Dressage Queen or Jumping Princess - not quite sure yet. Today, well lets actually move back to Thursday - my usual lesson day. I contacted Mistress Brianne (as a sign of respect to a dominatrix you must use the title mistress, I learned this from CSI) to say lets move my lessons to Saturday - during daylight. Now our arena has great lights, but when you've worked all day, to put on clothes and go outside to ride in the dark and cold, and be back for dinner with hubby doesn't leave alot of time to absorb the lesson. So we moved them to Saturday, BUT I went on Thursday to ride, to practice - hey for you other students out there... this is a word your coach will love to hear you say - PRACTICE - better yet, they would probably pee their pants if you said - I have PRACTICED this week between lessons!!! Watch them fall out of their seat.
Anyhow not only did i go to practice what we had learned the past Saturday, but I also voluntarily - again I will say VOLUNTARILY PRACTICED without stirrups.... yes its my self pain now. Some people purge, some people cut, I ride without stirrups. And not just for a lap around. We started off our 1/2 hour session with three laps one way at a trot without stirrups and three laps the other way without stirrups. Now if you can't believe that - wait it gets better - then I used no reins - yep I took back the stirrups and practiced riding with my hands at my side and not with reins - then being the masocist that I am, I also tried 2 pointing without the reins. And as weak as I am, I was able to go for four beats before falling on my ass... which for some of you - may be nothing, but on our last lesson, I couldn't even stand up without the reins.
Of course Ozzy loved this 30 minutes session, as all he had to do was go around the ring over and over again. No collection, no bending, nothing. But i did feel better for doing this myself. And I can totally feel now when my leg is in a questionable spot and when its completely wrong - well for the most part I can feel when its right and when its wrong. And right does feel better.
So today, despite it was slushing outside I headed up to my lesson, but we decided to move it to an inside arena. Now there are plenty of indoors in the Okanagan, but some don't allow lessons, some are ran by crazy people, and some are more suitable as a round ring to Oz then an actual arena. But I contacted Wendy Wise of Hillcrest (or formally Hillcrest, not sure what its new name is) to see if we could ride there. Talk about drop in, and bless her heart she let us come in. Wendy and I go back to boarding together at Hillcrest for about 6 months before they closed down. She was also my coach during my time up there. And I she is wonderful and busted our ass for 60 - 90 minutes a lesson. Both Oz and I were always dripping with sweat after the lessons. She has stayed someone I like to call a friend since we separated with the closure of the barn. Over the recent months she has re-opened Hillcrest, and in talking with her today, I think at least for a few months we will move our lessons or some of them up to the indoor. Our outdoor is perfect, as there is plenty of salt and such, but sometimes its just nicer to not deal with slush or snow, or the glare of winter.
Anyhow, there were standards set up with poles on the ground that then became jumps shortly after we entered the ring. And as soon as we got into the ring, ooohhh boy you could feel Ozzy was on his thoroughbred mood. He was fast on the forehand and feeling good. A couple of trotting laps around the ring, and that calmed down a bit. And then we started over the jumps. Boy did I suck - yep I'll admit it. I had a great time as always, and always come away trying to remember something, but this lesson I felt sucky. Totally collapsing in the saddle over some jumps, yanking on his mouth on others. Almost like we hadn't jumped ever before.... I think we went around about a dozen times, some only being a couple of jumps, other times the mini circuit. And out of that I think I felt maybe 3 good jumps where it felt good, and I felt my position was good, speed was good.... but 3/12 - hell I'd be grounding my son if he came home with marks like that. Now one of those jumps though, it felt good going over top, and as we came down and cantered on, Oz tossed his head around and it almost felt like a little buck. He was feeling FINE!!! Enough of this flat work, bring on the jumps he was thinking. And through out our lesson I kept having to contain the canter he wanted to do. The jumps were small and a canter wasn't really required. But really it was he and I against Mistress B..... she wanted us to concentrate on my leg, hands, position and speed, and really Ozzy wanted to canter the whole thing, and I was cutting corners all over the place... lets face it - we had jumper brain. Clean and FAST, screw the equitation and using our corners....
Oz was certainly DONE by the end, hot and sweaty and needing a full cool down - where were you aunty sherry!!!! But we will head back up there next Saturday afternoon to do another lesson.
FROM THE MANURE PILE...
Now I had a topic as of today, as they usually come to me when I'm in the saddle, but I'll be damned if I remember what it is. I'm heading off to the hockey game, so I will think of it as we are drinking beer and watching the Rockets play whoever - frankly I'm going for the company and free beer. Okay now I remember what I was going to beef about. If you remember I think a couple of weeks ago in the manure pile I was complaining about not so good coaches. So with that in mind, here's a manure pile about students, and boarders. Now I'm not perfect as a student... and have probably done some boneheaded things myself...
First coaches.... show up on time, that doesn't mean if your lesson starts at 2pm, that your pulling into the driveway at 1:50pm thats not on time. Allow yourself time to get your horse groomed, tacked up and warmed up. Second, take notes on your lesson - at the end of your lesson talk to your coach about things that you learned that day, or exercises that you should practice on, keep a journal on your lessons and your progress. Third, Practice, practice practise.... if your have a lesson once a week don't make the next time you ride your next lesson - how could you have worked on anything you learned at your last lesson if your only riding during your coaching sessions. Fourth, listen to your coach, if she is repeating something over and over and over and over and over again, then stop and ask for some different direction. Obviously its not working and maybe you need to have it explained differently, if its something that is a overall weakness, then ask of ways to improve on it, and DO IT! Fifth, remember if its just not working out between you and your coach there is nothing wrong with looking elsewhere, but talk to your coach, explain why your leaving, perhaps he/she can give you some direction of where they think you would happier.
Second barn managers.... First read the barn rules, learn the barn rules, live by the barn rules... you may not like them but its NOT YOUR BARN. If there are rules that you don't like, ask why they are there if you wonder, and if you still can't live by them then - look for another place. Second, likely you're not the only boarder there, so the barn manager doesn't want to have daily phone calls or emails from you wondering how your horse is doing. Unless your horse is recently recovering from an illness or injury then if you're wondering if little trigger is happy, then haul your butt up to the barn and take a look yourself. You need to trust that your barn manager is going to contact you if something is wrong with your horse - if you don't hear anything then pressume everything is fine. Third, although this falls under number one, but I'm going to point out two common rules broken, food in the tack room... Hello people, food + rural setting = mice. And you may think, hey my tack is old, and my brushes are dirty and I don't mind mice peeing, eating and crapping on my stuff - thats fine, except mice don't think hey Suzy left carrots in her tack locker, lets only eat her tack, no all tack is up for the eating. Nothing annoys your BM and your fellow boarders then having them try to keep their tack locker clean and following the rules only to have your mess cause ill effects on their property. Fourth, CLEAN UP AFTER YOUR HORSE.... if your horse craps PICK IT UP, even though its a barn and acreage it doesn't mean that crap should just be left lying around. If your in the arena after you finish with your horse go back into the arena as its likely trigger pooped while you were riding and you don't know it. And if there is poop in the arena and your unsure if its yours pick it up anyhow. Fifth, if your farrier is coming, or your vet don't assume your BM is going to be there to hold your horse. IF you can't make it out when those people come, either call your BM and ASK - not tell, but ASK if they are available to hold your horse, (and your horse better be respectful and not an ass while being handled - if trigger is hard to catch, bad to stand, walks all over people, then don't ask anyone else to take care of your problems) should the BM be available, ensure you pay her/him for their time - yep THEIR TIME. Because your time was too valuable to leave whatever you were doing to deal with YOUR horse, your BM's time is no less valuable. If your BM is not interested in holding your horse, then change the appointment, because surely you would have asked them, well in advance of the pending appointment.
I can go on and on, but my shoulders are sore from today fall (yep didn't write about that... got to save somethings for later) but just to finish.... I want to repeat ! READ THE BARN RULES, LEARN THE BARN RULES, LIVE BY THE BARN RULES, OR LEAVE THE BARN!!!!