While I'm waiting for my food to get here, I might as well write. Candy and I had another great lesson this morning. Not gonna lie, it took some motivation for me to drag my butt out of bed at 8am this morning, achy legs considered. We're going to squeeze in a couple more lessons until everybody goes back on the school schedule. It's hard to believe that summer is almost over.
I feel like Candy and I are simply ironing out more kinks now. We're figuring each other out, negotiating and compromising as a team. We work together, and we both work hard. I think we both know what we want, too. We did more gymnastics today, and they were relatively challenging for horse and rider. One major thing that I figured out today from our lesson is how much my turning position affects Candy's turns as well as her pace after the turns. It's yet another one of my age old habits, my tendency to lean my body to the side and into the turn, and thus shifting my weight inward while the horse makes the turn. What I'm trying to compensate, I don't even know. I just know that it's yet another side effect from riding those slow and poorly trained horses on Okinawa. And that just throws Candy completely off, and it's one big reason why she feels the need to speed up out of a turn. When I began consciously calling myself to sit back, stay upright, and actually twist my body accordingly, turning with Candy and aligning my shoulders with hers, both the turn and after became instantly more collected, and Candy did not feel the need to speed out of the turn and toward the next jump in the direction we were going. It was a pretty epic "aha!" moment. See, this is why I need a trainer, a good trainer who's so perceptive, who can pick things like this up right away. Thank you, Karly!
Karly was also pleased with our progress. Yes, we've done some good work, I can say it with certainty. Every little bit counts, baby steps add up to big progress. Riding, it's all easier said than done. Sure, I get the idea. I can even explain it in detail. My brains knows what to do and how to do it. The trick is to maneuver my body that doesn't always want to listen and respond right away to make that smooth connection with what my brain says. If only muscle memory worked like short term and long term memories. Candy is just so sensitive, so responsive, that every little movement, every little pressure of any kind affects her, and the smallest things that I do with my body can make huge differences. She picks up on everything. Nothing, not the slightest wiggle coming from me escapes her. It's one more reason why she's not an easy horse to ride, and that she's not for just any rider. I already can't wait for our lesson next week. Keep up the good work, now let's do more! Oh, Leigh and Karly finally got to meet today as well. I think we make quite a fun group, all having one obvious thing in common, and all sharing a large amount of love for a 24-year-old OTTB.
I feel like such an old woman right now, thinking about going to bed way before 9pm. My day finally ended after an appointment with my allergist (have I mentioned that I'm actually allergic to cats and horses, and have been getting weekly allergy shots because I can't live without them?) and a trip to Wegman's with Ezra. Along the way, I also bought a big pile of fresh local produce from Leigh. The fact that we're good on groceries for a while makes my life easier, especially with Ezra going on a 5-day business trip again this coming week.
The one problem with keeping busy and multiple times weekly riding and yoga is that you run out of clean sports bras too quickly.
No comments:
Post a Comment