Lesson #48: Do Things with Purpose

August 30, 2013

I'm back from skipping a week of riding and it feel great to be back. It's just me tonight and no ADW to join me as he's returning from Calgary. It's the start of a long weekend and the end of a long week.  It's humid and raining today so we end up riding indoors. The day light is also getting shorter and we're finding ourselves in the dark during our lessons.

This lesson is spent indoors as it is raining and nobody likes to be all wet while riding. Our usual warm up is started to get our rhythm right--consistent and in control. Sheri tells us that the best way to get into things is to get into a consistent rhythm so that you can move forward. It's kind of like getting your land legs back, after disembarking a cruise. I notice that with Indy, my legs are secure and I use my inner thighs to keep myself balanced. This is an interesting discovery on my part: it's part of the eventual aim of a proper posture and correct muscles being engaged.

We continue to practice some work with posting and seated trot and also work on the balance by double posting up and once down. This is tricky to consistently do because if your leg position isn't right, then you fall back down. We work up to some very tricky exercises that really test your ability to quickly transition from one gait to another and direction as well. This is not my evening at all. I have trouble initiating the canter over the two ground poles and cannot canter through the X-jump at all! My posture is all over the place and I'm literally falling over Indy during transitions. What's wrong?

I reflect on the way home and I come to realize that I am genuinely tired for this lesson. Part of it is me just going through the motions and not really being "in it". Riding requires you to be actively living the moment and not thinking about what's happened or what will happen but to anticipate just a few moments before, in order to make a sound decision about what you'll do. That's the problem: because I was such a zombie, I wasn't in the moment and my mind was wandering around and I was drifting off into la-la-land all evening. It's time to ramp up my schedule and really buckle down on what needs to be done! After all, I have to work, in order to continue to do what I like to do in my spare time (at this time, anyways...) and so I've got to really pull myself together and not waste time.