Goals: Half-seat and downward transition

My lesson last night went really well. I showed up early and the person before me had cancelled so D gave me a 45 minute lesson. There was a lot of thunder happening outside, so we didn't do our usual short journey to the second indoor and staying in the one attached to the stables. There were two other instructors in there at the same time and three or four other riders. In previous times I had a lot of trouble with other riders, but we went over all the scenarios before starting and I managed to handle the situation!

We worked on a few things:

• Posting trot without falling in at the corners
• At trot: Post one, sit two
• At trot: Post two, sit one
• Canter while passing another rider in the corner without falling in (basically cutting a corner without being sloppy about it)
• Jumping position down the long side at the trot - this was not pretty. I either stuck my butt out or couldn't balance. Something I need to keep working on.
• Canter to trot transition was not always pretty, either. I think the feeling of going from a smooth gait to a bouncy one throws me off for a couple strides.

Chance tripped while cantering the short side, but my instructor said I didn't seem phased by it. To be honest, Chance is always tripping! I asked if I had done anything wrong, and D said he trips all the time. I am sure there are some sort of exercises to help a pony trip less, but it would be beyond me as a once-a-week student.

Leibster Award Ceremonial Blog!

I am beyond honored and excited that Deborah from My Examined Life nominated my fledgling blog for a Leibster Award. Especially since I realize this blog needs a little touching up! As I understand it, the Leibster Award is meant to pass on the good feels of the blogger community through nominations and fun Q&A. Here are the questions Deborah sent along:

1. Why do you blog?

 I started this blog because I wanted to keep track of my progress with riding. With the million things you have to keep in mind during your lesson, as well as the slow progress that comes with only riding once a week, I wanted to make sure I was on my game. I also plan to make this blog prettier (eventually) and get more photos of the horses I get to ride. I go to riding alone (pretty common, I bet, for an adult beginner), so there are never pictures of me riding, but that just motivates me to put myself out there and meet more riders! I also blog because I'm obsessed with riding and it's just another activity I can do to feed that obsession! And I'm excited to tap into this blogger community I did not know existed.

1. When did you get started with your horseback riding journey?

The journey began a couple years ago when I was in grad school in Rhode Island. I had always wanted to ride, but where I grew up (Boston suburbs) it was prohibitively expensive. My flexible grad school schedule led me to look up affordable riding lessons in the mornings. After the first lesson, which I prepared myself to be a one-time experience the instructor, S said, "So, is this a good time for a weekly lesson?" And that was it! I became an adult beginner. I took a little less than a year's worth of lessons with S, but I got to lease for a month which was a great experience, and I got to do one show, getting 5th in the year-end walk-trot championship! When I moved back to the Boston area, I got on a backyard horse and broke my arm. Now that I'm back to normal, I'm excited to be back to weekly lessons and ready to make some serious progress (and maybe show again?!)

1. What is the most difficult thing you find, about horseback riding?

The most difficult thing is the risk of injury. When I broke my arm, a lot of people assumed I wouldn't get back on the horse. I think because I wasn't very good yet, they assumed I hadn't invested a lot into it, and it would be easier to stop. Or maybe they thought I would be too scared to get on again. There were some minor fears due to that fall, but I think they were healthy (I was actually pretty fearless before that, so a little fear is probably safer!). I also find it difficult to justify the $240 a month that goes to these lessons! Especially when I still have student debt, a car to pay off, and my boyfriend and I are thinking about buying a house. But, I got a higher-paying job which riding in mind (really!) and am driven to be a little money-fiendish, if I'm being honest, so that I can afford this hobby in the long-term.

1. What is your favourite vacation spot/experience?

When I graduated from college, my uncle gave me a tour of Armenia, which he is very familiar with. We went all over the country with this driver who took us up mountains and down valleys. We went to an ancient monestary among tumbling hills. I loved wondering through the stone passageways and walking through the fields. It gave me an amazing sense of freedom. As I was writing the answer to this question, I thought I'd include some photos from the trip. I was amazed to see how many photos of horses I had taken! This was before I started riding, even before it occurred to that horses could be in my life at all.

A photo I took of a grazing horse in Armenian countryside.

Mama horse has to work, so baby follows close behind!

 

...And this picture I took of an Armenian cowboy (sheepboy?)

1. What is your favourite novel/book and why?

I don't read a ton of sci fi, but when I do I get really into it. I always loved Ender's Game and I recently read Ready Player One and was obesessed with it! My other favorite book is Pride and Prejudice. I just love a witty heroine.

Thanks again to Deborah for nominating me! I would love is people could suggest blogs from other beginner riders that I could nominate. I would love to start reading more blogs and connecting with more beginners! 

Back On Chance, the Wiggliest Ponay

I rode Chance at my lesson yesterday, he is the wiggly half-inch-short-of-being-a-horse-quarter-pony 6 year old that needs clear communication but is a really honest try-hard guy. We worked on leg-yielding, which is, apparently, a very elementary thing I was not aware of. But my instructor explained how to apply pressure to go forward and to the side, forward and to the side - while keeping the horse straight. I got it pretty quickly although I had to anticipate Chance turning. I was applying pressure with my left leg to yield right and D (my instructor) explained that energy should be transferred into my right hand, which keeps Chance from turning. I sort of got that, but it was hard to keep the contact with the right hand without causing Chance to turn right. I did find, though, when we were cantering, understanding the leg yield at the trot helped me to keep Chance on the rail, which was very difficult for me in the past. Soon I was cantering around the ring (short sides used to be a problem), without difficulty.

While I loved going over my first jump, it was nice to go back to working on the flat to improve things at the trot and canter. I can see how getting ahead of oneself in jumping could lead to problems. The leg yield will definitely help me with adjusting lining up so that I go over the middle of the jump!

fifteen inches of freedom

I got to have 2 lessons this week because of a makeup. On Tuesday the lesson involved Chewie, a pony that wears grazing reins, but will do everything you ask as long as you're clear. He tested me a couple times, trying to wander into the middle of the ring, but by the end of the lesson we got him to canter on the rail. I'm still understanding the balance between my legs as an aid and sometimes having to actually pull a little bit to get him over.

My second second lesson we worked on sitting the trot and then "revving the engine" as my instructor calls it, where you tell him "go" but you hold him back, then explode into a posting trot to go smoothly over a cavaletti. We did this both ways and then my instructor said, "how about you do a big circle while I set up this jump." I look over and there is a 15" jump waiting for me. Without much preamble she sends me trotting up to it and I do a kinda-jumping position over it. The last time I attempted that was when I broke my arm, but this was so casual and smooth that I couldn't imagine falling off. It's amazing, nothing marks progress in riding like falling off trying something and staying on the next time! A few more times over the jump and I finally was getting into jumping position. And because I was focused on that, it wasn't until later I realized how more in-control I had gotten of Chewie, to keep him on a straight line, to get him more energized at the trot when I asked and to not feel all flustered when he cantered after landing the jump.

As you can imagine, I can't wait to try that jump again. I can see it all now: Trotting the jump, then cantering the jump, then two jumps, then higher jumps.

I should mention one other small victory. While getting Chewie tacked up, everyone kept remarking on how pissed off he was looking. He tried to bite me at least 5 times and finally I was firm with him and he gave up sulkily. #Confidence

Look Mama, I made it!

....around the entire ring without breaking the canter! Actually, I would not want my mom to see that because she is deathly horrified of me falling off and I wasn't exactly graceful.

In any case, the victory canter required a lot of false starts on the wrong lead, some pulling on the mouth due to poor balance that led to a hasty trot and finally, a canter around the ring that may not have ended gracefully, but at least it ended with no one worse for wear. Turns out, I get really confused, while cantering, what my left hand is versus my right, because my instructor was telling me to hold on to some main with my left hand and open up the rein a little with my right and had to keep saying, "your OTHER right!"

Also interesting, she had me do this smaller square around four cones, pushing in with my outside leg at the turn and it felt wonderful, like Chance was reacting immediately and with energy to my leg.

I will admit that the canter still scares me a little. I remember cantering on some older horses and it was really just like floating on a couch. Not Chance! Who, by the way, is a quarter pony - short of a horse by a half inch. I love the little guy.

I thought I could canter around the ring?

I always knew that just when you think you know how to do something on one horse, you get on another and he really tests you. Chance is that horse, because he's green and he does EXACTLY what I ask, meaning all those cues I don't realize I'm giving, he picks up on. So I'm not yet able to canter around the ring on him, because we go down the long side and once we get to the corner he falls in and we find ourselves spiraling into a tighter and tighter circle. It feels like we're going to topple over! As my instructor pointed out at the end (too late to correct that day), I need to put weight in my outside stirrup, while keeping leg on inside and...okay I don't remember what I'm supposed to do with my reins? Open the outside rein? Open the inside rein? Cantering has gotten so much more complicated! The old lesson horses just stay on the track and go!

Group lesson for funsies and Argghhhh circles

I got the opportunity to do a group lesson a couple weeks ago and I was excited about the opportunity to play some equestrian games. I knew what tennis lesson games were like (you know, hit the ball at the cone to get your friend out of "jail") or basketball lesson games (knock-out!!) or swim lesson games (relay races) but I wasn't sure if I had enough multi-tasking skill to play any sort of game on a horse. As it turns out, the equestrian "games" we played were all centered around passing each other. We trotted in a line and the person in the back had to pass everyone to be in the front, or the person in the front peeled back, or did a circle or cut across the arena, etc. It was fun because I had to focus on making a nice circle as if I was at a horse show. We also got to switch horses a couple times so I rode 3 horses in 1 day! Which sounds super professional to me.  One horse was older and steadier but you had to keep your leg on to energize him. Another was a pony that was older and steadier but also couldn't canter so you had to work around that. The third was younger and energetic and would get confused by mixed signals. The last game involved a 20 meter circle with 2 people riding counter-clockwise on the inside and two people riding clockwise on the outside. I couldn't get the young horse (Chance) to canter on the inside circle because I wasn't very good at steering wtih my legs and ended up pulling on his mouth and confusing him.

Which is why my instructor is so awesome and with it because in my private lesson the next week she remembered that I had that issue on Chance and decided to take a step back and approach steering with the canter more generally. She explained how Chance is a 6 year old (youngest horse I've ever ridden!) quarter horse who is still green and needs clear instructions because older lesson horses have a set bag of tricks based on what you tell them to do, but Chance does not. We worked on bending Chance around circles and it was indeed more difficult than it was with the older lesson horses. His shoulder would fall in an the circle would feel (and obviously look, from my instructor's point of view) sloppy, even if it was pretty good in overall shape. I am getting a little better at feeling the difference between falling in and bending, but it's a delayed feeling where I realize a little too late. We also worked on the canter and focus on keeping my inside leg on to steer. I was getting better at this and could see progression to being able to canter in a tight circle like I was supposed to in that game.

At the end of the private lesson I went on a little trail ride around the property with some ladies who were getting out of their lesson. They told me that Chance got very sick when he first arrived a few months back at the barn and almost died. I was already impressed with this mild mannerd, eager 6 year old and now I think he's a pretty special horse. He's also for sale, so I'll probably be broken-hearted to see him go by the end of the summer!