2019 Discoveries

Something I thought might be fun was to do a post of things that I learned, discovered, or re-discovered over the past year.

Podcasts/Media:
There are some podcasts and other media that I discovered, love, and wanted to share.

The first is Buck Off Banter which Amanda from $900 Facebook Pony recommended at some point. It is FANTASTIC! Not only are they real horse people they are very funny. They share the bad with the good and just enough about their family and non-horse things to feel like you're talking with a friend over a cup of coffee instead of listening to a podcast. 100% recommend.

The second is the Confident Rider Podcast. I actually found this through the Olivia Towers podcast (which I also really enjoy) but while that one is still fairly young and there are a lot of topics that I just don't connect with as much, I LOVE Jane Pike. She talks a lot about anxiety and mind set stuff and I find it really helpful. I've learned more of my current skill set around mental health from her than I did from the therapist I was seeing for awhile. Even if you aren't struggling with mental health stuff at the moment this is a fantastic listen.

The Hackett Equine Youtube channel is my third item for this group. I talk a lot about how much I enjoy Youtube but I also feel like I have a pretty good handle on which channels are out there and which I enjoy. Hackette Equine was a new one for me this year and she's lovely. I definitely recommend if you enjoy equine youtube channels!

Planning:
I got a planner around black Friday and it’s been something I’ve used off and on since then. Recently I think I’ve hit my stride with using this. The main thing I’m still struggling with is how to plan for future rides with all of the variability that entails. Ultimately though it’s more important for me to be able to plan when I’ll be able to ride and for now as long as I have a main theme for my rides on any given week I can always shift around if needed based on the weather or Katai’s behavior. The main thing it’s help helpful with is being able to look ahead and identify which days in the future I won’t be able to ride. That way I don’t miss a ride that I could have made and then realize that I have plans the next evening so suddenly miss multiple days in a row. That had been a huge issue. Visually looking at my month and which days I won’t be able to ride has helped me prioritize to ride on days when I can especially on weeks where my schedule is tighter.

Consistency is Good:
Both with time at the barn and mindset around change consistency feels really positive right now. I’m so tired of being so transient. I’m tired of moving homes, states, jobs, barns, etc. Knowing for the past year that I was going to be applying for and moving to a new job was stressful and applying and interviewing is always stressful and frustrating at times. Moving into a role at a great company that I’ll likely spend at least several years, if not the rest of my career, with is a huge weight off my shoulders.

Now we have our own little house :)

I’ve talked a fair amount about moving somewhere but knew that was less likely when I met my bf. I’ve also dreamed of having my own little farm and I think that thinking about that all the time always had me with one foot out the door at boarding places since it was easy to think about how that would solve all of the little annoyances. Now that we won’t be moving forward in that way it makes it easier to be solution focused with finding a great boarding situation and just staying there. Moving to the house and having a job that I’ll be at for a while also means that I’ll be living in one place and not moving around and therefore won’t have an additional reason to move barns. To me all of this means finding solutions to things like cold winters, hot humid summers, finding a great trainer etc. That’s a good place to be and feels much more settled and relaxing than constantly feeling like I should be picking up and making a big move. Also knowing that my disposable income will increase significantly in the near future means that I’ll have additional options for problem solving. I’ve already been doing this and it’s so nice to just be figuring it out vs. constantly having that foot out the door.

Down Time:
Taking some time off of lessons has been fantastic for me. I was feeling really burnt out after weekly lessons for a year and while I’m 100% confident that’s the quickest way to make progress, at this point as a working adult amateur with a high stress professional career, a new relationship, a new home, and a puppy that’s just too much. I’m looking forward to being able to have more consistent lessons (my goal is once per month or so) but for now this is exactly what I needed. I’ve been able to get my head straight and some of the training that’s needed with Katai is not in the arena but ground work and training items like working with the hose, relaxation and patience training, and being able to get out on trails. While I’m certain that some people could do this with weekly lessons I was just not feeling like I ever had enough time to work on my “homework” much less that I had time to work on these other things.

Pretty sure my boyfriend needs this mug

It’s been good for me and Katai’s relationship to step back, she’s getting more well-rounded, and her ulcer symptoms had completely gone away prior to the move. I contribute the improvement in her ulcers to several things but I’m also fairly convinced that the step back in arena work has helped. We will be slightly stepping this back up again to at least 2-3 days in the arena each week so it’s my goal to keep her tummy feeling just as good.

What Would Some (a little) Look Like

Before we get to the rest of this post I had another good ride and lunged Katai in side reins this week! We're as ready as we can be at this point for our clinic/lesson day with K's trainer. I have one more of these non ride update posts and then I should be able to post some awesome ride updates! Now I just need to get more media :)

Katai realized I was there while I was sitting in my car and was whinnying to me <3
#doesthisstallionfencemakemelookshort?

I am a perfectionist. It’s been something I’ve dealt with since I was little. For me this means I struggle with putting in some effort and only ever want to do 0% or 100%. This is why I struggle with goals and, in particular, planning especially for my personal life. Strangely enough this is a major work function for me and I’m really good at coaching people on how to make effective plans that are focused on taking action. However, in my personal life planning beyond the next day or so is tough for me and it’s especially tough for me to plan or make goals for Katai and rides.

Further out than a day or so my brain starts getting hung up on all of the factors that are involved in having two living beings as partners in a very demanding sport. When I do go ride or work Katai I react to the moment and usually accomplish something and it’s fine but it makes it tough to set more specific goals. I might even plan out for the next day’s ride but beyond that I struggle.

With weekly lesson’s it’s always felt ok to have less of a plan because there is another person who is helping to keep our path going in the right direction. However, now that we have lessons monthly or less I feel like it’s really critical that I plan better. In thinking about this and trying to figure out why I can do this at work and not in my personal life and then I saw this posted on my friend's wall; “What would some (a little) look like”.

Looking super majestic while she spooked at people walking in the aisle

With that in mind, over this past week, on a long car drive, I put on my workplace coaching hat and basically coached myself through what I was doing and what wasn’t working and realized the following;

 1. Without an accurate assessment of our gaps and strengths how was I going to be able to focus on the items that I need to improve?
2. Listing which days I was going to ride and movements to work on was too micro for how my brain works and the specificity was frustrating if the pony I had that day didn’t want to play along in that particular way or couldn’t because of soreness etc. Some structure is helpful, too much structure is hurtful especially when dealing with two animals who will likely each have their own things going on for any particular day
3. Bucketing items vs. making specific plans is what I coach employees and leaders to do. Lists of individual issues are way less helpful than identifying themes and building a plan to improve those themes
4. Some action is better than the 0% or 100% approach. Some structure is helpful, too much structure is hurtful
5. Not every ride needs to be perfect, in fact no ride needs to be perfect they just need to accomplish something so I need to set up a plan that encourages me to ride without much specificity so that I can focus on a couple things and not try to accomplish everything at once.

My bf and I were up and Moshy had decided to sleep in.
This was all we could see of her for most of the morning 

Then, when I got home, I listed out items like walk/trot/walk, canter, waiting for cues, half halts, straightness, and transitions and gave us a percentage score for each. After doing that for the movements that we can at least kind of perform I outlined the movements we need to move up to the next level such as walk/canter/walk. Then I put together ride plans in “buckets” that go something like this. Ride 1. Work on baseline gaits, Ride 2. Focus on collection, Ride 3. Stretchy ride.

Under each of those I outlined a list of items that I could do that day and also put a timeframe that I want to ride for. For the collection ride for example I outlined half halts, transitions, transitions within the gaits, backing, SI, etc. and also made that ride shorter, around 20 minutes. Finally I also listed out a bunch of alternative options such as desensitizing Katai to her travel boots, doing a bareback ride, or going for a hand walk. These are things I’ll put into our schedule as well since I want to be riding 3-4 times per week, lunging or doing just a walk ride as my fourth ride, and then having a non-riding day right now.

Then, based on weaknesses, I put my first week together. Since we’re just getting back into this right now I’m going with an either/or approach based on how Katai is feeling but eventually I’ll be more strict about that kind of ride we do since I still have a ton of variability within that ride to play with depending on how she’s feeling.

Still spooking, also I can't wait until her clip grows out

I had posted here about the planner I got for myself during the holidays. I had been disappointed about it and was actually going to post more about how it wasn’t working but now that I have this figured out it’s working great for this way of planning. I’m really hopeful that this will help me continue to make progress without regular access to a trainer.

It’s already helping my motivation since it seems way less overwhelming to have a specific sort of ride to pick from a list vs. thinking of all of the possible things I could work on for a specific day (or just try to do everything every time I rode which was a trap I was falling into). Hopefully this along with utilizing the resources I posted about previously will help me continue to make progress even with less access to lessons!

How do you plan, or not plan, for rides? How do you keep yourself on track?

Black Friday Shopping

This Black Friday was pretty boring for me. I got the fantastic grooming bag that I mentioned in my previous post but otherwise I didn't get much that was especially fun.

I did finally get a couple of Eskadron pony polo wraps in black and light pink. I already love the length, softness, width, and velcro set up but I'll do a review after I've used them for a while. I now have polo wraps in all of the colors of saddle pads that I use regularly so I can match #dressagequeen.

I also finally got a couple of sets of LeMieux bandage pads one set of four in black and one in white. Since Katai can't stand boots and polo wraps alone don't offer that much protection I decided that it made sense to upgrade and see what I think of these. I got each set of four for only $24 plus some change when normally on most websites they would have cost me $50. Not bad at all really!

Like these

We'll see what I think once I've had a chance to use these more as well.

I also picked up a set of, what I thought were, winter breeches but turned out to be summer breeches. I'm pretty sure I'm not the only one that assumes the word thermal means winter gear. Oh well, I'll just exchange them for the same Horze pair that I have and love.

I also got a planner specifically so that I can plan out my rides better. I feel like at this point in our training it's taking more planning to actually accomplish what I want to between lessons and I'm hoping that having it laid out at least in a framework in a planner will help. It should also help me plan out when I'm going to ride better since I can make sure I don't run into conflicts like I have been a lot this past couple of months.

In pink of course

I also got a package of Lexol tack wipes. They aren't my preference for tack cleaning but for in between wipe downs of my saddle and bridle they'll work great. I've been using a damp cloth but I don't have a good place to put it now with the unheated barn where it won't freeze.

Last but not least I picked up another Asmar long sleeve tee. Awhile ago I snagged a bright orange one while I was checking out tack stores in WA or OR (I can't remember which) that was on clearance. I love it but also wanted one that was, you know, a more normal color. These were on sale at RW so I got the heather grey one and I'm already looking forward to wearing it more. At some point I want the black one and the navy blue one but this is a good start!

Overall I'm really excited about my purchases (other than those darn breeches) and will share more pictures and maybe a review or two soon!

Show Plans!!!

Dreaming of these days hard core right now

I am SO thrilled that I can actually make a plan about this for this year!

Tentative Plans:

Bara Trac I & I Too - May 26th and 27th

Dressage at Alpine I & II - June 9th and 10th

Or;

Dressage Lite I & II (I think, there are a couple of shows being talked about in this timeframe)

Can't believe that Katai might get to meet these two!

National Dressage Pony Cup - July 20th through the 22nd!!!!
- so, so, so thrilled that this is a thing for us this year! The timing for it to be so close is just perfect for us! Now we just need to make sure we're prepared to not make a fool of ourself.

Regionals (of course if we qualify) - September 6th through the 9th

There's at least one other show that we're planning to attend in July but I don't remember which one it was. I believe we'd then have August off and hopefully do regionals in September. We have several more available in this area but there were four plus the NDPC that the barn is planning to haul to. I'll update more once I'm/we're sure which shows we'll be attending this year!