Lesson #66: Don't Look Down!

First major snow fall for the season and we're supposed to ride the following morning. It's a slow trek out that way but we surprisingly make reasonably good time. I do love the winter out this parts though... it's so peaceful... kind of like those Christmas cards that you see in the mail sometimes.

We worked long and hard today, on leg and seat aids again to remove the tendency to resort to hands (i.e. reins). The exercises we used were shallow serpentines, full serpentines (with ground poles) and lots of circles. ADW's moved up today... he's moved from pony to sport horse! This beautiful (and diva of a gelding) is a Trakehner whom our instructor owns, loves (of course!) and trained from foal/colt. Her original intent was to train him as a dressage horse but her comments today indicated that he both hated doing it and wasn't physically well suited for it (i.e. his confirmation wasn't great for dressage). He's a bit of a fussy boy and when he's around his Hanovarian "brother" but he's wonderful to ride. First, he's a beautiful animal, a fabulous mover and impeccably trained.

It was super cold today (the night before, it was snow and -20-ish temperatures) so warm-up was a long time so that everyone was in good shape before we started to get into the real work. Our first exercise was lots and lots of circles around the arena to get them supple and "bendy". Once things were coming together, we moved to a shallow serpentine to work on bending as we're moving forward. This was not a concept I grasped, at first... it's not a turn of the horse so much as their bodies bending away from the forward direction and "drifting" in and then back out of the rail.

A shallow serpentine

To accomplish the bend, it was a matter of using your "outside" (without getting into great detail) leg to push, your same seat to drop, your opposite leg to keep them from drifting in and then a little bit of flexion through the hands. We had to switch this 3 times! I sure hope I got all that right :S

Then we moved to wide loopy figure 8's that looked more like 2 large circles next to one another and had to remember to change our diagonal when we crossed the middle and added 3 ground poles. I was a mess. I wasn't asking Ariel early enough to turn and she would nearly crash and then just pick left or right. It wasn't pretty and I spent a lot of time looking at the ground. I have a bad habit... even when I'm walking, I have a tendency to look down. This is even worse because I can't help but look down at the ground poles but then I get obsessed about it at the moment and nothing else happens.

Our last exercise is a 2 loop serpentine that crosses 3 sets of 3 ground poles that are laid across the long length of the middle of the arena; as if there was a set between F and K, B and E, and H and M--all along the axis of A to C (above diagram). This is tough stuff my friend. If I thought that the figure 8 was tricky and it took me way too long to figure that out, this one was a HUGE mess. Ariel was confused and I was physically everywhere because instead of 1 set of 3 poles for me to fixate upon, there was THREE(!) sets of three, plus I wasn't giving her the correct signals (or timing it well). She was pretty annoyed with me and threw up her head several times. Eventually, something clicked and I managed to get through it a couple times at the end (finally!) and we ended that lesson on a great note!

Posting Diagonal Jar Tally: 2* x $2.00 = $4.00
To date: $47.00
*I only counted the ones where I should have known better and not the ones where a bazillion things were going on at once and I would have been lucky to not be caught with the incorrect diagonal*

Lesson #65: Aiming for Zen

December 8, 2013

Yoga is by far one of the best training tools for riders. I’ve been doing yoga for many years now; when I first started, I was doing it during my lunch hours at work (wouldn’t I be excited if I was riding over lunch instead!) and I found my progress was really fast. My goal at the time was to touch my toes and I surpassed even that and ended up being able to get into Salamba Sirsasana (supported headstand) in less than 4 months’ time. Talk about progress at its best! The same type of schedule can't really apply for riding because for most of us, riding daily is just not feasible; be it due to location, finances or time.

Sometimes I complain about not seeing the progress and thus feel like I'm stuck. But, reviewing my posts, I recognize that things are in fact progressing (albeit slowly) but pieces at a time. Kind of like how our lesson was teaching us that miniscule changes add up to the bigger picture and that we need to pay attention to those little changes. ADW and I spent the entire lesson in trot while focusing on leg aids, seat position and body awareness; it felt like a lesson spent practicing our forming full sentences with the alphabet. Having done yoga, the concept of body awareness and recognizing that minor tilts or adjustments of one’s body can mean the difference between doing the pose properly versus not.

I was practicing the leg aid and dropped seat bone to ask Ariel to turn. I have to remember though that she will eventually ignore these signals if I don’t release after she’s accomplished what I’m asking her to do. Lucky for me, she’s still very responsive. It takes little for her to turn a nice small circle.

Next, we use the flexion I was practicing last lesson but this time, we use flexion during turns by flexing the opposite way to straighten out on the long side of the arena. The motion is rather miniscule and has nothing to do with pulling but rather twisting (in a way) so that their heads turn just ever so slightly into the direction you're asking. This is certainly helpful for turning Ariel around when she's likely to be mostly distracted with something outside or otherwise.

Our next topic is body awareness, broken into two parts: upper body and lower body. Horses move forward freely when the rider's hips move in alignment with the horse; their gait is smooth and liberated. And when you want then to stop or slow down, you inhibit this motion ever so slightly: your hip motion becomes ever so slightly less fluid with the horse. Seated trot is incredibly trying in this area because your lower back and abs are absorbing the motion so you're not bouncing around. Sheri tells me to loosen my lower back (which apparently is INCREDIBLY difficult to accomplish even for experienced dressage riders!) so that it follows the motion of Ariel. I get one or two strides once during the entire lesson. I see when I am not accomplishing this when Ariel raises her head in protest and slows. But it's really interesting because she's so responsive that the slightest incorrect adjustment is felt by her and she isn't afraid to tell me. That's the lower body and is particularly obvious; unlike your upper body which I'm reminded to keep still yet soft. Sound absolutely contradictory yet? For those yogis out there, you know what I'm talking about! Pull and push simultaneously--that's what your yoga instructor will tell you too. During the lesson, my wrists are sometimes rigid and tight or my grip is death gripping the reins--all times where Ariel is quick to tell me by raising her head up and slowing down. Or instances where I find myself pinching with my knee which causes her to either stop or make her gait particularly stiff and bouncy.

I completed the class feeling pretty impressed (and zen!) about the nuances of a rider's body in communicating with the horse. It's literally a language we're learning to speak with our horsey friends but intricately with our bodies. Onwards with the week so that I return to Gosling Stables!

Posting Diagonal Jar Tally: 3 x $2.00 = $6.00
To date: $43.00 

Lesson #64: Technically Difficult

December 1, 2013

It's cloudy, rainy and cold out. All conditions that enhance the challenge of a good lesson. This is all the more reason to consider well, your fitness regimen outside of lessons.... similar to the way I endeavour to practice the piano daily so my biweekly lessons are fruitful. I did a few days where I completed 15-20 minutes of yoga stretches and sun salutations if I couldn't fit in much else.

I have to go to the paddocks to fetch Ariel; I like doing this because it gives me the opportunity to see her before she has to work. It's great that she's trained whereby she approaches you when you head out there, and seems happy to come in. Once all tacked up, we make our way into the arena. There's a new horse today, Romeo. He's a really pretty dark bay.

We actually spend almost half the lesson warming up because we have to; the arena isn't heated and since it's cold and wet, it takes longer for us (horse included) to get warmed up. So, to make use of the warm up and not just have us mindlessly going in circles, we are asked to turn our horses with our seat and legs only. I have Ariel turn smaller circles at the far ends of the arena and weave throughout the arena. At walking pace, it's easy but as you move into a trot, you have to really be diligent about having things come together. To turn on (say) the right rein, we drop our right seat bone and push with our left leg. The purpose... the dropped seat gives the horse something to "pivot" around when they're turning and the outside leg is simply pushing them over. I manage some pretty nice circles.

Stopping without reins! Here, we're isolating our hips and tilting our weight from being evenly distributed on our 3 points in the seat and shift the weight into the back. Our hips also become a little more rigid and there is less movement with the horse/saddle. Success! Ariel stops when all these wonderful aids come together.

Canter is still not familiar for me and I don't ride it well enough to be confident about riding it freely. When we work on canter, I remember to use both my legs this time, when initiating the canter. Ariel must be excited today because she takes off and we go speeding around the arena. I do notice that time and again, if I'm not properly focused, I lose my proper alignment and my knees clench Ariel and she doesn't like that. So I actively have to remember that there is no pressure coming from my knees. We ride the canter well today and I even accomplish a nice (approximately) 20m circle at one end without falling out of the canter and keeping pace. It was so satisfying when that happened because it must have meant things had come together well enough to keep her going.

Our last exercise is the X-jump posting trot. My 2-point still suffers and my weight is heavy on her neck so I have to remember to push my bum out and support myself with my core muscles. I think my anticipation for the jump is really getting me screwed. I struggle with the reins, I pull back or I look down. I find it more difficult to do this during a posting trot because you have to anticipate when you're going to get into a 2-point. To make things a little more interesting, Ariel likes to cut the corners and she's already cutting the corners before the actual jump! One time we almost trotted into a ground pole and she had to deek so she wouldn't trot over it. I almost fell off of her! The little devil! Sheri says, "add flexion away from the turn, while going into it". A little better but note quite yet. I'll need to remember to do that with this mare since she likes to cut corners.

A lot of new tidbits that we worked on this lesson. Many technicalities that most people are not familiar with and don't have any idea what it all means. But it's incredibly satisfying learning, practicing and incorporating these things into the lesson!

Posting Diagonal Jar Tally: 4 x $2.00 = $8.00
To date: $37.00