One Year With Jane

What can I say really. Jane is someone that I've learned way more from than just riding. Her way of handling things, her message about training horses (especially mares), and her support of me even with things like stressful work situations will always stick with me.

I'm so glad that I decided I couldn't afford my previous barn anymore and even more lucky that my previous BM recommended that I move to Jane's barn.

Prior to L

Jane's instruction, from a riding perspective, is something that will stick with me for my entire riding career. When I started working with Jane my position was a mess, I rode a lot with my hands, and had lots of well developed habits. Sure, I've worked hard too to overcome a lot of this but I've always worked hard to overcome those things and to learn and improve it just wasn't until I started riding with Jane that I actually started to see progress.

Really great example of how things were going before Jane.
Already much improved by L

Even more impressive to me is the subtle mental shift that's been caused by Jane and how it's also completely changed Katai's attitude about being ridden. Some of that, of course, is that I'm riding better so she can actually be more comfortable in the work but it's also the way that Jane encourages me to think about training a horse (mare) and how gentle Jane's approach is. Her message, that sometimes it's important that mares get to be right, isn't something I've ever heard from any other instructor and yet it's made a huge difference in my work with Katai.

Katai's thrived from the new work as well

I will study with Jane for as long as I can and I hope that her retirement from teaching is far out on the horizon. She has even caused me to be less enthusiastic about looking at relocating out of state because I can't quite imagine leaving her program. Right now, the thought of trying to find another instructor in a new place that can meet her ability to make changes with Katai and myself makes me feel slightly overwhelmed and ill.

I don't know what the future holds and I do still plan to relocate at some point but no matter where I end up or when, Jane's instruction has made a huge impact on me and for that I'm truly and completely thankful.

For the present I'll continue to enjoy every single lesson with her and absorb as much knowledge as I can. Here's to another fantastic year!!

Starting to look almost as good at a show as we are at home :)

Also, this sort of makes it sound like I'm planning to leave but that couldn't be further from the truth. I'm positive that I'll be working with Jane into the near future and will likely push my plans to relocate out even further so that I can continue to work with her. I'm just hoping that she doesn't have any plans to retire any time soon.

Respect

I feel like we finally turned a corner in my lessons. J has had respect for me from the beginning but had none for Katai. I really don't blame her because Katai has been a little brat and has made my life more difficult that a more well trained horse would or just a horse in general since ponies are pure evil.

At my last lesson Katai was far from perfect but she listened and wasn't trying to rear or flip like she had been. She was relaxed, calm and sweet. I could tell that it changed how J felt about Katai.

This weeks rides have sucked. I've honestly been less motivated than I was for the past few months and Katai was back to being really tight through her back and resisting again. We were having some luck towards the end of my rides but I've felt like every time I had to go through the same struggle all over again. Of course this is why I have a trainer :) 

At tonight's lesson Katai started out horrible. I have no clue what was going on with her but half the time she was trying to bolt on me and the other half she just wanted to stop and stand or lazily walk around. 

I. Had. No. In between.

For about three seconds during my warmup before the previous lesson finished I got a nice trot so I quit on that and went into my lesson. J is a miracle worker, seriously. It's not that Katai wasn't horrible at moments it's just that she helped me change it, showed me what I needed to do next time and helped me get some of the nicest trot work that I've ever had with Katai.

I can't wait to go back now and try to recreate it!

In other news here is proof that we've been working hard.

I've been cleaning tack every couple of weeks and it's still getting this dirty. I can't do full cleanings more because I have to have pizza and every other week is more than enough pizza.

Yum :)

Next week I'm running in Ragnar and won't be able to have my normal Thursday lesson so I'm having a makeup lesson with a different instructor this Saturday. This is someone that I haven't ridden for or even around so far since she doesn't teach many lessons. I'm looking forward to having another person coach me and it is always good to get a different opinion. Sometimes one instructor just has a different way of describing something that will click with the rider.

It is sort of throwing off my scheduling though since normally pony gets Friday and Saturday off and I ride three of the remaining four days before my lesson. I'm still trying to decide what makes sense for a schedule this week. At any rate I'm trying to be better about blogging again and will post an update after Saturday's lesson!