Another Clinic Recap!

Bad media > no media?

I mean I should probably not actually call these clinic. Really they're more like monthly lessons with my trainer's trainer but for right now clinic works and it's easier to type! This was almost a week ago at this point but still important to recap.

This one was similar to the last one but a bit tougher in a few ways. First, K's trainer had identified our ability level so she was more picky, as I'd suspected she would be, and second, we cantered early on and then Katai lost her marbles a little.

We started out warming up the walk and trot and K's trainer commented that she seemed way more relaxed and rather than just posing and going she was actually softer. Yay! success.

We cantered as part of warm up and it actually went really well. Katai went right into it and let me bring her back calmly. We cantered in each direction and then went back to working on walk. Katai was UP at that point and was not going to be told to go slower than a full hand gallop. With K's trainer's influence we were able to keep everything pretty calm and were focusing and trying to help her relax with lots of pets and verbal rewards when she was trying. we were working on getting her to listen mainly to my seat but she didn't want to listen to us at all in any way at that point.

Not sure why but clean buckets seem to be a point of contention at this barn.
They scrub them everyday and they're always super clean.

To her credit she never once pulled any real crap. No throwing down a halt, no bucking, no bolting, and no rearing. About the worst she did was walk through my aids, try to trot, or jig a little so really nothing bad at all.

It was tough though to just keep asking calmly for over 20 minutes just for her to slow down and relax when she wasn't listening at all. We did have a few break through moments and, the next day, it was clear that progress had been made so that was good. That day though was tough especially since I had a pretty bad headache which had been made worse by wearing my helmet and the relative heat after our cool spring.

Oh well, that's horses.

Our homework is all about relaxation. I'm taking it one step further though. Katai (and myself) have always been impatient. She had me pretty well trained to let her just push forward anytime things started to go south since not allowing her to go forward resulted in her going up or striking out.

Me grazing Connor while he dried from his bath
I can't believe this was over a week ago now.

Since the first clinic I've been doing a lot of groundwork just working on patience. I don't know where I read it but a trainer I was following somewhere wrote about that having a horse take a step and halt and stand, rinse and repeat, was really helpful in helping them calm down. Therefore I've been working on a lot of groundwork asking for one step at a time with lots and lots of standing. Really, tons of standing. Katai hates it and is trying to figure out why this game is so boring, but, it's been helping.

Of course spring and mare hormones have been making this worse but this week on Tuesday we worked on trailer loading. She was SUPER anxious to hop on the trailer, hop off and be done with things and got angry when I wouldn't even let her on the trailer until she stood calmly. She was trying so hard to tell me that I was wrong and didn't understand but we ended with zero escalation and zero argument with her (relatively) calmly climbing on and off just because I literally stood there and ignored her for at least 30 minutes. We're going to do this a ton more and in the meantime I'm finding all the things I can think of that usually cause her to escalate and we're going to do calm, stubborn and patient on my part, patience training.

Under saddle I'm working on mentally taking the pressure off myself and her. We're doing easy work, lunging in a halter, and spending some additional time doing stretchy forward rides with just a bit more collection. We'll see what the result of all of this is but she's been really chill recently. This weekend I plan to do a bit more collection work with lots of interspersed relaxation to see if we're able to maintain. Things have been promising so far!

Clinic Recap 5/9

I’ve had a weird couple of weeks. Just personal stuff going on (#datingproblems) but I’ve felt a little out of touch with riding and I’ve had less direction and motivation to ride and blog. However, the clinic with Susanne Winslade went really well!

However, we did have an interesting start since there had been a driving horse (combined driving Haflinger) scheduled before Katai and I started so not only did Katai get a little nervous in the crossties trying to figure out what was going on in the ring but when they drove out they left the door at the end of the arena open. When I was at J’s place open arena doors always led to a mini Katai meltdown and the doors on this area have never been open so I was curious how she would be. I took the time to walk her down there before I mounted up and she was up and curious but not losing her mind so I wasn’t that worried. However, as soon as I mounted up she lost her mind a little.

Thankfully Susanne was of the same opinion that I am and expressed that Katai was just going to need to get over it. We worked on getting and keeping at least one ear on me for the first several minutes and after a few great, forward, connected, directed 20 meter circles in each direction Katai was doing quite well. Susanne wanted me to get her head and neck a little lower than I’ve been getting it. Luckily after all our homework since the last clinic we were able to get there easily and I could immediately feel her start swinging better over her back.

After a few circles and straights with lower ears and a nice connection, Susanne had us start another exercise where we were supposed to spiral in and then leg yield out. Neither Katai or I are good at leg yielding so after a couple times in each direction, as Susanne saw how stuck we were on the struggle bus, she changed it to a "head to the wall" leg yield.

That’s when I started to get a little frustrated with myself. I’ve never learned how to properly do a leg yield and always struggled plus Katai hasn’t ever really learned to do them correctly. She actually used to rear as soon as you put her head to the wall so it wasn’t an effective way to teach this to her previously. During the clinic I was extremely proud that she not only didn’t rear but didn’t lose her mind with the amount of pressure we were putting on her. However, it didn’t mean that we were able to get anywhere ourselves. Poor Susanne had to watch us drunkenly and incorrectly try to accomplish this for a full arena before I let her know that I really didn’t know what I was doing and needed help.

Susanne came over and assisted on the ground and after almost another full arena Katai got it! She really is a smart cookie  After that we did it in the other direction and it was a little rough but we got it, she got the concept of moving her haunches without blowing through her shoulder and I was able to start to understand how to keep her neck straight, not let her blow through her shoulder, and keep her haunches at the correct angle.

What was really interesting is that there is this bodyworker lady (she works more with musculature, not so much chiro) that has attended the last couple of clinics with Susanne and she made an observation, along with Susanne, once we got back that Katai is built like a little body builder but that it’s her "external musculature" and not her internal. She said that the "Internal Musculature" will be strengthened more by stretching and that the occasional slight shortness that I had mentioned (left hind) previously would likely be helped by this stretchy work of getting Katai to cross over properly behind. She also mentioned that she thinks the shortness is coming from Katai’s stifle and maybe fetlock which at least helps me know a little more about where to watch. She didn’t think that it was time to call the vet but suggested that if it goes on for much longer despite doing additional/different work it might be good to get Katai a massage and maybe some body work.

This lady is doing some specific work with horses and riders on Monday and I’m going to do everything I can to get there and have a "lesson" since I think it would be SOO helpful!

Finally, right at the end of our lesson, we went to canter. Susanne wanted me to do three circles and do our best. Unfortunately as I cued for it, Katai actually bucked again which was disappointing since she hasn’t in a while and then half way around the second circle had a big, random spook. Because of that I never really got her on the bit and straight so we didn’t get to show our best work. After our disastrous canter Susanne wanted us to work on straightness and I think that we’ve been over bending the pony. Susanne was having me keep her neck straighter and wanted her haunches out more on the circle. She said that Katai has been throwing her haunches in on the transitions which is likely caused by us trying to keep her bent for the transitions. I’m sure I’m the culprit since I tend to exaggerate and if a little is good, more will be better right? Oops!

I’m going to chat about this with L so that she can help me understand what Susanne was seeing. Last time I thought, for example, that Susanne wanted me to turn my upper body out on the circle (confusing since that’s not what I thought I was supposed to be doing) but after talking to L realized that I was turning and collapsing in so bad that Susanne was just using it as a tool. Indeed, this time it didn’t come up at all since I’ve been working on being straighter myself.

Unfortunately H wasn’t able to make it since I rode right in the middle of the day so I didn’t get pictures. I’ll have to find someone to take some at one of my next rides so that I have some more content since this blog is getting boring without it!

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.