Routine

In true pony style she took off a bunch of skin
and never was off and didn't swell at all

One of the things I’ve really struggled with over the past year+ is finding a routine that works. In some ways my relationship with my bf is my first “real” relationship which makes me sort of think of the high school aged girls who first start dating and then drop riding and horses because boys are taking up all their time.

Luckily we’re not teenagers and horses will always be a major component of my life but with that it was still important for me to take a step back with horse things this year to figure out relationship and boyfriend things. However, it’s time to get back to it more fully. Just as a disclaimer, my bf has never asked me to step away from horse things. He’s continued his hobbies and encouraged me to continue mine. He’s made sacrifices so that I can go to the barn and routinely encourages me to go if I’m having a day where I don’t feel like it. The step back was entirely prompted by me.

With that it’s the routine that I need to tackle first. When it was just me I had tons of flexibility and if I skipped one evening, because I just didn’t feel like it for example, I could go the next. Now I have more plans and commitments so just swapping days around doesn’t work. I also have less down time just on my own to lay on the couch and recuperate (because of previously mentioned additional commitments) so I needed to be more thoughtful about giving myself easy down time.

I’ve been putting a lot of thought into it and came up with a solid schedule for the next 1-2 months to ease back into things and to help build Katai and my strength.

Our barn is right under a flight path. This military plane was 

making a weird sound to me but clearly she's not surprised 

Monday – Off
Tuesday – Ride or Lunge – Riding preferred but if I’m just not feeling it I still need to go to the barn and lunge Katai.
Wednesday – Off – my bf and I do chores like food prep and cleaning on Wednesday.
Thursday – Lunge or Ride – Lunging preferred for now since we’re working to build strength. This will eventually likely be an additional riding day.
Friday – pony spa day – For now this is more of a chore day than spa day but I like calling it spa day better.
Saturday – Riding Day – This is a true “work” day.
Sunday – this has been dubbed Adventure Day! – This will be a day where we trail ride, work on trailer loading, go for hand walks outside, and basically address training holes in a fun way.

This plan means that for now the toughest evening day is Tuesday just because riding takes some additional work beyond lunging etc. Otherwise everything is really low key and stress free on the weekdays and I can flex them all around as needed if I end up with plans on a night other than a Monday or Wednesday. My main work days are Saturday and Sunday which are interchangeable and if, for example, someone wants to go on a trail ride on Saturday I’ll swap the two.

It's tough to get pony chores done when there's so much cuteness

Once we get into October my plan is to increase the days that she’s working by riding on Thursday and lunging on Friday in addition to spa day. I’ll also put even more focus into trying to do riding work on our Adventure Day! vs. the in hand work that we might be focusing more on currently. Once there I’ll assess and see if there are other changes that I’d like to make as we get closer to the end of the year. I do not plan to do weekly lessons again, at least on a regular basis, but do want to take regular lessons. My preference right now is monthly but I’ll see how things feel once we’re back doing more work on a consistent basis.

I’m going to be doing a series of short posts outlining in more detail what I’m doing each day and why just because I think it will be fun! Stay tuned for more posts over the next couple of weeks 

Thinking Rider

When riding, especially dressage, I tend to operate off of instinct. In some ways I think this is good as it is very meditative and I’m really in the moment but in other ways I really need to work to think ahead a bit more and/or make a plan based off the horse I have when I start riding especially since I’m really training her and not riding a schoolmaster. The tough thing is how to do this.

How do I pull myself out of that meditative state and develop a plan using the tools that I’ve been learning in lessons. This is something I think will be a struggle for me for the long run and I know I need to develop a plan to work on improvement. Otherwise I end up on a 20 meter circle for half an hour trying one thing over and over and eventually taking a walk break when there is some improvement. In other words I get so bogged down by the minutia that I don’t actually create any development since I’m just drilling one thing trying to find my version of perfection which isn’t fair to Katai.

I think a way to start is to develop a plan on the way to the barn. Not anything set in stone since she could come out of her stall with a completely different feel each day but more of a loose set of guidelines for myself. I’m thinking something like;

Tonight after I warm up I’m going to start with a trot circle to the left and analyze how she feels, what she’s doing or not doing and then give myself permission to slow things down to a walk for a minute to develop a plan on what tool to use tonight to get her feeling better.

Or;

If she comes out tonight feeling like xyz I’ll be able to use this exercise to improve how she is/isn’t doing abc.

Etc.

I think that having just a basic plan will be helpful. I’m also going to try to make it a goal to use more of the arena and learn some more patterns so that rather than picking at something little right from the beginning I can work on bigger picture things until she settles and then try to get some really good work. I think that by giving myself permission to slow things down and make sure that I’m in that mind set on my way to the barn I’ll be more likely to analyze more and think in a more developmental or strategic way.

Now I just have to put it to the test and see if it works!