Free lunging from the Sunday where I flew out to Seattle
Momentum is an interesting thing. It's not that I don't have information to share, in fact I almost feel like I have too much information to share, it's more that I just haven't been able to convince myself to sit down and write.
Last year I started to really struggle with my seasonal depression but this year I started taking my vitamin D way earlier so I'm actually doing well. Beyond just being tired recovering from my Seattle work trip I'm feeling great.
Last weekend I rode Saturday-Sunday and then gave her Monday off before my lesson on Tuesday. In those days I had a lesson on Sunday and a lesson on Tuesday. The Sunday lesson we worked a bit on canter and some shoulder in.
Tiny dog is a ham and I think he missed me :)
We did two exercises, one was leg yielding to center line away from the long side. Once we hit X we made a 10 meter circle in the direction of the bend and then, figure eight style, changed the bend at X and did another 10 meter circle towards the other long side. Back at X we'd leg yield back towards the original wall we'd started from.
The second was one that we've done before where we'd shoulder in along the long side, midway down the side we'd go across the diagonal, change the bend prior to hitting the wall and cue for canter. In canter we'd do a 20 meter circle at the end of the arena and then go back to trot and do it again. I LOVE this exercise and Katai does too. We did so much better this lesson than we have in the past and the SI was clearly improved.
Little blurry and tough to tell, but that's a hot tub boat on Lake Union
On Tuesday we did a bunch more canter including shallow loops to work on our counter canter going into 20 meter circles where we'd spiral in and out. Going to the left it was pretty funny because she wanted to half pass to the center rather than move straight. Not what we were asking for and we were able to correct it but talk about an over achiever!
We also worked a lot more on SI and it's feeling SO MUCH BETTER!! It's actually starting to flow a bit more and Jane mentioned that she's impressed with our quick improvement. We worked a lot on the concept of me lifting her with my seat to control the sitting trot rather than sitting down into her back to control the sitting trot. Or as Jane says, "bounce her up with your seat". There were magical moments but they didn't last long and it would take me awhile to get it back. When it worked though it really worked so I'm excited to keep working on this.
Someone had asked for a picture of my Ariat coat.
Here it is, courtesy of the AirBnB Bathroom mirror
In other news I started the first clip of the season today. I got almost all the hair off and got the lines pretty good. Tomorrow I'll just clean everything up. Poor girl is a bit moth eaten tonight and poor Jane probably wondered what I did to her when she saw her at evening feeding. Oh well, I'll finish getting her cleaned up tomorrow. I also got her bridle path cut but I still need to "pull" her mane, do some work on her tail, and I'd like to do one more bath before it gets too cold.
In sad news, her feet are looking pretty thrushy. During most of the year I was keeping up with it but after the past month were I wasn't at the barn as much they've back slid a bit. It will be my focus for this month and hopefully I can get it cleaned up right away!
October 1st was a big day for me and Katai since in 2012, 5 years ago on this day I brought her home :) Since I don't know what her birthday is I just use this as her birthday too so along with our anniversary it was her 8th birthday this year.
To celebrate she got a bunch of carrots and an apple (her favorite) and I decorated her stall. I really wanted to spend some quality time with her but had to get Veggie dropped off with his sitter and then get to the airport right away.
I ended up playing with her and doing some free lunging which was fun too. It's really cool to see the relationship we've built in that way and how she's happier with me than away from me in the arena. It also gave her a chance to stretch her legs a bit before she went back to her pen.
Although I will miss this view
I'm hoping to get out there tonight once I get home and then finally we're going to have a few months of consistent work without travel breaks. I'm so so so pumped :)
More Katai pictures soon but for now Lake Union will have to do
I wanted to share a bit about how amazingly wonderful it is to be back but I'm not sure it's enough for it's own post at this point so I decided to add it here. I got back Friday evening after the most horrible plane ride I've had. We got stuck on the runway on the way to Minneapolis and for about 20 minutes the child directly in front of me SCREAMED as loud as it could. The parents were doing everything they could but it just wasn't helping. I was already anxious and really stressed out for some reason and was getting a stress migraine so the screaming put me over the edge.
Somehow I made it through the flight and the very slow Uber ride home in Friday rush hour traffic but pretty much just made it to the couch and crashed, sort of wishing I could die, for the rest of the evening.
Morning rowing practice
Luckily I feel completely better today and was able to wake up early, drive the 3 hour round trip to pick up Veggie from my parents and then make it the 1 hour round trip to the barn to ride. Funnily enough that means I spent more time in the car today than I did driving from Seattle to Portland.
Katai was great, if full of energy and VERY wiggly to ride, and I feel like my body sort of remembers what to do after two weeks off.
I do think the vacation was really good for Katai who was calm and happy the entire time and really tried to be a good girl despite having extra energy early on and then wanting to quite after about 20 minutes haha. I ADORE this pony (if you can't tell) and she's so perfect for me. After two weeks without any rides and a major drop in the temperature (it was in the 60s when I rode today) she was foot perfect, stood quietly in the cross ties, and was basically just a perfect princess pony.
This AirBnB was adorably decorated with a travel theme. Bonus points if you can id the movie ;)
She did gain a bit of padding but nowhere as bad as I thought it might be. We just did lots of nice forward trot, some canter (which really felt good), a bit of leg yield, a very small amount of sitting trot, and much to her dismay lots of work at the medium walk.
It was so good to see her and I missed both her and Veggie so much!
Little tough to tell with the tinted glass but you can sort of see the space needle from the office I borrowed for the week plus the blurry skyline from the smoke
July Goals:
Ride Longer: Yep! Unless I had a really good reason I rode at least 30 minutes each ride with many rides being 40+ minutes. So much better than the 20-25 minute rides I was doing.
Continue Outdoor Rides: Yep! So much better than I've ever done with her in the past and our outdoor rides have been fun :) Jane even commented on the last outdoor ride I had (the week before I left for Seattle) how relaxed and happy Katai looked.
Practice, Practice, Practice (or Sitting Trot): Yep! Still struggling but it's getting better and I "get" it at least some of the time each ride. Those moments are still few and far between and I lose it quickly but it's getting there.
So hot for Seattle! I was there for both of the really hot days but it was the smoke piece that was new to me
August Goals:
Continue to Ride Longer: I feel like this one will continue to be important. I'm not looking to necessarily increase the time for most of my rides just to do at least 45 minutes more often or tack a trail ride onto the end of a shorter arena ride to lengthen it but still provide some variety.
Continue to Practice the Tough Things: More sitting trot and anything/everything I struggle with or that Katai struggles with. It's always been tough for me not to take these things personally/emotionally but after watching the video below (for some reason) I've been able to practice something without drilling but still enforce correct vs. just accepting what's not and moving on. Scott Brash is just so relaxed, calm, and no nonsense about trying it again with his horse in this video that I feel like I understand how simple it can be. It's obviously important that Katai know what the right answer is so this is a big one this month especially with transitions and picking up the contact at the walk.
Have a Successful Show: Successful for me will mean that Katai is more relaxed and rideable at this show than she was at the last. I'd like for her not to have any meltdowns but mostly I just want to finish feeling like I rode to the best of my ability. We've got all the movements down for each test (although the 15 meter canter circles are still not as correct as they should be) so I really just want it to be fun and hopefully get decent scores because that's always a good goal :)
Alternate title could be All the AirBnBs since I'll have stayed at 6-7 by the end of the year 4 of which are for this trip.
This has been a crazy year for me travel-wise. In the past going to Lexington for the Pony Cup and doing a couple of work trips (of one week or less) to WA were about all I did. This year that has not been the case.
Certainly can't argue about the accommodations
First there were a couple of long work trips to Seattle early in the year. I went out in January and again in March for a week. Then I went to Omaha for World Cup which was amazing! After that, I ended up with another trip (this time stressful) to Seattle in June. I had a chance to recover from that and then got to travel to Lexington for Pony Cup again :)
And of course got to hang out with Jen and Connor!!! Photo credit: Jen's mom
I've known that I'd have a longer trip at the end of July for work (mildly stressful) but then that turned into a longer and more stressful trip that was going to be 8-9 days. However, plans changed and it's now going to be 12 days. Yikes...
Puget Sound outside my bedroom
I do get to go to Portland which is a trip that I'd previously wanted to do this year but decided not to do for financial reasons. However, work is paying for the hotel and since I can drive down there from Seattle I don't need to pay for a flight so I'll have 2-3 days in Portland this weekend (for the cost of a rental car) and then back to Seattle for the following week.
The day before I left I was feeling the stress and didn't want to get into an argument with her so we just cuddled and played in the arena. She did think I was unfair not getting her Starbucks
I'm also in Seattle long enough that I'm getting to do more exploring than I have in the past which is awesome but... I really miss my pony and I miss Veggie. I'm probably going to go slightly crazy between not being able to see them for 12 days. Not getting to ride means that I'll need to remember what I'm doing when I get back along with likely being sore. All of that with just about 3 weeks to prep for our show at the end of August.
Opportunities like this just don't come around that often and even though it's stressful it's fun to explore and get to spend more time on the west coast. I haven't seen the ocean since I was 18 and I'm SOOO excited to get to go back in a couple of days. I've also had Portland, or OR in general, on my list of places I'd like to live so it will be nice to get to spend more time there so that I can decide if it stays on my list.
Missing this nose soooo much right now
I do have two more trips planned this year. One at the end of August to Rochester, NY (can't wait to hang out with my sister and BIL and meet Bobby!!) and one more for work in October/November but hopefully that will be it. I'm also really hoping that next year there will be less travel. I'm really a homebody but I haven't been able to travel that much in the past and I don't think next year will have as many opportunities for travel so I'm going to enjoy this while I can and pray that I don't fall off or completely forget what I'm doing when I get to ride my pony again.
T minus 8 days and counting until I get to fly back home.
Last week was nuts. Opening a new site like that just is, especially when you’ve got 25+ brand new employees being trained in a site that is still being moved into. Add to that the fact that I had some short nights, early mornings, and I didn’t sleep that well and I’m still exhausted even after a nice quiet weekend.
Pretty much the only thing I did outside of relaxing at home was grocery shopping and going to the barn.
I made it out both Saturday and Sunday and Katai was so good!
On Saturday I rode (after lunging :) and just focused on forward, stretching, and lots of bending and flexion. I did a bit of lateral work but otherwise just kept it simple at walk, trot, and canter. Her canter, though, was seriously the best it’s been. I guess the two weeks off was a good break for her! She was really moving forward rather than up into the transitions and was stretchy and carrying herself. Her back felt great and solidly strong and she was really through rather than just running with her legs. I tried to get some video but I must have not pushed record because I didn’t get anything.
On Sunday I just lunged with the Vienna reins both because I just couldn’t function still (so tired and I had a headache) and because with the weather and the fact that I was working Katai during the day when she was going to be in the barn by herself, I knew that it would just be a better idea. After one small blow up at the beginning she worked really well and I got more brilliant canter and some really nice open, forward trot.
I’ve recently really started to enforce voice cues. I’ve used different clicks (smooch for canter etc.) but never really enforced voice cues before. She was sort of figuring it out before the break but she must have been doing her homework because this weekend she was spot on with my cues about 75% of the time and the 25% was just that it took me giving the vocal cue twice or needing to reinforce with a slight whip cue.
It was great to see her moving so well after the break and now I just need to be careful about putting her back to work so that I don’t immediately cause her to have sore muscles. I did sign her up for a massage on 4/2 again so she’ll be in good shape going into the show season. I also shared my contact info with my fellow boarder since she’ll likely be my ride to shows this year. It’s so exciting to be making progress towards doing more shows!
I haven't, and probably won't, had time to to do any touristy things but thanks to being in the back of an Uber I got this picture.
The good news is that on Saturday when I lunged Katai she looked so much better! Not only did she seem to be over her mare issues but the break had done her some good and she looked loose and relaxed but strong.
The bad news is that as of [VERY] early this morning I'm in Seattle for a whole week...
The timing could have been better but I'm glad that she's feeling better and a little vacation will probably do both of us some good.
It's in the 50s here and since it dropped back down to the single digits at home it's a nice break even if it is typical rainy Seattle. Oddly enough I haven't had to deal with rain much when I've been here so far so it looks like this week is going to make up for it.
We're opening a new site and I'm here to train the 30+ employees I hired :)
Usually I have a rental car but this time I don't so I probably won't be able to get to the other tack shop that I'd like to visit. I will be back in April/May though so likely I'll be able to do that then!
In the meantime I don't think I'll have much to blog about for the next week, or much time to blog, so it will probably be pretty quite until next weekend. I already can't wait to get back and see my girl!
So far I have not been doing well with my goals for March. I haven't done a great job of getting to the barn or blogging.
The lack of riding has been mainly due to weather and a tired pony but last night there was a return of #mareproblems and Katai was sore and extremely in heat. I got her cleaned up and coated in diaper rash ointment and I think I caught it soon enough but I did cancel my lesson tonight. My plan is to go to the barn Wednesday-Saturday and then I fly out early on Sunday for a work trip to Seattle.
So tough to get pictures of her when she wants to just follow me around :)
I'll be gone for about a week so Katai will get a nice break and then we'll be back to working on our goals once I get back. I'm not looking forward to this work trip, it's going to be stressful and busy, and will be really missing Katai but I always enjoy Seattle!
I do love work trips to Seattle though! So cool to watch this sea plane taking off Lake Union from my hotel elevator
In more ways than one.
The past few weeks have been really tough in being able to get to the barn. First was the accident and being in pain, then not having a car to drive, then the holidays, and finally this week I was in Seattle, WA for work. I just got back today and its so good to be home.
Or the Amazon Bio-orb that's under construction
Even though it's been tough to only be able to occasionally go to the barn and the lack of rides and lessons hasn't made for much progress it has been sort of nice to have a "forced" break from regular riding. I was lacking a bit on motivation both because of the weather and because I think I just needed a break. Now though, especially today, I'm feeling way more motivated. I think it's both because of the break and because I finished reading book two of the Dressage Chronicles and I'm reading book three, for the first time. I love these books and they always make me want to ride and go to dressage shows :)
Or the place where cool car things happen :)
I'm planning to ride or go to the barn every day through my lesson on Tuesday next week and I'm really glad that I have absolutely no plans until the end of February so I can just focus on riding!
