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!!

Happy Trails

You may have noticed that there hasn't been much activity on this thing lately. THat's largely due to the fact that for the past two weeks my pasture has been a giant mud pit. Not that I'm complaining, mind, I actually have grass now, but I really couldn't do much riding. Yesterday and today, I gott desperate, and tacked Ziggy up and went for a hack around the neighborhood. Since he's been off for quite some time, I just walked him on a long rein, and let him stretch out. We seem to have lost our clearance with the neighborhood dogs, as it was pretty much impossible to ride past somebody's yard without a welcoming committee. To his credit, Zigs largely ignored them and sauntered on. The only real problem I had with him was keeping him from counter-flexing to the outside to get a look at the wide new world, which was pretty easily fixed by taking up contact and asking him to look to the inside. I'll be riding him again tomorrow around the neighborhood. Hopefully, if it stays dry over the next week, I'll be able to ride in my pasture, and as a result, have a more interesting blog post to write. :)

Interpretive Dressage

It was quite the horsy weekend!  I know I haven't been posting much as of late, but I've had a pretty good reason.  Zigs has been off for several weeks.  I of course took him to Elgin and had a lameness eval done.  Thankfully, the vet didn't discover anything more serious than a twisted right front shoe.  Ed came out, and after another week or so off, I pressed my Alfalfa addict back into service.  As is to be expected, the ride was a bit rough, but I stayed in the saddle, and Ziggy didn't go lame again.  I was just glad to have my horse back.  Saturday, I spent the day out atSCARE for a CURE, moving all of our stuff to our as-yet unannounced new site.  But, anybody who knows anything can probably figure out where it is.  I'm dying for them to officially announce the site, so that I can start talking about it.  Anyhow, this is a blog about ponies, so I will try to keep the Haunted House chatter to a minimum.

However, I love doing Haunted Houses almost as much as I love riding horses, so I make absolutely no guarantees. Especially the closer it gets to October. Anyway, my intention was to ride when I got back home Saturday, but after moving flats all day, I bravely sat on my couch, and passed out. At some point Saturday night, Fuzzy Pony called and asked Zhi and I if we wanted to tag along with her and Saga's mom to visit Tango and Cash. Since I even brought it up, you may safely make the assumption we said yes.

While Zhi and I were getting ready Sunday morning, Saga's mom called and mentioned that there was actually a horse at the barn Tango is staying at whose owner was looking to free lease to somebody while she goes to California. Since the horse sounded like it might be a good fit for Zhi, we went ahead and got together our riding stuff, and met Fuzzy Pony and Saga's mom at Saga's mom's house. Now, you might be thinking, "I've never even heard you mention this Tango horse before. Who is he, and why were you so excited about going to see him?" Well, wonder no longer! A couple of weeks back, Zhi found a Dutch Warmblood in the San Antonio Craigslist for sale for $2500. We went out to see him, and the poor guy was seriously overweight, his feet hadn't been seen in 6 months, and to top it off, he was all alone in the pasture, and had become a little neurotic. To make a long story short, and not steal Zhi's thunder, Zhi was able to help orchestrate his rescue, and he is now being rehabilitated with the intention of becoming The Oracle's new riding horse. There is, of course, a lot more to that story, but it's Zhi's to tell, and I'm not about to steal her Thunder. ;)

I'm happy to report that when we got to the barn where Tango is currently staying, I almost didn't even recognize him! His feet have been seen, and he's trimmed down a good bit. His overall affect was much calmer and he seemed like an entirely different horse! After taking a quick look at him in his stall, we left him to munch on his hay while we checked out the horse that we might be free-leasing for Zhi. His name is Sahani, and he's a very cute Medicine Hat Paint, that looks a lot like Cash. After we watched the barn's trainer ride him, I hopped on, and I must admit, I rather liked him. I had to use a whip to wake him up a bit, but that's largely due to him being used to packing around little kids who can't kick as hard as I can. Once I'd determined that he wasn't going to do anything stupid, (and by that I mean, "I realized that I should actually let my wife ride the horse that we'd be getting for her"), I let Zhi hop up on him. From where I was standing, they looked good together, and it certainly looked like Zhi was enjoying herself. I'm hoping we're able to make the deal and bring this guy home for a couple of months, as it'd be really nice to be able to go riding with my sweetie.

Once we were done with Sahani, The Oracle's daughter pulled Tango out into the round pen so we could see him go. And boy, did he go. It was really nice to see him in so much better shape. I hope I get a horse that moves like him when I grow up. ;)

After taking a few good pictures of Tango, we loaded up in the car once again and headed out to Paige to see Cash. This was the first time I'd ever been to Paint Creek Farms, and wow, what a place! Forget retiring my horse there, I want to retire there. The place is every horse owner's wet dream. Gorgeous, rolling pastures full of lush coastal grass, a large clean barn with stalls that have partially covered runs, Saga's mom warned us on the way that since he's been at this place, Cash had gotten more aloof, and I can't say I blame him. Now that he's living in Pony paradise, what good are us humans? Oh, right, we bring carrots. We pulled Cash in from the pasture, and gave him a bath. In the process, Zhi and I took some mane and tail hairs for a sooper seekrit project whose results will be shown at an undetermined date in the future.

While he was drying out, Saga's mom was nice enough to let Zhi and I up on Cash bareback. One at a time, thank-you-very-much. There will be no FHotD-worthy shenanigans on my watch. (or on any of ours, I think it's safe to say.) Once Zhi and I had had our turns, Saga's mom hopped up on him, and reminded him and us that he was at one point a show horse. He looked really good, too. Hopefully, one day I'll be able to get Shoulder ins, leg yields and half-passes bareback and in a halter. After more carrots and scritches, we put him back in his pasture and headed home for the night.

Which brings us to yesterday. After riding Saga, Saga's mom was nice enough to come over and work with Zigs and I. Although I typically like to work on jumping when she comes over, Zigs is a bit out of shape after his time off, so we did flatwork instead. Which was good, because she was actually able to help me out with several problems I've been having. We started off by walking, trotting and cantering on a loose rein in both directions, which is how I'll do my warmups from now on. After letting him go on a loose rein and stretch what he needed to, I found it a lot easier to collect him up and put him on the bit. Once we'd warmed up, we started working on circles. Saga's mom identified several problems I have that I need to work on.

On the right:
1. My right leg tends to drift backward.
2. On the top half of the circle, I tend to lose the rhythm.

On the Left:
1. If I let him go straight, I lose the rhythm. I need to keep him bent the entire circle.
2. I tend to over-bend.

In general:
1. I need to keep my outside rein steady. One of the problems I've been having that Saga's mom helped me fix is that Zigs would evade by cocking his head to the side. The reason it's happening is because I have too much inside rein and I let my outside rein cross over his neck.
2. I still have a habit of pushing with my seat when I'm trying to get him to walk out more. I need to rely more on my inside leg to get the job done,

That being said, I have actually improved my downward transitions. When I was coming down from trot to walk, Saga's mom told me to sit a halt transition. I did, and wouldn't you know it, I got a walk when I asked for one. I've got lots to work on, and now that Zigs is sound again, you can bet I'll be working on it! Hopefully, I'll be able to find a new job soon so that I can get back into consistent lessons!