Lesson #188: Baby's Got Her Grove Back

The last few weeks have turned my brief success into a distant memory. It's as if things were regressing and I had no control of what was happening. But this ride on Thursday was right on. I was in a lesson with 2 students: both skilled riders and young so there is a certain level of intimidation but I have ridden with both before so I just said whatever. Besides, I'm shorter than one of the girls so... LOL.

I get the impression that it's going to be a pretty intense lesson with few breaks. I'm right... the warm up consisted of a proper posting trot going around. Then, we dropped stirrups. Once we changed direction and then went at it a few times, we were asked ... canter. Me? Surely you must mean the other two? Nope, me too. I chickened out said I wasn't feeling confident about that and pulled my stirrups back. In hindsight, I probably should have just said whatever but like I said, I've been having more and more doubts with my own ability and I'm finding that a lot of this sport has to do with one's confidence in their ability rather than actual ability... hold on. Not to say that you should go running out there to do whatever but your instructor is on the ground and has been watching you ride for a while... they know what you're capable of so they're not going to ask you to do something you're uncomfortable with. It's all in my head, I think.

I pushed Ariel to canter the rounds (with stirrups) and we just trucked around in pretty good form. Next, we're asked to take jumps one at a time building them into a course of 3-4 jumps. I got as far as taking a nice low vertical and then another vertical with a little gate underneath, a 2'6" lattice jump that was on the narrow side and finally, another vertical with skids underneath! I GOT OVER!! The entire course was done at a canter too and while my biggest weakness continues to be clenching into the fetal position and getting on Ariel's forehand, it wasn't all that bad! I felt in control and my position was (for the most part) not too shabby.

Sheri said that despite the usual shortcomings I've consistently been struggling with, I got over the course just fine and I looked way more relaxed than in the past little while. Things do feel great and I'm really excited to progress and hopefully get back on track!