January Goals

Obviously I'm already a little ways into January but I'd like to do monthly goals again along with my larger yearly goals. Mainly because I think it will help me keep on track but also because I think it will help me motivate myself to get to the barn more often.

Ride More:

Speaking of getting to the barn more often, I'd like to make it a goal to ride 6 days a week during January. Between the snow and cold I know it's going to be tough but even if I go 4-5 times because I set this at 6 that will still be a win.

Focus on Forward:

While also working on getting the contact more consistent. I haven't ridden dressage long enough or ridden enough different horses to be able to speak to how things "usually" work. However, I know that for Katai, if I push her forward when she's got her head in the air and she's tense in front of the withers it does nothing more than make her more tight. When I do that she also moves her legs up and down instead of forward. That means that I need to use the reins to get her on the contact and taking it forward and down and then push her forward into it. 

This is tricky because when she's like this I can fall into the trap of riding too much with my hands which just makes the problem worse. I'm starting to get the timing right and to be able to fix the contact and then push her into it but it's fairly recent that I can do both at once. I want to make sure that this month while I'm getting her more consistent in the contact again and getting her to reach forward and down that I don't lose the forward at any point.

Groom Better:

I tend to be a bit sloppy when it comes to presenting myself and I'm pretty lazy about my appearance. I usually wear eye liner and some mascara and no other makeup but sometimes I can't even be bothered with that. Normally my hair is just back in a pony tail and I can't even count the number of times that I've gone to the bathroom at work and realized that I've got floofy bits of hair flying everywhere hours into the work day. 

I'm the same way with Katai 

No, pony mascara is not where this is going

I brush the gunk off and that's about it. I'm not good at keeping up with her green spots (thank goodness she's a neat princess pony and stays pretty clean) and one of the only things I enjoy about winter is that the constant blanket wearing means she stays pretty clean. 

It's been tough in the past because she didn't have the patience to stand still and she's still terrified of spray bottles which makes putting any sort of product on her that much tougher. Plus right now she's so hairy that it's easier to just brush her off, tack her up and go rather than trying to groom an extremely hairy pony when it's so, so cold out. However, I really need to up my grooming game asap. 

Her back legs are grimy, she's got dirt spots everywhere, her mane and neck (where the blanket doesn't cover her up) are so dirty and yellow that she almost looks like a buckskin, and her tail has gotten out of control. It's time for a spa day but I also want to make more consistent in depth grooming a thing for January.

The Clinic

I really enjoyed my clinic ride with Susanne Winslade! I had previously been unsure about her as a clinician but I feel much different after riding with her and I had FUN. What I started to realize is that at a lot of the clinics I’ve been to the clinician has created huge changes through a new technique, or something. This is amazing to watch as an auditor and I’m sure that it feels to the rider like they’re really getting something out of the clinic, however, I wonder how sustainable it is.

In the clinic with Susanne she’s teaching basic concepts and biomechanics. She doesn’t have any quick fixes and, in my case, she’s teaching horses and riders in their native environment. Because of that I think you don’t see intense changes but there is more that is actionable on a daily basis, at least that’s what I found with my ride with her.

To start off she asked me a little about my background and my pony’s background. I briefly summarized for her my riding and dressage background and Katai’s training background. She asked a couple of questions about Katai and had some comments about her feet (more about that later) and then told me to go ahead and warm up like I would if she weren’t there. I started off with what’s been successful recently which is lots of small figures making Katai listen rather than barging through my aids and bending and flexing her body in both directions both at the walk and trot.

She complemented my riding (which truly surprised me) and asked some questions, assessing my understanding of concepts such as flexion, and then asked how much I’d been able to get Katai on the bit during warmup. I let her know that I felt that Katai was really on the bit only for a few seconds here and there. She was pleased that I understood that and then went through information about why she should be there right away. I told her we normally get her there but it takes a good 20 minutes into the ride most of the time.

I have an adorable pony

For me the problem, I think, is that I read and watch a lot of videos on theory. The theory of how to get a horse on the bit is to ride them forward into light and giving contact. The problem is that Katai can go very forward very well with her head in the air and a tight back. At that point enforcing forward is useless so I’ve been "letting" her go around with her head in the air until she loosens up enough to go on the bit. The problem, as Susanne pointed out, is that this means that during a normal training ride Katai has traveled correctly for maybe 10-15 minutes and incorrectly for 20-30. This will, of course, build the incorrect muscles and not the correct ones.

Katai looks like she's enjoying Susanne as well

I do actually understand how to get her connected but to me it wasn’t the correct way. Susanne disagreed with that and was actually happy with my ability to get her on the bit after we talked about it. Susanne had me do walk and then trot but our walk-trot transition was bad enough that we started there. Again, I understood what to do to get the trot transition result that she was looking for but I haven’t been doing it that way because I haven’t felt it’s correct. Once I was actually riding and not just allowing things to happen the rest of the ride went better. I was able to fairly consistently get and keep her on the bit and although, from looking at the pictures and video, I can see that she’s still not quite where she needs to be she is in a much better place than she was.

Overall I think that the biggest take away’s for me are that (again) I need to just ride my horse. I’m a fairly intuitive rider and although that can cause mistakes I mainly need to stop waiting for someone to tell me that I’m doing something correctly or to change something. L and I have been here before but since I never got confirmation specifically that I was doing this correctly I assumed I was "cheating" and needed to learn to do it the right way. For that reason I think that this ride with Susanne not only taught me way more about the concepts that I’m working on but also confirmed for me that we’re heading in the right direction.

Look at her back! Now there's a good suspension bridge

Also, Susanne gave me some amazing compliments which was actually really nice. I really don’t care much for compliments most of the time since they make me uncomfortable and I feel like someone is ignoring something that could be improved or being false. I feel like with something this complex, or with music when I was growing up, there is just so much to learn and improve that true compliments should be rare. However, I’m also learning to accept and when I can tell that they are more genuine I think that they, along with constructive feedback, are helpful in putting together the puzzle. The most surprising comment was that I was a graceful rider. Seriously I’m not a graceful anything, I’m clumsy to the point of running into walls and dropping things on a regular basis and everyone I’m around knows it. However, when I went back and watched the video I could see what she meant, I am actually kind of putting myself together as a rider which makes me feel really good!

 

Well, I look like a T-Rex but Katai looks good

My favorite compliment though is that she said I was doing a really good job with Katai. She said that we were a good partnership and I was a very effective rider for her and she complimented Katai’s movement! Of course she also called Katai adorable several times because, let’s face it, I have one of the cutest ponies in the entire world.

Hollow-ween: Lesson Recap 11/1

I have not been feeling motivated to do any blogging recently :-(

I have been riding regularily and still making great progress but just not writing about it. This week however I didn't get in as many rides as I wanted to. I took Monday off as usual and then had a bad headache on Tuesday and decided that it wouldn't be too big of deal to take that evening off. Then, of course, we were getting some rain/snow on Wednesday so after driving a couple of miles I turned around when it started snowing more heavily. I rode Thursday in Drill Team (more on that later) and Friday but then wasn't able to again on Saturday due to the clinic taking place in the indoor and the rain outside.

Today at my lesson, however, Katai was brilliant! We've been able to start off almost immediately  in a good place recently and although she was a little anxious since the other door on the arena was open she was listening and moving well. We started off with a bunch of changes of direction and L quickly diagnosed that she wasn't taking contact on the left rein. I realized pretty quickly once we started working that I've never had real contact on that left rein and it felt good to find another hole and start filling it in.

L had me start out by getting her on a 20 meter circle at the trot and getting a really good bend. Then she had me straighten her and finally move her into counterbend. We did this going in both directions and then worked on getting the correct bend going to the right and giving the contact forward and quickly taking it back on the right whenever she was leaning on the rein.Then we did the same to the left only now it was the outside rein that I was now giving forward and taking back. It wasn't that I didn't allow her any contact, I just was gently asking her to carry herself rather than just leaning on that rein. Once she had lifted more through the shoulders and wasn't just pulling L had me keep the contact steady on the right as long as she had equal contact on the left rein.

It was amazing how much of a difference this made! It was amazing to me how I've been limping along with her never taking real contact on that side and how after my ride today so many things were easier. Now to just get it consistant!

We did a quickly canter depart in each direction and L started to work with me on how to cue properly when we ran out of time and the clinic was ready to begin. I will do a clinic recap as a separate post soon!

Consistent

1.     Definition of consistent (adj)

Bing Dictionary

con·sis·tent

[ kən sístənt ]

 

1.  coherent: reasonably or logically harmonious

2.  reliable: able to maintain a particular standard or repeat a particular task with minimal variation

3.  with common solutions: having a set of solutions in common, especially for two or more equations or inequalities

 

I have been doing a great job of being consistent in working with Katai. The past few weeks I’ve ridden 4-5 days a week, mostly it’s been 4 days a week, and she has been mostly great. Sunday’s ride was particularly good and while getting her to do things consistently during our ride is still a challenge, hey green baby horse, she has moments where it all comes together.

 

She has gotten really good about reaching into the contact which means I have more control of her balance and I’m able to pick her up from a nice long stretch into a more upright balance where I can start to feel her step under herself and push from behind rather than pulling herself around by her front end. J is also having me work on getting her to crawl at the walk which means that she moves one foot at a time as I ask, extremely slowly. It is a way for me to get control of every foot which J says I need to progress.

 

We are making progress with having her move off my leg as well. In fact she is getting sensitive enough to the leg cues that I need to improve my balance and riding position so that I don’t keep asking her to do things I don’t want. Little bugger just learns way too quickly. I need to get her to slow down to my level :P, in fact, she is almost doing walk pirouettes albeit very babyish ones.

 

Finally, we are working a lot on transitions. She gets really stuck at a certain speed, right now either trot or walk, and then doesn’t want to listen when I ask for either the slower or faster speed. This just needs some fine tuning and relaxed work since if I focus too much on them she gets tense and throws her head.

 

What I find really interesting about all of this is the order that we are teaching Katai different movements/abilities/expectations. In the past trainers that I have would focus on the simple stuff first. Things like walking and trotting patterns would have been the first thing we completed with her and we would have probably been doing things like practicing intro tests and maybe even starting some canter. With J, however, the focus is on correct work first and foremost. Before we ever even walk a circle we need our walk to be correct, our steering to be there, have the ability to stretch down into contact, etc. I am learning SO much so quickly and I can see how if I were just to let her do incorrect work now it would be that much harder to teach her how to do things correctly in the future. Right now because she is so green she just assumes that the correct way is the only way and her muscle memory will capture that correct movement and hopefully retain it so that she always, or almost always, moves in the proper way. If I were to let her bop around a circle like a green horse she would start to assume that was the correct way and in a year, or two, when we decided to teach her to carry herself properly she would be frustrated and confused wondering why we were changing things. I just find it really interesting to see how incredibly good she is at some things already when she’s only been really ridden consistently since late May/early June. I am also soooooo glad that I sought help when I did. I was pretty aware of what I was qualified to teach her and I got it just about right :)

Unfortunately tonight when I went to the barn to ride I noticed right away that something was off about her left eye and when I got closer I saw that it was a little swollen and she obviously didn't want to open it. Luckily Haley was at the barn with me and she has completed four years of vet school recently so I was able to ask her opinion. She suggested I flush it with saline and give it a day to heal before I decide whether to call the vet. I will update tomorrow when I go out and check on her.