fact. As I write this, I've had him for almost 5 weeks, and I'm extremely happy with him. That's honestly part of why I decided to get back on the blogging horse. In addition to that, I've decided that I'm going to try rather than setting New Year's Resolutions, I'm going to try setting yearly goals on my birthday, using this blog to track my progress toward (most) of them (some will stay off the internet, because, privacy), and I think also now that I've gotten very serious about training and showing, it'll be cool to have this as a time capsule to look back on, to see where I've come from. But, without any further gilding of the lilly, let's get to the good stuff. (dem goalz...)

Goals

• Figure out how to consistently ride at least 3 times a week, ideally 5.
• Qualify for GAIG championships in 1st and 2nd level
• Get my bronze scores at 2nd level
• Trot down centerline at least once at a recognized show at 3rd level
• Stretch Goal: Get my bronze scores at 3rd level, and earn my Bronze by my birthday 2021.

That's the plan. Now to put in the work.

They Call Him El Matador...

First, some silliness! Cash's mom and I were talking at work today, and she told me that she thinks that every horse has a mafia name, and asked me what Shadow and Zigs' names would be. I thought about it for a while and Ziggy is Fast Eddie, and Shadow is El Matador. It just seemed to fit. Now that that's sorted, back to the business at hand. On Saturday, I took a lesson from the Oracle, and, as usual, got a ton out of it. The lesson got off to a bit of a rocky start, however. I'm not sure what it is about clinics over at The Baron's arena, but every time I mount up on Shadow and start to warm up, I get fireworks. Discretion being the better part of valour, I got off and longed his ass. While I longed him, I learned a useful technique for getting him to stretch on the longe line. Point the whip at his ribs while vibrating the longe line to get him to bend on the inside. It took a while to get his attention back, but after he ran the boogers out, it worked pretty well on the left rein, and only sort of on the right rein, but since the objective was to get him to a point where I didn't have to re-enact 8 Seconds every 5 minutes, we didn't sweat it too much. With Pony Brain re-engaged, The Oracle asked me what I wanted to work on. I told her that I've been working on getting him to stretch into the bridle and I could use some help with it. My reasoning was that if he won't stretch into the bridle willingly, he's not going to collect properly, because he won't be working properly through his back. The first epiphany of the lesson was discovering that I'd been going about getting him to stretch into the bit wrong. I'm not quite sure how to describe what I was doing, so it's simpler to just relate the technique I learned:

1. Inside leg
2. Vibrate inside rein
3. Extend bit forward

And wouldn't you know it? It worked! Funny that. Another thing I learned doing this exercise is that I have a nasty tendency to just throw away my outside rein when he stretches out, which I'm thinking explains in part why I see him take a few steps, stretch into the bit, and then pull his head back up. He's looking for contact, not evading. The reason I did that was because I was under the misunderstanding that you just let the rein out and expect them to fill the space. What you are actually supposed to do, I learned, is "let the wheelbarrow go down the hill". Once I started concentrating on doing that, and not just throwing away my rein, lo and behold, I was getting much more consistent stretches, and I didn't have as much a problem with him hollowing again. It worked a bit better on the left rein than it did the right. On the right, I had to use the trick of widening my hands to change the way the bit was working in his mouth. After working on that exercise for a while at the walk, we switched to trot, where I discovered another problem I've been having that I haven't been paying attention to: my horse has a noodle neck, and I have a tendency to over-flex him, which allows him to pop out his shoulder and go wherever the hell he wants, as was evidenced by him teleporting out of the circle I had him on several times. After counter-flexing him around the circle a few times and a few well-timed swats with the whip, we mostly worked through that, and finished off the lesson by doing some work on laterals, which didn't go terribly well. The Oracle thinks I'll need to use spurs for the time being to get the laterals going, and plus, I need to have better control over his neck. As a quick aside, I also mentioned to the Oracle that I've been having a problem with being too willowy through my core, and keeping my hands too low, and at the end of the lesson, she told me that I didn't look willowy through my core at all, which was nice to hear. Definitely need to keep being mindful of it, though. All in all, it was a really good lesson, and while we didn't get a ton accomplished, I got a lot of new tricks for my toolbox, which I was eager to test out yesterday. And would you look at that? I'm no expert, but that seems like a perfect segue for talking about yesterday's ride, so let's strike while the iron's hot, shall we? Marvelous. Inspired by the success I had over the weekend, I dedicated last night's ride to working on the stretching exercises I learned at the clinic. Happily, results were largely positive. I was a lot more conscious about not throwing away my outside rein (it still happened from time to time, but I at least noticed and tried to fix it, though I didn't always succeed), and Shadow stretched fairly readily on both reins at the walk. Trot was rather a hot mess. I think because I was concentrating so much on whether or not he was stretching, I let my position fall apart, which made it difficult to give him clear signals. Rather than try to figure out what was going on at the trot, I went back to walk and kept working at the stretching, which was pretty successful. I capped off the ride with a little canter work, which didn't go well since I was really tired and I could feel myself arching my back and letting my core go completely loose. Wanting to end on a good note, I went back to working on getting Shadow to stretch at the walk, which he happily did.

Vote 4 Ponies

Quick update today. I only rode Shadow yesterday for a short time. There's lots of things going on right now that are stressing me out, so I decided that I really wasn't in a good state to work on anything, so I decided to try to make sure he kept stretching into the bridle, and not really fuss about anything else. It went pretty well. He still picks his head up at the trot, but I think he's starting to do it less. I have a lesson with the Oracle this weekend, so I'll be sure to ask her about it. That's really all there is to report, hopefully I'll feel more chatty after riding Ziggy this evening.

On the Importance of Having a Plan

Well, I guess they can't always be good rides, can they? After work, I had to run to the feed store and get feed for all my critters, and by the time I got home, it was pretty clear that I only really had time to ride one horse. Since Ziggy's just now getting back in to regular work, I figured a day off wouldn't hurt.

I was pretty tired, so I never really developed a solid plan for my ride with Shadow. I got as far as, "keep him stretching", and that's really about it.. The good news is that I'm to the point where I can feel when my position is wrong, the bad news is that I wasn't really able to do much about it. That being said, I had a fair bit of success keeping him stretching in the walk, although when I moved to trot, he kept hollowing and pulling his head out of the stretch. I had a moderate amount of success in getting him to stretch back into it. It has to be a strength thing.

I also tried a bit of canter, but due to my position not being all that great, the up transitions were rough. I did get him to stretch in the canter, but I could tell that my left seat bone wasn't solid in the saddle, so that made it a bit difficult to keep him from cheating on the turns. After cantering for a while, I realized that I was tired, my mind wasn't focused, and I was nearly out of light. When I untacked, despite the short ride (a little over 20 minutes), I was glad to see that Shadow had sweated a pretty good amount in all the right places, so at the very least, he got a good workout. Tomorrow, I'll try again, and hopefully A) have a better plan, and B) have enough time to ride both horses.

In Which a Strategem is Discovered

The third blog post in a row! (Well, fourth, if you count the video I posted today). This whole blogging thing may well be verging on becoming a habit. In the spirit of learning from yesterday's lessons, I changed up my approach to my rides today. Since I had to run to the grocery store, and was rather tired today, I was sorely tempted just to ride one horse or the other.

At least, until I remembered something L taught me at the clinic this weekend: A riding session doesn't have to be an hour long. You can go as little as 20 minutes as long as you go in with a plan, and are focused. That's exactly what I did, and it worked really well.

As is my usual preference, I rode Shadow first. The plan was to work on my hands, and keep Shadow stretching in the walk and trot. That's it. forcing myself to only concentrate on two things seems to have been the magic bullet. While I was more conscious of Shadow stretching and me keeping my hands up, it seemed that the other elements of my positioning that I need to fix just sort of fell into place. Moreover, I noticed that when things would fall out of place I could feel when it became "wrong". I would then quickly divert my attention to fixing the issue, and then go back to stretching Shadow and watching my hands. I did spiral in/spiral out on the circle, leg yield, voltes with lengthening and shortening strides and a little bit of shoulder in. They weren't all perfect by any means, but Shadow was very willing, and did a good job of stretching when asked. There are two questions about stretching that I want to ask a trainer the next time I'm in front of one.

1. When Shadow will stretch, after a couple of steps, he'll pick up his head and take away contact. Is that a strength thing, or an evasion?
2. At what point do I start putting more emphasis on getting him to come round on contact?

For my ride with Ziggy, I decided I would devote my focus to my ever-present core problem, since Ziggy will stretch and come round without any problems, and I was kind of bored with concentrating on my hands. Happily, my hands mostly behaved themselves. Keeping my core engaged went pretty well at the walk, but at the trot it was pretty hit and miss, and more miss than hit. Ziggy has a much bouncier trot than Shadow, which is one of the reasons why I decided to work the core thing on Ziggy. I figure, if I'm doing it right, when Ziggy's trot gets particularly bouncy, I'll be able to actually *sit* it, and not flop all over the saddle. The good news is, I did have a few flashes of brilliance, and although I wasn't always able to do anything about it, it was readily apparent to me when I was doing things wrong.

Once, when I had a pretty good trot going, I tried a canter transition on the right lead, and just got a unbalanced, strung-out trot. I then remembered that:

• Ziggy is 24.
• Ziggy is a Thoroughbred
• Ziggy has arthritic changes in his right hock.

It was about then that 2 and 2 added up to 4 and I recognized that our best chance for success was to start the canter on the left lead. After putting the trot back together and changing rein, I gathered him up and asked for canter again. It sort of worked. I did get a pretty good uphill canter, but he snuck in a few steps of trot, which I think was me not being clear enough with the lift of my inside seat bone. The actual canter was really nice. My core stayed engaged, and I played a bit with extending and shortening strides, and even got a bit of leg yield in.

A few times when I shortened the strides, I forgot to use my legs to keep impulsion going, and predictably, Ziggy dropped into a trot. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I learned or, more accurately, internalized something that I've known has been a problem for pretty much as long as I've been riding. On my downward transitions, my shoulders hunch and I curl forward, which makes my lower back arch, and me a hot damn mess in the saddle. I've been hearing it in lessons and from Cash's mom for years, but tonight was the first time I was able to consciously feel, analyze and internalize the transition from everything going well, to falling apart. In an attempt to capitalize on the new information, I picked up the canter again, and re-attempted the downward transition. This time, I felt things falling apart, and was able to at least put my shoulders back into position before becoming a hot damn mess. I wanted to try it again, but by this point, I was pretty much out of light, and it'd been a quite successful ride, so I called it a night, and will focus more on my downward canter transition when I ride Zigs tomorrow.

Something to Aspire to

Remember that clinic I mentioned that I audited last week? And that new friend whose place we had lunch at? Well, this is him:

Pretty damn impressive, no?

My Own Personal East German Judge

If you don't know this about me already, here are two important facts:

1. I'm a perfectionist
2. I'm extremely hard on myself

But I'm sure if you've spent any meaningful amount of time around me when I'm riding, (or, hell, just even scroll back in the archives and read some of the old posts), you knew that already. The East German judges may no longer be in the Olympics, but they're alive and well inside my head when I'm riding, and today was no different.

In the spirit of interjecting some positivity into the proceedings, I'll say this: I managed to ride both horses today rather than just Shadow, so that's good. There are a few more positive points, but this paragraph isn't really working the way I want it to, and revising my posts is an anathema to my cutting edge bite-me-Strunk-and-White stream-of-consciousness style. So what's a grammar revisionist to do?

New paragraph!

Anyway, the plan for today was to work on:

• Keeping my hands up
• Keeping my core engaged
• Not hollowing my back
• Keeping the horses stretching into the bridle.

As usual, Shadow was first up. Things started out pretty well, he was moving pretty nicely off of my seat and stretched down into the bridle fairly easily. I practiced spiraling in and out on a circle in the walk, which went pretty well, although I quickly fell into my habit of putting my hands down, and looking at his head instead of where I was going. When I moved to trot, I still didn't have much success keeping my hands up, and looking where I was going, although I didn't feel like I was hollowing my back or disengaging my core. After working in the trot for a while, (which by the way had lots of nice impulsion, and was fairly relaxed) I went back down to walk and let him stretch, which he happily did. Once the walk break was over, I got a little greedy, and decided to try the walk/canter transitions that I worked with L on over the clinic. I did a decent job of generating impulsion to prepare for the transition, but when I asked for canter, I wasn't anywhere near as clear as I needed to be with my aid, and I collapsed my core, which caused Shadow to take off in a hollow, un-balanced trot.

It was about this time that the East German judge took over the running commentary. Unfortunately, East German Judge is far more interested in delivering criticisms rather than suggestions for improvement. To try to stave off frustration, I backed off of the walk canter departs, and started concentrating on my position again in the trot. But here's the other thing about East German Judge: Once she shows up, she won't shut up.

In other news, yes, my inner East German judge is female. No, I don't understand why. Don't ask questions, just go with it. Ok?

After a while of some unproductive riding around aimlessly trying to focus on actually fixing the problems rather than on the scores I was getting (I mean, really, 3.7!? That's just rubbing it in.) I finally came to my senses, and decided to cut my losses, and walk Shadow out. Position-wise, by ride started out pretty good, but at this point, it had all pretty much fallen apart. However, as I was walking him out, , Shadow was relaxed, working through his back, and stretching into the bridle, so I at least accomplished one of my goals.

If you're playing along at home, you've probably figured out that Ziggy was up next. I decided this time, since I know that Ziggy's good about relaxing into the bridle and stretching, I would stay at a walk and work on all the position stuff. I wasn't having much success keeping my core engaged, or in not looking at my horses head (for Gods' sakes, it's not like the directions are posted there or anything.) That being said, I UPPED MY HANDS! It's all about the small victories.

For tomorrow's ride(s), I'm going to pare down the amount of things I work on, and really focus on mastering what I'm working on, rather than pushing for more. I also realized that for the longest time, riding at my house has been fairly unfocused, and I've allowed both horses to get away with falling in at the shoulder on turns, and I haven't been as expecting of energy as I should be. So, add those to the list of things that need to be fixed.

I know if I keep at it, I'll get to where I want to be, I just need to keep chipping away at problems one at a time, and try not to listen to the East German judge too much.

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. 

I Hate City Folk and New Year's Eve

Fair warning. This post contains lots of rage, venom and other similar adjectives. That being said, I'll now elaborate on my new-found hatred of City Folk and New Year's Eve. Earlier tonight, we noticed lots of cars showing up at my next door neighbor's house. Looked like they were having a party. Random neighbors had been firing off fireworks around the neighborhood, so we would occasionally go our and check on the horses. To their credit, the horses were very relaxed about the fireworks.

Fast forward about an hour or so, and all of the sudden, we heard a crash. I jumped up, and ran outside to investigate, and discovered the horses running hell for leather around the pasture, and some kids jumping over the back fence toward the creek. I yelled at the kids to get the hell off of my property, and went over to check everybody. There didn't seem to be any injuries and nobody came up lame, so I proceeded to walk the fence line. I'm glad I did, because I discovered that the gate between the front yard and the pasture was open, and had a horse-shaped dent in it. Zhi and I managed to get it to close, and used some of the spare chain we had to tie it closed for the night. Tomorrow, I'll go see how bad the damage is, and whether or not I need to replace the gate. At this point, the assholes who'd whipped my horses into a frenzy attempted to sneak back towards the pasture. Since they were all wasted, they were about as stealthy as a brick lobbed through a glass window. This time, I watched the horses while Zhi ran over and yelled at them again.

That seemed to work, because they all made their way back over to the neighbor's house, but at this point, there was no way in hell I was going to go back inside. I spent about an hour trying to get the horses calm, and kept watch for more drunk stupid people. While I was debating on calling the police, almost on cue, 6 Williamson County Deputies showed up and began dispersing the party. I don't think I've ever been so glad to see a police car. Zhi and I took turns keeping an eye on things while the crowd dispersed and the vast majority of them seem to have gone home now. I'm freaking exhausted at this point, but I don't know if I can sleep. Thanks a lot, City Slicker Assholes.

Panic!

Oi vey... what a night. So, I get home after a full day building stuff at SCARE for a CURE to find that half of my pasture fence has been taken out by a flash flood, and I can't see any of our critters. as I'm sure you can imagine, my heart plunged into the stomach, and I hauled ass into the pasture. Much to my relief, Zigs, Marie, Tesla and Kanemura were all standing by the dog pen. The goats had made their way through the part of the down fence at the back of the pasture, so I put Zigs in his stall, got some grain and called the goats and donkeys into the goat pen.

I then called The Baron and my Dad, and immediately set to work repairing the fence. It was about 1800 at this point, so daylight was fading fast. The Baron and Dad showed up shortly after I started working, and we made pretty quick work of the fence. I'm keeping the critters in tonight so that I can wake up in the morning and give the fence a once over before turning them loose, since it was about 21:00 when I came in from fixing the fence. Now, I'm just trying to get my blood pressure to return to normal!!