I’m Smiling July 11, 2008
Posted by kimayars Uncategorized
Digg! this story.
, trackback
I’m smiling. I’m happy. I had a great week with my horse. I haven’t had a great week with him in quite a while. I’m enjoying riding again.
Don’t get me wrong, I always look forward to riding, but lately it hadn’t been fun. With our mounting problems I was incredibly stressed out just trying to get on. Was he going to bolt? Would he get freaked out? How long until he calmed down?
This week we had four consecutive rides of him NOT freaking out. And as a result, I’m not freaking out. Or at least I didn’t freak out today. Today was the first day that my knees didn’t shake and my heartrate stayed under 180. For the first time since my show in April I had a RELAXING ride. I’m thrilled.
Today in our ride we focused again on my hands and keeping them quiet. It is getting much easier not to pull on the inside rein (although it’s far from automatic), but consequently I have to use my body more in the turns. I don’t rotate my shoulders nearly enough and I can forget to weight the inside seatbone. So while sometimes I don’t make a pretty turn, I at least have the awareness that I need to adjust other things in my body rather than grabbing that (evil) rein.
So we worked on an exercise called “The Needle”. It’s a great suppling exercise and would be perfect to try my “new hands” on. You basically head around the arena at a trot, then at a corner after a long side, do a half-volte, riding a 10m teardrop and change directions. You head back through two more corners then at the third corner (after your next long side) do another half-volte into a 10m teardrop and change direction again. It’s like a giant “U” with loops on the end. I was moderately successful with the hands, and he seemed to enjoy the easy, predictable exercise. By the end he was relatively light and soft. We didn’t have much impulsion (80 degrees at 2pm is a tough time to ride) but he was being obedient and listening.
The focus on my hands really paid off today when he spooked in one of the corners with the “killer tire” in it (Sherene and I both know this corner well). Nevermind the fact that the tire has been there for over a year. It’s still terrifying. He took one look at the tire as we were going by and stopped dead, then jumped sideways. Twice. Because I had my hands soft and my body was relaxed, I just went with him. There was no yanking on his mouth, no trying to claw my way back into the center of the saddle. It was eerie. Almost as if it was planned… (Yeah, that’s the ticket.) Almost as soon as it happened we were trotting again. Before we hit the next corner he was soft and round again. He never shied again the rest of the ride. What a good boy.
So even though it took a few months to work out the kinks, I finally succeeded in turning out a product week riding. Now we shall see if we can turn it into two…
Of course when I succeed in one thing in life, I fail in another. My running has sadly been neglected this week and I have a 10k on August 2nd. Guess I had better get crackin’ on that.
Comments
Maybe Tigger can run along side you on a lead line - ha ha!! That way you are both getting in your runs. Glad to hear you are having some great sessions!
Woohoo!
That about sums it up I think