Cavaletti Creativity

There's something about following a long driveway to a barn with horses grazing on the left and a meticulously kept ring to the right with beautiful jumps and planters arranged in the sort of hunter course I yearn to show my 10-year-old horse-deprived self.

Yeah, that's great, but my instructor really knows how to get creative with cavaletti blocks. Today she slowly built up a jump by adding block and poles, including two blocks towards the middle of the jump, that served the same purpose as a cross rail, giving a narrow space to jump over. We did oxers, and she even simulated a ditch of sorts. I had to work on slowing Cal down (leaning back and lots of half-halts) otherwise he'd miss a stride.

We may have also needed a cone a couple strides after the jump to help me stop Calvin from cutting the corner after jumping. Special me! That was another thing we worked on: cantering a straight line, before and after a jump. And we started by going down the centerline, at which point I'd make it almost to the end and the have a spaz moment and not know what lead I was on (and therefore which way we should turn). And when I say spaz I mean, body almost going one way whilst horse goes other way. In this moment I could feel how keeping my heel down was keeping my feet in the stirrup and my leg from swinging wildly and...my body flying off. If that's not improvement, I don't know WHAT is.

The other thing we worked on was sitting trout on a bouncy horse. My instructor had me slow the trot way down, put the reins in both hands, get my leg and lower back as loose as possible and hold on to the back of my saddle, to really pull my butt down. It was amusing and, while I didn't feel like I was making progress, for the rest of the lesson my leg felt nice and long.

I'm also noticing how fatigue can cause you to quickly regress. By the end of the hour I didn't have quite the focus to keep Calvin cantering around the ring without cutting corners again. I'm not understanding why riders are all about ending on a good note.

Catching up on happy changes

I have been doing a sorry job journaling my riding and it's probably because it's been very choppy. I ride once every two weeks now, which doesn't sound like enough to make progress, but surprisingly, I have. Because I fully switched over to the instructor who I used to take practice rides and occasional lessons with. She moved her operation to a barn 28 minutes from my home. I didn't think that was physically possible in Boston but there it is. An instructor with great horses and an indoor and flexible lesson scheduling and really great prices 28 minutes from my home. It  makes me wonder, will it last?? Does anyone have a perfect horse situation forever?? Feel free to weigh in on that.

My lesson is a group of 2-3 young students of mixed capabilities and the focus is on jumping. I get a lot of compliments for my equitation, thanks to the hunter barn (RIP), but she points out how it can be unforgiving when jumping more difficult horses.

She does a lot of fun activities, like setting up a jump with a cone on each side. I rode a horse that was quite good at barrel racing, so when the idea was to jump and circle the cone, jump, circle the other cone and go back and forth, the horse was getting pretty amped. This used to terrify me, but I'm getting braver the more we jump and make tight turns. And vice versa.

She also points out that my leg slides all over the place when I'm jumping. I'm not surprised, since she's been getting me over jumps as high as 2'3". I think my leg strength needs to catch up! And probably, it would help if I was riding more than I currently am. But I'm having fun, and I'm not falling all over the horse (too much) or pulling on his mouth, so hopefully my form with follow function!

I do miss my weekly lessons, and I could probably go back to them, but I also find it makes it less stressful to squeeze riding into my schedule (and my finances) and makes the time I am there really, really fun. Sometimes I just do other stuff - I've been playing quite a bit of flag football and am I preeetty good wide receiver, but that's a story for a different blog ;)