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!

We're Still Here

I promise :-)

Things have been weird lately. Crazy weather dumped 12-18 inches of snow on my area while leaving places only 20-25 miles away completely clear. Spring has hit in a big way, other than the previously mentioned snow storm, so pony mare has been NUTZ. Easter. The EHV-1 thing has been staying quiet, knock on wood, but after being put off so many times I still kind of feel like I’m stuck in limbo and was having trouble getting excited for the move plus work has been busy and I’ve got a big independent project I’m working on that I’ve been having fun with so I’ve put a lot of focus into that.

Because of all of the above I missed going to the barn from Monday-Friday last week and which made everything feel even weirder. When Thursday came around and I had my lesson I regained motivation and was pumped to get back and work with Katai. Since then I haven’t missed a day.

Friday I lunged her with side reins for the first time in a long while and had them a bit shorter than I normally do and she was excellent! I also groomed her and fed her her grain which is more necessary than it has been in awhile since I can see her ribs! Saturday I rode and made a lot of progress. I felt like I was actually retaining some stuff from my lessons and it was working the way it’s supposed to! She was more through than she’s been but she was also INCREDIBLY spooky. She just does these funny little jumps in place and then moves right on but after about 10-15 of these things it started to get funny, and a little frustrating, since I felt like even though she was listening pretty well her mind was somewhere else. Sunday I spent a couple of hours with her on Easter morning and the weather was spectacular! Warm, humid, warm, sunny, warm! I remembered what it was like to not feel like you’re just trying to survive outside. We went on a short trail ride and despite the temperature she was amped up.  She really does a good job of listening and not being overly naughty but she was right on the edge of even listening so I kept it short and positive. After we got back, in one piece, I took her out to graze and her gratitude was so clear that I actually teared up. All of the other horses, whos’ owners rarely make it to the barn, were staring at us and trying to convince me to take them out as well.

Tonight I was out again and it was rough. The hussy mare has decided that she CAN'T SURVIVE without her friends, cue sappy music. She had lost her mind, gone, poof, no mind here, and spun wildly back and forth while tied to the wall. I may not always be the smartest human but I realized pretty quickly that we weren't going to make any positive progress doing anything that involved brain cells so I brought her outside to the round pen to gallop in crazy speedy circles for awhile and finally worked on clipper and spray bottle desensitization. I am extremely proud to say that we are finally making some progress with those things and she stood fairly still for both tonight. I groomed her, rebagged her tail and let her graze and eat her grain and then put her back. 

Hopefully the hormones will calm down soon and I'll have my reasonable Katai back.