Dancing in the Shit Show

*To preface this post, Katai's abscess burst!!!! Now onto your regularly(?) scheduled programing*

Back in August I wrote a post that I called Dancing in the Rain about how I was continuing to try despite lots of chaos in my life. Now in December I feel like the chaos and stress has increased but I’ve managed to keep dancing. You can find the August post here if you’re wondering what I’m talking about.

The end of this year has not been kind to Katai and myself. After the move Katai clearly wasn’t herself and I think that the significance of the change just affected her more than I ever thought it would. It showed up in sensitive feet, then ulcers, then thrush, and then an abscess (the first she’s ever had). Some of these are probably directly related to the move and the change in her living situation but some of them probably were random occurrences that just happened at the wrong time. I’ve complained on here quite a bit about it but outside of the blog I’ve been really proud of the way that I’ve just dug in and worked hard to find fixes despite these things happening.

Some days I feel like she just loves messing with me

When I figured out Katai had ulcers for example I dropped everything else in my personal life and started going to the barn every day, rain or shine, despite if I was exhausted, stressed, anxious, or had other things going on. I made it out 35 days in a row with no break before missing 2 days due to a snow storm and Thanksgiving. I’m still going out every day but at this point I’ve missed a couple more days because of dangerous roads (even with snow tires my Smartcar isn’t great on the freeway if the roads are slippery).

That 35 days in a row taught me a lot about what I’m actually capable of and it was so helpful for my motivation. Things were getting done on a regular basis including getting Katai her supplements, treating her feet for thrush, grooming her and cleaning up her back legs when she was in heat, and of course getting her meds. Then, during this, when she had her abscess I was out every day to give her bute, check on her, make sure she was safe and get a feeling for if she was improving or not. There have also been other things like asking other people to help give meds during snowy days and sticking with poulticing and wrapping her hind left foot despite the fact that she likes to try to kick me with that leg and didn’t like being doctored.

In other news, I rescued this young lady from being tangled in her blanket.
She was down and thrashing when I got to the barn and I was able to rescue her

While this isn’t how I’ve wanted to spend the last few months I have learned a lot about myself, a lot about Katai, and have continued to build strong relationships with the other people at the barn because I’m seeing them all the time. Hopefully this will all pay off and now, over the next few weeks, I’ll be able to get back to a regular riding schedule. This ability to make it out every day has helped me figure out how to prioritize with a partner and has taught me the importance of going out when I can, even if I don’t want to, so that when I can’t go out it isn’t as big of impact.

What I HAVE Been Doing

Missing my former coach right now.

With all of my whining about what I can't do, ride and just have a nice easy month where things go well, I have been working hard in the background. With the help of my support system I've really changed my mindset over the past few months from just feeling defeated to actually making some pretty big changes to how I function.

I've always been good at self advocating, having boundaries, making time for self care etc. but sometimes if things aren't going well, or I feel like they aren't going well, I swing too far and just stop doing anything productive. That wasn't such an issue when my life was boring but now as I have more adulting to do it's been really affecting my ability to function. Instead I've started to focus on what I can do and to just chip away at small things as I can vs. being such a perfectionist and just not doing anything since I'm unable to do it the way I want.

I've already claimed a corner of the basement in our new house and I want to do something like this plus some shelves and a storage container for grain. I can't wait to set up my little tack space!

With this last month or so of unhappy Katai I've done a few things including getting her on Ulcerguard over the past few days, getting her scheduled for a massage on Monday, and looking at her diet and making some adjustments. These all cost money and I've been really good at budgeting but in this case I decided that throwing some money at the problem was warranted. Even better, because of this change I'll likely be saving money on supplements long term and I've gone from 4 supplements down to, likely, just one. I'm going to trial it for two months, one month of loading dose and one month of the regular dose, and see how she's doing. Fingers crossed it helps with some of the tummy and hoof things she's struggled with. I'll update on how that goes once I know more.

I was also struggling to get Katai to eat her supplements. I think part of this was an ulcer flair but, tbh, she's never loved eating just her small pile of supplements (and I can't blame her because they smell like vitamins) it's just that when she had all night in a stall to eat them she'd eventually finish them off. I don't have all night to wait with her when I'm there. In the past I would have just thrown my hands in the air and given up but instead I checked with a couple of people at the barn to see if they wanted the remainder of the alfalfa pellets that I have to store in my car (since I wasn't feeding them anyway) and found someone who did. I arranged a complicated game of musical car storage for them and then stopped and picked up a bag of senior feed. Sure enough, last night when I gave her the supplements with a couple of handfuls of senior she gobbled them down and licked her bucket clean.

Really thankful that Katai's mane has grown back in!
Now hopefully I can keep it from getting like this again through the winter.
Also thankful she doesn't need to crane her neck to eat her supplements anymore :)

I've also been asking for help more both in my personal life and at the barn. At the barn I vented a bit to a fellow rider and then based on her response asked some questions about horse care stuff. She was really helpful and is in agreement with me that Katai is just taking awhile to adjust. She agreed that some Ulcerguard and just more time were what was needed. That along with T's comment on my last post about her ponies also having sore feet and some text conversations with Jen have helped me feel like this isn't that unusual and it's going to be ok. I just stacked the deck against us when I moved her during this weather change.

Flat drylot

For some perspective, before with stall board she was in from around 5:00pm to about 7:00-7:30am so for about 14+ hours she was in her 12x12 stall. When she went out it was into a fairly large, but flat, dry lot where the horses ate and then stood around a lot. Now she's out 24/7 in a pasture with hills and a slightly larger group of horses that do more moving around. When we moved, her saddle was sitting slightly low in front and I was shimming it because she'd lost topline without consistent work over the summer. Now, with almost no riding, her saddle is sitting even and definitely doesn't need shims. That isn't due to fat at all since her girth is still going up to the same space, I can still feel her last rib or two, and she visually doesn't have a belly at all. The only explanation I have is that she's out moving around, running around, and doing her own hill work and that's why I'm guessing there's some muscle soreness/tiredness.

One small portion of the pasture.
It continues to slope up to the right and this is about a third of the total space.

Last night I went to the barn after a work meeting. It was cold, I didn't have any dinner so needed to stop and wait in line forever (food is the worst) and was just over everything when I got to the barn. I figured I'd just give her Ulcerguard and her supplements and leave. I went in the barn, not even planning to change out of my work clothes, BUT I saw someone else clipping and decided that I was just going to stick with it and do it. I changed to barn clothes, got the pony, and started clipping her. I was about a square foot into it with an almost new set of clipper blades when they just completely stopped working. In the past I would have just packed up and left and ordered a new blade but instead I asked the other boarder who was clipping for help. She, low and behold, works as a dog groomer and has a TON of knowledge of clippers. She helped me figure out how to change out my blade drive and then when that didn't work lent me a set of her blades (which happened to fit my clipper) so that I could finish. She was so lovely and helpful about it that it was a good learning for me.

From pictures like (from the old barn) this I can tell that she's really getting her
muscle back at the new barn despite not much riding

Because of that perseverance I now have a clipped pony who is actually eating her important supplements and who is on the path to an ulcer free existence. I'm hoping that with some additional ulcer guard, being back on her tummy supplements, and the massage on Monday she'll be on the right track. I'm also hoping that the hoof supplement gets here today, or tomorrow, so that I can get her started on that and see if that does anything. Hopefully we can be fully back on track in the next week or so and I can reschedule the lesson I needed to cancel this week!

All The Learning

Puppy princess is feeling much better after her spay. She is looking so grown up!

When I decided to move to this barn, which meant no more weekly lessons, I certainly never intended to stop taking advantage of learning opportunities. It was just that I didn't want to continue to do lessons each week every week. That was coming both from a budget perspective and because after all these years of weekly lessons (mostly not riding) I'm just tired of having a weekly commitment every week. On top of that, I learned so much from Jane and then with the winter we had we took a big step back so much of what I'm working on right now is getting her back to where we were.

Of course I booked a couple lessons with S2 right away when I moved and when we decided at the second lesson that I wouldn't be going to the show at the end of May I moved my show budget to lessons and booked three more right away instead. That makes for 5 lessons with S2 in May and 4 of those were within a week. During one of those lessons she told me that Kristi Wysocki was going to be at the barn teaching a clinic and that she'd encourage me to ride with her.

My tack closet at home continues to get more packed.
I can't wait until I can move into a tack locker at the barn!

I'd taken a fair amount of time off work so I wasn't sure if I'd be able to get the time off I needed for the clinic but in the end I was able to leave a bit early and do a late ride and while it was a little tight it all ended up working out. I truly wish I had clinic media but unfortunately there wasn't anyone there taking pictures and in the rush to change into barn clothes I left my phone in my car and just didn't think to see if someone could get any media.

I had been warned that Kristi could be blunt but I do really well with blunt. I like people who tell it like it is even if it's brutal. It's just the way I learn best. However, I never even saw that side of Kristi because she liked both of us and actually had very little feedback about the things we got to during that lesson. Part of that was because Katai was busy being the spookiest pony she's been in a REALLY long time with the sound system on in the arena so Kristi spent too much time helping me work through the spooks and even feeding Katai sugar :)

However, we still did get a lot of riding done including lots of trot, leg yields, canter-trot transitions, half halts work, a bit of work on my position and posting, and on generally slowing down the walk and trot after the canter. I got complements on our leg yields (totally Jane's doing) as well as my geometry which was AWESOME to hear coming from a judge especially since it's going to take good geometry to score really well on an average moving pony.

Off topic but this is maybe Katai's 10 ride ever :)

In all honesty she had very little to say. She wanted me to keep my elbows closer to my sides (yeah I flap when I'm concentrating on things haha), and to pause more at the top of my posting. I also got a couple reminders to look up. When we went to canter it fell a bit more off the rails (other than the spooking which was already solidly off the rails) because once Katai is asked to canter she thinks only canter is a thing. She helped me just slowly work through it but there wasn't anything groundbreaking. Just good solid, patient, riding.

In the end I'm really glad I rode with her and I got some really good feedback but I continue to go back to how incredible Jane is and she charges less than a 7th of that lesson for an hour vs. 45 minutes.

At this point I'm going to take a longer break from lessons. If anything, the lack of anything really ground breaking from that lesson (which again was at least partially caused by Katai's spookiness) really makes me want to continue to push through the things I know we need to work on more before I pay for more lessons. Between the things I learned from Kristi and the things I learned from S2 I have some additional items to work on as well as all of the work that Jane instilled in me so I'm really confident that we can get a ways now ourselves and then hopefully get S2 involved again as we get a bit closer to my next potential show!

Learning From Media

Alternate title: We Do Actually Have 100 Problems

Back in April, Jen from Cob Jockey did another of her amazing posts about biomechanics . I almost always learn something from these posts and often really think about this stuff at my next ride. This time I read through it and basically thought, "we've got 99 problems but this isn't one" (pinching with my thighs).

Fast forward to a couple of days ago when I got media from the second show.

The first show media makes me happy. It clearly shows some rough moments and tension but overall there's some harmony between me and Katai and while she's a bit hollow mostly she's pretty good for a scary show environment.

Case in point

 However, when I got the media from the second show I was really disappointed. Partially I think that the photographer (a boarder from my previous barn) just happened to catch more of the rough moments than the good moments but between the few rough pictures from the first show and most of the photos from the second show I noticed something in my position that still isn't good. I don't see this as much at home (probably because we're less tense) but I still see it so it's clearly a pattern. It was also something that I couldn't identify just from a picture beyond being unhappy with how it looked haha.

An uncomfortable picture to share but there it is plus...

An example of a similar thing from the first show
At least here she looks pretty good

So, when I went to the barn on Friday evening I started messing around with position stuff. Jane had already started working on the pony and my position at the canter but I wanted to figure out what was going on at the trot. I've thought that it's coming from my hip flexors and core but as I messed around I just happened to do something that changed everything and that was to stop gripping with my thighs!!

There it was, this whole time and it's such a habit that I've been COMPLETELY unaware of it. I would imagine that probably 60-80% of my rides I'm carrying some amount of tension in my thighs which means that I post like Barbie haha. I have to rotate back from that point which leads to my legs coming forward and my seat going to the back of the saddle and my shoulders coming forward to balance and compensate. Plus, then as you can see above my hands to weird things so that I can still post. I'm not pulling per say but I am certainly unable to allow her to come forward in that moment.

As soon as I released that tension I was able to sit down around my pony and be more effective in practically every way. Katai didn't even know what was going on since it's a huge change but I'm really curious to see how it effects her as I get more consistent since there were brilliant moments where I felt her back come up more than is typical for her. My legs were so sore afterwards from using different muscles that this is clearly a big, important change for me to make and one that I'm excited to show Jane.

I'll end the post with my favorite picture from the rated show :)

Teach Me Tuesday

Ok kind dressage bloggers (or bloggers with knowledge of dressage shows) I need your help!

I've shown 4 times in my entire life, all schooling shows and two of those were hunter schooling shows when I was a kid so my mom signed me up. I've started looking into what I need to sign up for a rated show and I may as well be reading a college textbook on a topic I know nothing about.

The Facts:

-We certainly won't be qualifying for anything this year so it's not important if I'm eligible
-I've never been a member of any horse/riding related organizations so I believe I'd be eligible for opportunity classes
-I'm willing to join but if these first couple of shows are complete disasters I'm going to probably re-route to just schooling shows and/or other events I can trailer to so I'd rather not spend a ton of money this year

My Questions (I swear I've read through the rules but I can't understand half the terms and would rather ask for help than spend the next couple of weeks trying to figure this out):

-Would opportunity classes make sense this year? Is there anything I'm missing? How long am I eligible? Is it for a length of time or a number of classes? (Looks like my local shows offer training and First 1 for Opportunity classes)
-Would it make more sense to just join USDF and USEF? If so, joining my local GMO would provide me with a group membership for USDF, would that minimally qualify me to show (if I also joined the USEF) or am I missing something?
-If I join do I also need to sign Katai up? Anything to keep in mind there?
-Anything I'm missing?

I'm really not worried about being eligible for qualifying for awards or championships. First I'm sure it won't happen. Second, if by some miracle I were to qualify for championships I wouldn't go since I'd rather save the money and do more clinics this fall so that we'd have a better shot at not failing at such a big show. I do plan to join everything next year when we'll have a better chance (hopefully lol) of getting decent scores.

Real Deal: Lesson Recap 9/6

I had my first scheduled, normal lesson with Jane this past Tuesday and, no big surprise, it was AMAZING af. I'm going to list bullet points of the items we worked on since I feel like that's the best way for me to journal all of this and for me to not miss something. So, without further ado here is the massive list of what we're working on!

- My way of thinking about training/riding Katai is something that Jane has made big changes with. For some things, such as proper bend to the left, she wants me to realize that it's really difficult and probably uncomfortable for her. This has made me think very differently about how I ask for it and she wants me to give time for her to accept it rather than "making her" where for things without the same limitation I might expect a more immediate reaction. The other changes in my thinking are in thinking like my contact like a hug rather than an aid. I'm very demanding of myself and it's easy for me to be the same with Katai and not be as gentle and respectful of her as I should be. I'm really enjoying working with a coach that takes that into account.

- Leg contact is another big thing we are working on. Jane is insisting that Katai accept that contact right from the beginning of my ride and it's meant that she is way less resistant to it throughout my entire lesson. Again I'm focusing on the hug feeling and trying to keep it as pleasant as possible. She wants it to be pleasant most of the time and very gentle. No thumping her in the sides, no pushing her, no unpleasantness at all for right now. Firm yes but for the time being we're focusing on it being pleasant.

- We are also working on slowing me down. I function very quickly as a human being, I rush through a lot and have a tough time stopping and slowing down. I can be in the moment and still rushed but I've been trying to slow things down. I'm the same way with Katai which was made worse by the problem she had with rearing. I got used to feeling her suck back and having to really push her forward. However, that rushes her, makes her tense, and makes her feel like running away. Jane has been really emphasizing that even if she breaks into a walk its ok. It's ok, where are we going in such a hurry, why does she need to keep trotting, this is fun, it's a slow process and it can be a slow process and I need to just take a breath and slow down. I feel like she's good for my life in general and not just my riding :)

- She also found something that I've been unhappy about in my riding but never really knew what was causing it. I think we all feel like we look awkward when we see ourselves in videos and pictures but there's been this thing that seems off but that I can't really identify and Jane saw it the moment she saw me on a horse. She says that I perch when I'm riding particularly at the walk, but it effects my trotting as well. She wants me to really release my hips and sit down on Katai's back. This is really, really tough for me. Not that some of the things above aren't but with those I feel like I have moments where I REALLY get them and just need to make it more consistent, with this I feel like I kind of get it for a second or two but haven't been able to consistently get it when I'm trying.

- I also found out that I've clearly identified that we're still struggling with bend. With the help of the arena mirrors and Jane's coaching I was really able to see just how bad it is sometimes when it still looks good from above. We're at a point where Jane won't accept me not having Katai in the correct bend. Poor Jane needs to yell at me for it a lot but we're going to get better quick! Lot's of practice in our future.

- She's also making a couple of minor changes in my equipment. She loves my new saddle (I had my first lesson with her in back in July in my old saddle) but wants me to get regular fillis irons for the different feel they give and, I may have mentioned, that she wants me to use side reins instead of my neck stretcher because she doesn't like the way that the bungie pulls down on their poll. I still have my side reins but unfortunately I sold my old irons. Oh well, they'll be easy to pick up at a used tack sale!

Do Less, Ask for More

My camera randomly captured this when I was trying to set it up to take video.
Unfortunately it's all the media that I have from Thursday 

I feel like this summer has been more about figuring out myself, motivation, and how to train my horse than it's been about actually training my horse. With this being said I feel like we've been making lots of progress.

I've been slowly chipping away at my position and how it's effecting Katai. I've also been figuring out some of the small evasions that she's been throwing at me that I couldn't originally identify when I didn't have as much dressage riding knowledge. More importantly I've been figuring out how to deal with the correctly rather than just operating on feel alone where sometimes I make the problem worse.

The problem is that sometimes this has been feeling more philosophical than actually like something I can take action on. Thursday felt like the first time in awhile that I put the knowledge and skills I've been learning to use, on my own, and worked through a tough situation to end up some place good.

I also learned a few things. One is that I need to go back to 5 rides per week, at least, Katai just has too much energy and isn't getting enough work right now. 4 rides or 5 casual rides just isn't enough for her current fitness level. I'm going to plan to do at least three, working dressage rides, a trail ride, a lunge, and then if she's still feeling hot or if one of our dressage rides ended up being a bit lighter I'm going to add a cavalletti day. the main thing for me is to make sure that during our dressage rides I can concentrate and really ride, and more importantly THINK the way that I know I can. If that means changing a dressage ride into a trail ride or lunge I'm going to do that. Riding dressage and then not really putting much into it or not concentrating is not gaining me anything.

The other thing is that I need to make a couple of things a priority in my rides, getting Katai in front of my leg and making her deal with a normal, light, leg pressure and not taking the pressure off when she over reacts and gives herself the tizzies.

Finally no treats again. Over the past few weeks I'd snuck her one very randomly and during the hunter pace she got a lot. For special occasions away from home I'll still give her some but she's started pinning her ears and giving me dirty looks in the crossties again so no more treats at the barn anymore. I had hoped that making them rare and random would be ok, but no.

My ride on Thursday was really great. I worked on things and was actually able to make progress without L there which has been really hit or miss lately (more miss than hit). I had identified a few things to work on and then I stuck to it. One of those was, as mentioned above, getting her in front of my leg. We ended in a better place but its something that still needs more work. I also really worked on getting her to still accept leg pressure. She has trouble figuring out the difference between the two which is totally on me but now it's time to start fixing it. We had some really good work and ended in a really nice place. It was also my first full ride in the trial saddle and after a few minor tweaks it still slid forward but less. I'm really falling in love with this saddle so I'm very hopefully that L will have some more ideas on how to girth it up that will fix the slipping issue entirely so that I can get it!