January Goals

Regular Barn Time:
My goal is to get back to going to the barn 5+ times per week in January pending crazy winter weather

Ride More, Longer, More in Different Gaits:
One thing I've recently diagnosed, actually as I was recapping 2018, is that likely part of what's been tough with pony behavior recently is lack of rides. There isn't much I would have been able to do about it even if I'd been more aware throughout the year but it does help me put the struggle to move to 2nd level into perspective. Therefore in January I want to do the following;

• Ride at least 3 times per week, preferably 4
• Track my rides on Equilab every single time to diagnose how long I'm spending in the saddle and how long I'm spending in each gait
• Likely increase the amount of canter we're doing for every ride
• Potentially increase the amount of working walk we're doing for every ride
• Likely increase total ride times

I think that the above will help with Katai's current excess energy/behavior as well as help with making more progress on fitness and strength.

Utilize exercises in 55 Corrective Exercises:

This new Jec Ballou book is awesome. Not only are there a bunch of wonderful things to do with your horse in different environments both mounted and unmounted but she has these great sections throughout the book of exercise routines you can use for specific reasons. I plan to start out by going through the high headed posture one since it's something that Katai has been more stuck on since the break and I think that doing these will be valuable. Plus it's a great way to do some helpful in hand stuff and break up riding/lunging.

For example, dressing Katai up in this cute matching set
and wearing something coordinating myself :) Then I just need to get media and I'll be set!

Keep up on grooming Katai/dressing well at the barn:

This is such a mental thing for me. I can get stuck rushing from one thing to the next and trying to take as little time as possible. If instead I take the time to groom well and focus on things like being nicely dressed at the barn vs. looking like a slob I find that I'm much more motivated and feel better about everything.

Blogging/Media:

I put both since I'm always more reluctant to blog if I don't have more pictures or video to share. My goal is to get back to my previous blogging routine of posting about e/o day or 15 times per month. It will be a stretch this month since I'm so out of practice but that's what goals are for right?

Focus on Budget - Reduce Overspending:

I'm really pretty good with money for the most part. My expensive/splurge items are having a horse in the first place and spending money on coffee/eating out/groceries. I don't spend overmuch on rent, I get my hair cut maybe 1-2 times per year, I don't get my nails done or do any other splurge type personal care things. I don't shop for clothes and when I do buy clothes I pretty much shop at thrift stores like ThredUp. I do occasionally splurge on tack but my biggest issue is coffee/eating out so therefore I'd like to do the following for the month of January;

• Only purchase "necessary" horse items such as food and supplements, board, and two lessons for the entire month.
• Not purchase any coffee from coffee shops - make my own at home
• Eat out 2 times or fewer, if I don't get food made I'll purchase something from the grocery store to eat rather than ordering food from a restaurant
• Stick with my grocery budget

January Goals

Since I really liked the format of having both large yearly goals and smaller monthly goals last year I'm going to do the same thing again this year! However, This year I want to do a better job of linking at least one of my monthly goals with my larger yearly goals.

Also, sorry that it's just all been recap and goals posts recently but I keep forgetting to get media and haven't had many rides recently. I've got plans to fix both but for now these are posts that I can easily get up and that I feel are important to be able to look back on.

Puppy pictures as requested ;)

January Goals:

Get back into a regular riding routine - I was doing SO WELL last year with riding at least 4-5 times a week whenever possible. The travel and some other personal things made it difficult but for most of the year I really pushed through and made it happen. I'm proud of myself for that but not as proud with with my lack of consistency this past couple of months so it's time to get back to 5-6 rides per week! I'm already going to fail this first week since I'll only have 3 rides at the most but my goal is to make it the rest of the month!

Get back into a regular grooming habit - Last year one of my goals was to groom better and I was doing pretty well at least using a couple of brushes, picking feet, and keeping her mane and tail in order. In January though I want to get back to that and increase my work on this including, if we get some temps closer to 30, giving her a spot bath with our new warm water! She DESPERATELY needs it.

Carrots are delicious

Regain/increase fitness - Riding more will help but I also need to do more workouts, especially core focused workouts, so that I can be a more supportive rider for Katai. Especially as we increase the difficulty with sitting trot and cuing things with my seat I'm finding it tougher and tougher to not feel like I'm flopping all over the place.

Work consistently on the canter - I'm really bad about feeling like Katai is stiff or muscle tired and then not asking for much especially at the canter. This then leads to her always feeling stiff or muscle tired since she's never really building strength or building it really slowly. I really need to just buck up and expect more of her. She needs to get stronger and have a cleaner canter if I want to have any chance of debuting at 2nd this year.

More updates to come soon I promise!

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.