Why yes, I do wear women's clothing,

But only to ride horses. Since men's breeches are almost twice the price of ladies' (Why??) and I desperately need some summer-weight breeches, my ever-resourceful wife found a pair of summer weight riding tights by Kerrits in black for a really good price. The only catch was that they were women's. Having been in theater pretty much all my life, and having had to perform in all sorts of *cough* costumes, this wasn't really all that big a deal, so I told Zhizhu to go ahead and order them.

Belatedly, a thought occurred to me. Men's hips are shaped rather differently than women's. You would think that being married, and, well, a red blooded straight male, I would have noticed this fact. My chief concern was that the tights were probably going to be tights. Well, I am proud to report that they arrived today, and they are indeed tights. Now, I'll go on stage in anything, but the idea of wearing these tights and a tucked in form fitting shirt is torquing at the scattered, misplaced ashes of the remains of my modesty. At least, it will until the first time I ride in them in the heat. Amazing how personal comfort can trump concerns about your appearance in tight clothing!

Vet Day

I took the morning off today to be on hand to wrangle Zigs and the Donkeys for Dr. Arlitt. Today's dockett included a teeth float and annual vacs for Zigs, brain surgery and a booster for Kanny, and an anti-pregnancy shot for Marie. We're pretty sure Kanny didn't manage to breed her, but the shot is all of $15.00, and I think that my peace of mind is worth that. Our pasture is a bit crowded at this point, and if we're going to add another equine to it, I want it to be Zhizhu's horse. We're also in the process of selling off more of our goat herd to free up some more room. We've already sold a couple, and we have some people interested in a few more. Anyway, Kanemura was a very good boy about his brain surgery. Of course from the looks of it, the only real tricky part about brain surgery is getting the sedation in, and making sure they go down easy, but he was a pretty good boy about that as well.

Zigs was a bit difficult about getting his teeth floated, since we did it in his stall and not at the stockade in the vet clinic, so the vet tech had to do a little more work to keep his head still. But other than that, it was a supremely uneventful vet visit. I asked Dr. Arlitt about Zig's body condition, and she said he looked pretty good now. I also told her that I'd like to put about 50 more pounds on him, and she said that he was doing ok, and that in this heat it's going to be very difficult to put more weight on him, and since he is in fairly good form, not to worry too much about it until it got a little warmer. I won't be riding him tonight, I figure between the two awesome rides we had this weekend, and the vet checkup today that he's earned a day off. He'll return to service tomorrow.

Boing!

I'm probably going to fall asleep writing this post, but we'll see how far I get. Before I go into today's horsy activities, there's two quick additions /corrections to yesterday's entry. They are enumerated below, for simplicity:

1. I tend to drop my right hand so that it is not level with my left. This must end.


2. I am not so much leaning to the inside as I am collapsing my right side. I only do this on the right rein. This must also end.

Now that that's taken care of, on to today. As promised yesterday, Saga's Mom came over to help me out with jumping. I will, of course, go into more detail, but I would like to start things off by saying it was a significant improvement over Pine Hill. Not that Pine Hill was bad, oh no, Pine Hill went quite well! Perhaps that what I should say is that today, Saga's mom was able to help me fix the problems I was having at Pine Hill. To review, they are also presented in a numbered list, for simplicity and consistency.

1. Not being able to rate Ziggy to the jump.


2. Not being able to bring him back down to a trot after the jump


3. My Two-point was weak

Defying conventional chronology, I'm going to cover the problems in reverse order. As it turns out, my two point was weak because while my back was straight, I was rolling my shoulders forward. As soon as I straightened those out, my back instantly felt better, stronger, and straighter. The next revelation was with my legs. I don't want to say I was gripping with my knees, but I was doing something with them that was causing them to become pivot points to throw me forward. Saga's Mom told me that my base of support should be my calf, and that, combined with fixing my shoulders completely changed things. I felt significantly more secure, and the next couple of fences I took him over, it was a lot easier. I wasn't having to work nearly as hard to stay with him. I'd have to check my jumping pictures to be sure, but I think I had been having a pretty bad problem about getting left behind on the jumps.

Fortunately, I never was bad about catching Zigs in the mouth, which reminds me of the of the other problem with my two-point. Because I am so concerned about catching him in the mouth, I tended to throw my upper body forward over the jump, which to a TB (well, any horse, but TBs in particular) means "Run! For the love of God, RUN!". It turns out that all I needed to do was to move my hands forward, and leave my upper body where it is.

The last problem with my two-point form is my heels. As with most new jumpers, I have a habit of letting my heels come up when I'm coming in to the jump. This largely seemed to fix itself after I fixed my knees, but I still had to think about it a little bit, since it had sort of become a habit. Once I had all these things right, going over the jumps felt so much easier. I don't quite know how explain how it felt previously other than that going over the fence was hard. I felt out of balance, and was really having to work to keep everything where I thought it should be. Once I fixed all my positional problems, going over the fences felt like I was just sort of floating. I think that's because I wasn't putting my hands down on Zig's withers to try and balance, and because since my knee was relaxed, I could let my angles close and open back up the way they're supposed to. I wish i had some pictures so that I could go back and review them, but maybe next time. Now that I have jump standards and some landscape timbers I'll be able to get a lot more jumping practice in. (Only once a week, though!)

Now that we have covered the jumps, let's move on to the exits of the jump. I didn't have any trouble whatsoever bringing him back down to the trot. I think this is due to several things:

1. I was no longer leaning forward after the jump, so I wasn't encouraging him to run.


2. My reins were an appropriate length, so when i made it over the jump, I hadn't pitched him away.


3. After fixing my position in two-point, I was in a balanced position, so I was able to give more effective cues

I'm sort of running short on time now, as the vet's due to arrive any time now for Kanemura's brain surgery and Ziggy's annuals, so I'm going to have to shorten up the rest of the post. Regarding being able to rate Zigs to the jumps, I think that I was successful at it for the same reasons above. Another thing I'm getting better at is judging when I've done all I can, and I just have to ride what I've got over the fence and fix it on the other side. The thing is, during my un-lesson, I really didn't think "Oop. This is as good as it's gonna be, just ride.". It just happened instinctually. It may be that I've just gotten better at knowing how many strides out from a jump I am. At any rate, Sunday went a long way towards convincing me that going GAG at Pine Hill is indeed possible, if I can keep riding like that.

Later in the evening, Zhizhu and I drove down to Canyon Lake to check out a horse for her. He was a really pretty, big TB, but he was hotter than the sun, and not for a beginning rider. That's really all I have time to write now, I need to go corral the critters before the vet gets here.

Head up, Shoulders back, Elbows In

I am very happy with how today went.  Saga's mom came over this morning to see if she couldn't help me get to the bottom of my little braking problem.  We started off with walk circles and spiraling in and out.  As I usually do, I had trouble estimating the distance.  So, in a fit of obvious brilliance, Saga's mom put down markers on the 4 quarters of the circle. The concept that I could actually use fixed objects to denote reference points at precise distances was rather revolutionary. I plan to adapt this radical new technology and use it as my own. In addition to exposing me to the latest advancement in spatial relations, Saga's mom also told me something that completely changed the way I thought about circles. What I've been doing pretty much my entire riding career is visualizing that I'm putting my horse on a circular railroad track. What Saga's mom told me was, "I'm not really riding a circle, I'm riding a straight line with my horse bent to the inside." That, in and of itself was a huge eye-opener, but she then continued to tell me that I spend way too much time fixating on one of the quarter points of the circle. By the time I'm 2 or 3 strides out from the quarter point, that quarter's over, and I need to focus on the next one.

As soon as I processed and applied that, my circles improved 100%.So, yay! once I got that down, we moved to trot, and my problems became apparent. They are as follows:

1. I need to keep my shoulders back. They tend to come forward.


2. I need to keep my head up.


3. I'm not keeping my elbows at my sides

I think there's a few more that I'm forgetting, but those are the the main ones that are sticking with me. With my shoulders forward and my elbows not at my sides, it's very easy for Zigs to pull against me and unseat me, essentially making my downward transition useless. When I made a concerted effort to fix all of those things before asking for my downward transition, it was like flipping a switch. As I suspected, the problem was me. Now I just need to commit those things to muscle memory.

That sorted, or at the very least, with those problems identified, we moved on to the canter, where I discovered a new problem. I have the tendency to sit way to the inside, which causes Zigs to fall on the forehand. That one's going to take a while to fix, and I might need to ask Zhizhu to put me on the end of a longe line for a while to get that sorted out. This is true for canter both directions, although I'm guilty of it a bit more on the right lead. I also figured out another one of my problems with my canter transition (outside of the shoulders forward). Yet again, the problem was with imagery. What I had been visualizing is riding the horses hindquarters flat into the canter. I realized that was flawed when I asked for a canter, and I felt Zigs' front lift up to go into the canter and Saga's mom said, "YES!". The next few canter transitions I tried, I thought of getting him to lift his forehand up, and drive from behind, and that went considerably better.

at this point, it's pretty late, and Saga's mom will be coming over early tomorrow morning to do some jumping, so I'l elaborate more on today's rides tomorrow. Till then, I will go to sleep.

Riding Exactly the Same Way the Spanish Riding School Doesn't

Yeah... I'm not sure what to say about last night. Perhaps the best description is that last night's ride was everything that Monday's ride wasn't. I got home earlier than usual from work, and as I was debating on what to do for my ride, I had sort of decided on doing another ride around the neighborhood. Things probably would have worked out better if I'd actually done that. But, after getting home and taking a short nap, I got up and decided that I should do Dressage instead.

Should have gone with the trail ride. I was a total mess, Ziggy kept hollowing and rushing, and because my position was crap, I couldn't make him round up or go on the bit. The good news is that I was able to get canter exactly when I wanted it. So, yay. That's really all the coverage I feel last night's ride needs. Over the weekend a friend is coming over to help me out, so that should help things significantly.

A Good Day in the Saddle is Better Than a Bad Day at Work

For the second time in as many weeks, my soulless Korean overlords saw fit to release me from my toils at a reasonable hour, so that I could attend yet another riding lesson. Twice in a row is nice, but it will take three to make a habit, and I have confidence that even now, my overlords conspire against such an event coming to pass. But, the diabolical machinations of a soulless corporation will not sully the triumph of today! No sir! Onward!

As with just about every lesson I take, I once again climbed aboard Sonata. In the warm up, she was taking a lot of leg, and wasn't very round. But today, I would not be deterred. Instead of continually using my legs, I went to my whip a lot quicker, and that seemed to yield significantly better results. I founder her a lot more responsive to the leg, and it was a lot easier to get her round. The primary focus of the lesson tonight was to work on trot transitions. All of us had a different goal, and mine was to keep Sonata round when we transitioned up, and when we were trotting. I had a lot of success getting her to come round once we were trotting, I did have to have some discussions with her about actually going to the corner and staying on the rail, though. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise, however. I used all of the techniques that I learned last Thursday,( opening my rein far out while supporting it with my leg, posting my inside hip to her outside shoulder) AND THEY WORKED! Sonata dropped her head, went round, and moved where I wanted her to go. The one nit I can pick is that my heel kept coming up when I was having to put my leg on strongly. Once I noticed it, I started making a concerted effort to keep my leg long, even if I was having to really use it strongly.

Of course, this was about the time that my trainer started yelling at me for over posting. ;) I attempted to focus on doing both things, and I actually was able to do both at the same time a few times. I took special care to try and remember the sensation so that I'll hopefully speed its storage into my muscle memory. To cap off the trot, we did 20 meter circles on each rein, (long my achilles heel), and, while not circles per se, they were at least evocative of a circular shape. Plus, I was able to actually keep her out at 20 meters, which was a marked improvement from Thursday.

At long last, I come to the coup de grace. The Canter. I've made no secret of the fact that my canter transition is a source of continual frustration. I am happy to report that tonight was a notable exception. We started on the left lead, and when I first tried to sit for the canter, I basically forgot to ride, and got a really nasty fast trot. So, I re-balanced, and sat again. This time I actually remembered to ride and got a nice canter. I took the whole arena, and as an added bonus, when I went down to trot, Sonata didn't try to stop. I was pretty happy with that, but I had the right rein to contend with, which is typically the one that always gives me fits, even on Zigs. I switched reins across the diagonal, and in the second corner, i sat, asked, and immediately got canter. I was over the moon. I took her around the arena once, and let her quit on that.

As though it wasn't patently obvious, I am quite satisfied with both my and Sonata's performance tonight. Hopefully, my rides will continue moving in this direction. It would certainly make me more confident about doing the horse trial in October!! No riding tomorrow, sadly, as I'll be going to the Gym to start with a new personal trainer. (My Gym buddy's co-worker is actually a personal trainer and has volunteered to help us out.) Wednesday, however, will bring the Alfalfa addict back into service. More then.

Looks like it was my turn to colic.

Just a quick note about my ride yesterday on Sonata. My intention was to work on round circles and canter, but I was having pretty bad stomach pain, so I eventually decided just to walk her around. My brain really wasn't working at all, and unfortunately, I kept getting in everybody's way. Tonight, my overlords have granted me temporary reprieve from my conference call, so I will be taking a lesson tonight. Hopefully, it will go better than last Thursday did. Of course, I will report on it in full and exhaustive detail here later tonight. For now, I'm getting back to work. Here's to hoping I'm more awake/competent in my lesson tonight than I am right now.