In the Arena #156 - Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind...

"Riding is a metaphor for life lived well and wisely."

 "The virtues needed for riding, are the same as those for an ethical life."

Charles de Kunffy

Next week will make one year since I packed the trailer and headed up to Maryland for a clinic. Five days of much needed instruction, and one-on-one time with Val. I had high hopes...

Hopes which were dashed before even mounting up once. A combination of extreme nerves (excess equestrogen) + poor judgement + not speaking up for my horse, led to a badly broken arm, eventual surgery, four months out of work and near financial disaster. Not exactly what I had in mind.

As soon as the doctor cleared me, I managed to hop on Val for a handful of rides. Mostly because I feared if I didn't do it then, I never would. Sadly, progress ended there.

Gradually, life began to feel overwhelming. The implications of being injured again practically paralyzed me, as I use my body to make a living. Catching back up financially so I have a hope of building my house in a little over a year, felt impossible. Nothing seemed engaging enough to warrant blog posts. I was teetering on the edge of depression. I slept too much and ate too much. :(

With some time and perspective under my belt, I realize now things weren't all that bad, or drastic, or boring. In the "down time" I built a chicken coop, and raised a dozen hens up from day old chicks. There are two new garden beds, and lumber + plans to fence the garden for protection from critters and weather.

 
On the pony front, my trimming skills have steadily improved. Val's feet look the best they have since I pulled his shoes. Val developed a few new skills too. He reliably comes from the back of the pasture when he's called (cookies!), backs up 10 - 12 steps on hand signals alone (a long way from the cookies) - unhaltered - and his behavior being led now is perfect, even with big distractions.

If I learned one thing from the arm incident - it was that I needed to reinforce (and be consistent about) the concept of personal space with Val, no matter how exciting or disturbing things get. A big, costly hole in my training was revealed.

Despite the positive developments, I was still down in the dumps, having trouble with motivation on the riding and blogging fronts. And every day that went by made it that much harder to tack Val up, or sit down and hit the keyboard. Something had to give.

Two weeks ago my riding buddy N emailed me with details of a clinic only a few hours away, with Charles de Kunffy. Auditing was affordable, so I signed up. I'll do a full clinic review in an upcoming post, but suffice it to say my mind is blown. Mr. de Kunffy is one of the last living links to the old masters of classical dressage, and it was an absolute privilege to watch him teach for a day. His clinic was the key to unlocking my riding block... Thank you Mr. de Kunffy! :D

I am constantly amazed at what a mental sport riding is. Attitude is everything, in riding. Attitude is everything, in life.

In the Arena #48 - Back in the saddle again

There are some days when I think I am going to die from an overdose of satisfaction. Salvador Dali

After nearly a month of bareback only, (have I mentioned how much I love riding bareback?!) I decided to try the saddle again. I think my hips have really benefited from the bareback work as I was able to let my stirrups down a notch. (jumping up and down + clapping!)

The back end of the arena presented our first challenge. It was still one giant puddle /  mud slick due to last weekend's snowstorm melting away. Val showed zero desire to work in that area. I figured this was a great faux trail ride training opportunity. I quietly persisted in asking him to go forward while not allowing him to evade with my legs, and maintaining loose but steady contact through the reins. It took a couple of minutes, but he relented and walked through very calmly and quietly.

Next, we tackled the scary side of the arena near the loud and disturbing neighbors property. The loud disturbing neighbor was in full force, banging and clanging tools, punctuated by hollering at his dog (or maybe his grandchild?)

For our last several rides, Val has been reluctant to ride on the rail in this area. Same strategy here. Quiet persistence and making the desired action easier than the evasion. I caught myself coming of off my seat and twisting in the saddle a few times... my aids were much more effective after I corrected myself. Success. I could feel how my leadership was relaxing and calming to Val - as opposed to my tendency to become frustrated, which always escalates the issues.

I can honestly say that while I intellectually understand why I must refrain from being emotional in the saddle, being in control of my emotions is one of the most challenging aspects of riding for me. I hope that someday practice will make perfect :)

The rest of the ride was a piece of cake. I've been trying to choose one item to focus on for each ride, and today's was keeping my eyes up and softly looking at my desired destination. So often I find myself staring down at Val's neck. When I can achieve this, it is almost like Val knows where I want to go before I even give him a directional aid. We finished up with some nice trot work, weaving through the cones on the buckle and some snappy transitions. We both enjoyed our work today.

After an under saddle rubdown + cookies, we went for a little walkabout - wait for it - out the front gate and off of the property!! I've been thinking Val needs to spend some time on harder surfaces to help toughen up his soles. Today was the day. We mosied down the sandy gravel road, around the bend at the graveyard, and right up to the death dealing corner of knocked over black trash cans. Val hesitated just a bit... I let him approach the cans slowly. With patience and judicious rewards, he dealt with the horse eating wall o' cans like a rock star. We proceeded down the asphalt road a good ways, found some edible grass (!), and turned around for home. On the way back, he even sniffed the trash cans :)

Scary cans are boring now

Since things were going so well, as we headed back past the gate to home, I decided to walk into the woods toward the trail head. A family of deer passed by not ten yards to our left, eliciting some heavy sniffing and a few dance-y steps. We proceeded to the trail head, and onto the trail just a bit. Since all the while Cowboy had been screaming his fool head off, we went back home so he could settle down. I have never been so proud of my horse. What a good boy!!

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In the Arena #23 - Progress

Beautiful, beautiful day... fall is knocking at the door!

I stole a couple of hours around lunchtime and had a very productive ride. Looking straight through not at my horses ears and having an exact destination in my mind really helps with our steering issues. We were motoring around quite nicely today. Things were going well so I decided to move on to the trot... sometimes you can get the most energetic walk when you really want a trot lol!

There was some resistance when I asked for the trot... head tossing and crow hopping. I focused on staying on my seat and persisted quietly with lots of positive reinforcement. We did several transitions and I quit on a good note - but I could tell something wasn't quite right. After dismounting I saw that my saddle had slipped forward onto Val's shoulders - a couple of inches of the sweat marks from under the saddle pad were visible. I have been experimenting with how much to tighten the girth - apparently today was too loose... lesson learned.