Frame? What Frame? July 28, 2008
Posted by kimayars Arena Work (Horse)
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After the Henrik Johansen clinic, I’ve been very focused on applying what I learned. I have been precise in not only where I am going when I ride, but also what the tempo is. We’ve been doing lots of transitions within the gait and between gaits. I’ve been picking a point in the arena and hitting it with deadly accuracy. Tigger has been responding well, finally feeling that the person on his back is finally taking control. The burden of making a decision on where we are going has been lifted from his tiny acorn-sized brain.
Except that I forgot to keep his frame.
Yes, Tigger and I have been deadly accurate in an upside-down, stiff, and rigid way. In an effort to keep from pulling on the reins, I abandoned them. I forgot to get flexions, and without flexions it’s nearly impossible to get the bend. I don’t do “nearly impossible” well, so for two weeks I was riding an unbent (and therefore “un-straight”) horse. It makes complete sense that today in my lesson Tigger was hopelessly stuck above the bit.
Luckily my trainer recognized this and hopped on him for a bit. She tuned him up for about 5 minutes, then I hopped back on to a much more supple horse. From there we worked on further suppling while also incorporating tempo control and the accuracy I had been developing for two weeks. By the end of the lesson, I felt he was nearly back to his old self.
I was reminded that riding is not a black-and-white kind of thing. There are various shades of gray and part of the journey that makes horseback riding fun (and sometimes frustrating) is that those shades of gray are a continuously moving target. Depending on how you and your horse are feeling, you have different levels of pressure that need to be applied. Today I needed to have a little more presense on that inside rein. Maybe next time I need to be a little lighter. It all depends on the horse you have that day. And it’s always changing.
I’m super happy with my consistency in riding. I feel like I’m getting into a groove. My running has tanked (and oh YEAH, I have a 10k on Saturday) but I’m okay with that. If I had to choose between the two, I would definitely choose the horse thing. But luckily that’s not the case.
Comments
Keep up the good work, Kim. You will get there eventually and after a while, you won’t even have to give it a lot of thought! Horses are a bit like drama addicts and will feed off of your hesitations and indecisions. When you become focused and determined, with patience, they will settle and come around to your expectations. They really do appreciate a good, confident and patient leader!! When it all comes together, it is really amazing and you will wonder why it seemed so hard. Your family bike sounds like it was a lot of fun and your girls are darling!!!