Finally Getting Back into the Swing of Things

Well, that's pretty much what this post is all about. In the past few weeks that have been my second semester of my junior year, things have not been according to routine. This was the first week where I was present for every single day of school (no getting sick, no going to a funeral for a friend). This was the first week I got to ride Val a majority of the days. And this was the week we finally started getting our dressage back together!

For awhile, I haven't been having very regular lessons. They kept getting rescheduled for mini-emergencies, but the fact that the lessons were rescheduled for legitimate reasons doesn't make our dressage any better. I've been accepting poorer and poorer performances from Val without even realizing it.

Things really came to a head this week. Thursday, I was riding in the arena while my instructor was giving a lesson and she was telling me that he needed to bend and reach forward to my hands. I was stubbornly sure that he already was, but I started doing a serpentine and I kept getting in "trouble" for leg yielding. "He doesn't need to go sideways, he needs to BEND!" And I was stubbornly sure that we WERE bending. In reality, Val probably looked like someone had jammed his head close to his neck and then forced him to eat something vile-tasting; he was gnashing at the bit and turning completely U-shaped. And I was positive that he was soft, forward, and bending!

So, whatever hallucinogen I was on yesterday didn't work today; I saw my instructor ride my horse and saw what I hadn't been getting in forever. Then I got on and really felt my horse, and I realized he hadn't felt that way in months! We focused on him taking the contact instead of me forcing it on him and we started to work on a more gradual "soften" as a reward instead of just dropping him. I've definitely lost a ton of the finesse I had last summer!

Anyhow, it was a nice, basic lesson and we ended on a beautiful canter-trot transition. :) My instructor made me realize that I can't just keep riding the same way every day for forever and asking for the same things and expect to get the same results. Horses aren't machines; a button that "works" one day might not the next, and continually pushing the same button will just make them resistant and confused. We have to adjust to what we're sitting on every day and we can never expect them to be completely predictable. Where would the fun be in that?

Also, as a side-note, my fitness is definitely improving! My aerobics class is really more a "go down to the YMCA and use the machines and equipment" class; we get to do 20 min of cardio and then 15 minutes weights/etc. every day. I've been working on the elliptical, and I love feeling that every day 20 minutes is easier than yesterday. This Thursday, I went completely full-out, as fast as I could, for 20 full minutes and I felt VERY accomplished! That success made me think, "Gee, I bet I can run for a whole 20 minutes too!" According to the elliptical, I've been going between 1.5-1.8 miles every day. Let me tell you, folks, 1 mile on an elliptical machine feels a LOT different than 1 mile on a treadmill!

After my lesson tonight, I got on the treadmill and ran at 4 mph. That lasted for about 5 minutes until I was gasping for breath and positive I was going to DIE, right then and there. So, I came back to a walk, caught my breath, and kept going for as long as I could. Rinse and repeat and 18:30 later, I had run a mile. I can't believe that an almost 19-minute-mile kicked my butt!

On the plus side, my recovery is definitely better than it ever was. Also, I used to only be able to run for 2:30 before being completely out of breath. That's definitely an improvement, however small. I think I want to keep checking how fast I can do a mile on the treadmill a couple times a week; I'd like to be able to do an 18:00 mile in the next two weeks at least. I think that's reasonable, although I really don't know much about running. By the time May comes around, I would ideally like to be able to run for 15 minutes without stopping for a breather. I figure that if I can run for 15 minutes, surely I can ride for 5 minutes cross-country without getting too tired toward at the end of the course!

Hind Legs and Energy

We had a really good lesson on Monday. Despite the fact that we walked for 95% of it, I feel like I learned some incredibly important things.

I warmed up Val myself for around a half-hour while my instructor, C, was giving the lesson scheduled before mine. I went back into the "he WILL stretch and connect" mindset and got him to stretch and continue stretching even when I collected the reins. D, my instructor's instructor, made a comment I found interesting a few weeks ago. She said, if you have to shorten reins from the walk to the trot, or the trot to the canter, you know they're not stretching forward to and accepting the bit. Their neck shouldn't shrink; they should still be stretching forward to your hands. The rein length you use for the walk should be the same for the trot and canter.

When the other students were gone, we started a pretty simple exercise. We have mirrors on the F-M side of the arena, so we worked on that side. We started at M, tracking right. The idea was to leg yield to X, then switch to haunches in (in to the BEND, so although his haunches were technically to the left/ "B" side of the arena, they were to the inside of his LEFT bend in the leg yield) for a few steps, then straighten to the mirror and turn left, INTO the wall. We circled at that end of the arena until we were ready to go again, then we did it the other direction.

It sounds pretty simple, and it mostly was. The big things she talked to me about were his hind legs and how his energy moved through his body. When we're leg yielding from M to X, his LEFT hind leg is coming up under his body and pushing him forward. The energy is going from his left hind leg up through the left rein.

When we switch to doing the haunches in, although we don't change bend, it's now his right leg that's coming up under him and pushing him forward. At first, that really had me confused. How could that be when the bend hadn't changed? Then I realized it was direction that had changed. He was now just going forward; he wasn't traveling to the right anymore.

C fixed a little hole I was developing in our leg yields- I've always heard her say that you don't want the hip just trailing along, so I ended up over correcting and asking for his hips to move exactly with his shoulders. They're technically supposed to be just a teeny bit behind in a correct leg yield, so we fixed that by either speeding up the shoulder or slowing down the hip. Crazy-technical stuff!

We also worked on getting a really nice connection to the outside rein and using it with the inside leg to establish correct bend, especially on the circles after the haunches in part of the exercise. Val always likes to throw his haunches to the left, no matter what direction we're going. So, inside leg and outside rein, with a light tap of the whip on his hip, would get him to straighten up.

At the very beginning of the lesson, she finally found a way to explain how I should be sitting in the saddle so that I finally get it. I always have a dip inward in my lower back, and that's kind of interfering with my ability to shock absorb. You want a bit of a curve there when you're jumping/in two-point, but when you're riding dressage and trying to sit the trot, your lower back needs to be straighter. It's a feeling of tucking your hip bones under. If you stand up and place one hand on your stomach and another on your butt and push a little, that's how it's supposed to be. It was really hard for me at first to do it at all; I would end up accidentally pushing the entire opposite way. But whenever I did figure it out for a whole circle or so, Val would stretch forward to my now steadier hands and soften to the bit without my even asking, just because I was sitting better! That's something we'll have to experiment with to perfect.

We finished up by cantering a circle, again messing with Val's hind end. We wanted his hips in line with his shoulders, so it was more inside leg to outside rein, with an open inside rein to encourage his hips to come a bit more to the inside. It took a while, but he finally got the idea and it was just amazing to feel his balance shift! He has never been quite that round, up, and balanced in the canter. It truly felt like the beginning of collection.

So, a pretty fantastic lesson from beginning to end. :) We have another scheduled for Friday and I've got to admit, I'm itching to jump at this point!

Actual riding!

Ah, at last! When I finally got the opportunity to put butt to saddle on Monday, Val had a lot less energy than I expected. I even longed him a bit first, just to see if there was anything totally wacky in there. He didn't even buck once, and after just a few minutes, I hopped on. Things were a bit crazy- the indoor was in heavy use by the lesson kids. My trainer was on one end, giving a girl a longe-line lesson over jumps. At the other end, another instructor was teaching a girl to really sit the canter correctly and to do transitions within that gait, and they were on a circle, too.

When you consider that our arena is 20m wide (about) by 50m long (maybe)... it was tight! The other instructor eventually had her girl leave the circle, but still, 4 people going around a small arena with a big chunk cut off by a longe-circle is... tricky. Especially when Val and I hardly ever just stay on the rail, although we kind of had to that day.

The actual rides on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday were all pretty much the same. Val felt like he was rushing and just not really connecting to the bit or softening and bending at all. My bad habits had come back, as they are wont to do after 3 weeks without riding. I was using way too much inside hand and having trouble keeping it from crossing over his neck. Also, I had major "duck feet" going on, as I usually do.

My instructor's instructor, who we'll call D, was in the arena on Tuesday. I could see her watching me and Val, and I instantly got very nervous. In the past, she's watched me and then told my trainer some things, which I don't mind at all. But I feel like I'm a reflection of how well my trainer is teaching things, and whenever she watches me, I feel instantly like I have to do my absolute best. Val MUST be on the bit every single second. We can't be overbent, we can't have too much bend. We can't have a sluggish transition, too much angle in our shoulder-in, not enough crossover in our leg yields... we need to be perfect when D watches us!

Obviously, that's impossible to do. I can't just magically start riding perfectly when D starts watching, and she's going to see our bad moments from time to time. Either way, the only thing she said to my trainer was that I was posting a bit behind my horse's motion. Not surprising, considering how nervous I was.

Anyhow, after those three mediocre rides, I was supposed to have a lesson on Friday. My trainer ended up not being able to be there on time, so I decided to just ride myself, since I was already on Val and I didn't want to sit and wait for what would've been 40 minutes. D was there again, this time riding her amazing old show horse.

This horse, Breeze, is about the coolest horse I've ever met. He's a paint, and he used to successfully compete at Intermediate! Of course, this means that I worship the ground he trots on ;) He's 25, but according to D, he hasn't changed a bit since his competition days. And I have never seen a horse that has a motor the way he does!

You watch D riding him, doing all manner of complicated dressage moves like 3 tempi changes and canter half-passes and pirouettes and you think, wow, he's so controlled! But under that calm facade, he's got a 1200 HP engine. All it takes for him to go from a nice walk to a dead run is for D to stop giving the invisible cue that tells him not to. He never, ever had problems making Intermediate speed, and he loves to run. D says that he was the most amazing horse XC- he just loved it; he never looked at anything and he really relaxed when he could just go out in the open.

Anyhow, the first part of our ride on Friday was just as terrible as the first three this week. D, fortunately, had her attention taken by Breeze, so I wasn't really being watched. Still, things weren't good. Val had PLENTY of energy on Friday, and he was choosing all manner of ridiculous things to spook at. I started just trying to loosen him up, letting him trot, and canter if he wished, on a fairly loose rein, just asking for him to stretch and bend. I then shortened the reins up after maybe 10 minutes and started asking for more roundness. In hindsight, I think he need more "stretchy" time. We were doing a serpentine and had just reached the place where I was going to change bend when he spooked at the door.

It was a pretty hard spook for him; he squirted sideways rapidly and did about a 60 degree change in direction. For the first time, his spook didn't get my heart absolutely pounding. It didn't even really unbalance me at all! We just continued on and made another pass at the door, with me insisting it was NOT scary and that yes, he could trot right by it. That made me pretty proud. :)

He was concerned at two other places in the arena, but he only spooked the once. It was shortly after the spook that D was done warming up Breeze. She was putting him through his paces, and so Val and I just went into the middle and watched him. He is a fascinating horse to watch. After he had preformed his extensive repertoire, including his super-fast run, D stayed on him for a bit longer and I could just see the change... he was calmer now. After they got off, I started riding Val differently.

I loosened the reins again and I absolutely insisted that he stretch. We worked on that until he was stretching and bending. Then, I did a walk to canter in one corner and rode several circles, working on him being forward and up. He was happy to oblige. Then, I just let him go. He did a couple laps of the arena before he was done, then we came down into a nice stretchy trot and took a bit of a break. He was no longer constantly hopping in the trot, trying to canter. He didn't feel like he was all pent up.

Then, we shortened our reins back up and we worked. We started with another walk to canter on the other lead and did one more lap of the arena, then I collected his canter back and he just did it willingly. I put my reins in a bridge and I refused to pull my inside rein over his neck, which also helped.

We started doing one of my favorite things- walk to canter serpentines. He's just so good at them; he comes down to the walk without a fight and he takes only the softest cue to pick up the canter again. While D was riding Breeze, they worked on canter halfpasses. Val and I can do okay halfpasses in the walk, iffy ones in the trot, and we'd never tried in the canter. We tried today.

We recently got mirrors on the small side of the arena, so you can now see yourself in them head on when you go down the long side. I got a nice, collected canter from Val, and then I just asked him to do a canter halfpass to the right. Imagine my surprise when he did! I could see that he really was maintaining his right bend in the mirrors, and although he didn't have huge crossover, he was bring his hips and shoulders together, not just oozing to the right with his shoulders. Not bad for a first try!

We played with that a bit the other direction, did another walk-to-canter serpentine, and came down to the trot and had a bit of a break. We went back to work and used the mirrors to do haunches in both directions. Then we did some leg yielding and picked up the trot. I asked him to be round and forward, and he was. We did some transitions, and then I let him really stretch down. I gradually slid the reins and he just followed the bit until he was doing our best-ever stretch down trot. I'm usually lucky if I get his poll level with his withers- he held the stretch below his withers for a bit! D actually saw us doing our stretch down, and she commented on how nice it looked. :) My trainer came in toward the end and also saw some of the work and said it looked pretty good, too.

After that, he got huge loves and was done. I walked him for a while so he wouldn't be too sweaty, then I got off. It was definitely our best ride in a very long time. We have a lesson later day, and I've got a feeling that will go well.

Overall, I've learned how important your mindset is. As soon as I decided that yes, he was going to be a dressage horse today and I was going to do the right things with my hands and shoulders and legs... things just fell together. Positive mental attitudes are difficult to beat! I just hope we can summon that feeling for our first real dressage test of the year...

New Years Revolutions

2010 is just 3 days away. Looking back, it's great to see how far we've come as a pair, but what's almost more amazing is how far Val has come in his training.

At the beginning of this year, Val had just your basic training- he was good walk, trot, canter, could jump simple courses, could round up most of the time, and had some adjustability of stride. He could do okay leg-yields and shoulder-ins. He was hardly ever hot and he was the type of horse you had to push for every stride, unless he was on cross country.

Change was gradual the first four months or so of the year and gradually built up to the last month's crescendo. Although I (unfortunately) haven't been blogging about it, we've gone through some radical adjustments to Val's training.

The first lesson with some really "new" stuff in it was maybe a month and a half ago. We worked on lengthening and collecting the canter and the beginnings of his working, collected, and extended canter. Pinching knees are starting to mean, "collect!" and a slightly driving seat combined with light leg aids, "lengthen!" Val's becoming fine-tuned! The change just in the last month has been incredible.

With our move up to Novice probable sometime this show season, there's one big weakness we needed to explore and fix- Val's sluggishness. About a month ago, we had a lesson that focused on what I like to call Val's "rocket launcher." We were essentially teaching him to go from 0 to 60 as fast and balanced as possible. He's great at it- he really uses his hind end and comes up in front. But even more amazing to me, he maintains the speed. My sluggish Val has finally found his motor!

At BN, the fences are small (no more than 2'7") and the optimum times are pretty generous. Most horses can easily make the XC and show jumping times. Novice is a speed increase of 50-100 mpm, up to 350-400 mpm cross-country. It becomes even more important that the horse have drive and impulsion from the hind end. Although we've only had time penalties because of refusals and other difficulties (more to come on that later!), and only at two competitions, we've mostly been closer to the slow side. I definitely think we can make novice time XC now.

Our biggest speed problem has always been in showjumping, though. Even though we've only gotten time penalties twice during showjumping, we were still prone to crawling around our courses last year. When you consider that the slower we go, the more my position deteriorates, it's a big problem. You can't have a nice jump without impulsion, which we were lacking in most if not all of our showjumping rounds last year. So, that's probably where our new-found speed will help the most!

We've been practicing stadium jumping at faster speeds. Going back to the rocket launcher metaphor, I like to imagine that I'm aiming a missile at the jump. I lock him on, and then we go; no sluggish oozing over fences.

One of the most interesting lessons we had lately involved a fake Weldon's Wall-like jump. There was maybe a 2' wide fake ditch (created with the use of a handy sheet) in front of a 2'9" vertical, and we were expected to jump it the first time as a part of a combination. After it, there was one stride to an oxer of similar height, then two strides to a skinny vertical. This quadrupled the difficulty- in order to get the two strides to the skinny, Val would need a forward-reaching, fairly fast stride from the very first fence.

I'm not too ashamed to mention I was feeling very nervous of that fake Wall. Whenever I'm nervous about whether or not Val will jump a fence, my first instinct is to get a nice, collected, fairly slow canter. Sure, it probably doesn't have the impulsion it needs to make jumping whatever it is easy, but that kind of canter also doesn't have the impulsion to launch me off my horse if he stops! I'd rather knock it down the first time then get dumped on top of it at speed. Not really a good idea if you're cross-country, though, and a dangerous frame of mind to be in at all. Our instructions were to jump it like a cross-country fence and get the striding right the first time.

So, we went right to it- Val's "new canter" has a totally different feel, and although I was nervous, I could still tell that he wasn't. He hardly even blinked at the strange-looking fence, and we got over that and the oxer just fine. We got over the skinny, but we took three strides in between. We continued to do the line over and over again, but eventually both Val and I were tired and we still hadn't gotten the 2 strides. My trainer jumped on and got 2 strides the first time: the current hypothesis is that I'm landing slightly too early after the jumps and nicking him in the back, making him reluctant to step out like he needed to to get the distance. We've started work on that, but we haven't yet tried to get a two stride again.


Despite that minor failure of the day, it was still an amazing lesson and I got to really feel a forward horse. He was happy to be going at a good clip and happy to be jumping, and I was happy to not have to constantly nag at him with my leg.

That lesson started Valerius' personal revolution. He's become a completely different horse in the past month; his dressage has improved exponentially from the added impulsion. I'm able to apply my aids much more selectively when I don't constantly need to nagnagnag for more, smoothing out the communication between us.

We've started serious work on haunches in and out, as well as shoulder in and out. The half-pass has even been experimented with at the walk, and it's all looking good! I now understand the idea of riding forward to the bit a lot better and our connection is better for it, although he was getting really fussy about taking contact for a few days. That's been mostly resolved. I love his new-found responsiveness more than anything; I can't even explain how incredible it is that he's changed so quickly.

While Valerius has mostly finished his impulsion revolution, I'm just beginning a fitness one. My general lack of fitness is just not acceptable anymore; I can't demand fighting fitness of my horse and not of myself. Fitness has always been an off-and-on battle with me. Although it's probably the most important thing I could do for my riding, I've never really devoted myself to it for more than a month at a time. This is the end of the road for that; I've made a fitness pledge to myself and my horse for the very last time. This time it will be fulfilled.

See you in 2010!

Back on Track... again!

Sorry I haven't updated lately; there hasn't been too much exciting going on. For the past few weeks, Val and I have continued to work on our stretchy, and we have that pretty well now, although I was beginning to feel like I'd lost my finesse for everything else. This Friday, I had a really terrible ride where I felt like I was asking for everything wrong and, deservedly, receiving nothing in return. After that atrocity, I expected my lesson to be terrible today. It was actually very good, and I ended feeling like I remembered how to ride again!

I watched my cousin's lesson while on Val, which went very well for her, and then we moved from the outdoor to the indoor and I started our real warm-up. It started with the rather interesting mission of cantering Val basically no-reined around the arena while attempting to relax and sit the canter. There was no one else in the arena; although I kept having this feeling that I was going to run into the wall, which concerned me a bit. We finished with that pretty quick, though, and returned to the trot, working on achieving a steady, reaching connection over the topline while staying forward. Val has got that down really well!

We started by using a 3 loop serpentine the length of the arena and switching bend in the center while leg-yielding out a bit to the new bend. We focused on staying soft, forward, and connected, especially through the change of bend. We then moved to a circle, where I would get him round on the long reins, then let him stretch forward without throwing my hands at him. I could really feel him ask for a stretch and I think I was finally able to respond appropriately without just tossing the reins at him, which I am wont to do.

We switched direction a couple times, still working on the same thing, while throwing in a diagonal here and there. I don't remember where I read this, but for the last 3 or 4 months I've been following advice I read somewhere that has really helped. The idea is, when you plan to lengthen or go more forward across the diagonal, let go. Instead of pushing as soon as you get there, build up the round and collected on your way, then stop using the amount of hand you were using and let the horse go forward, with a few light taps of the heel if needed. More often then not, Val just surges forward as soon as I stop asking him for his more "working" trot. (It's definitely not a "collected" trot.) You still have to keep some connection, or else they get flat across the diagonal, but softening really lets Val move forward.

Then I shortened my reins gradually, with the instructions to make sure I didn't loose my outside connection. I have a habit of not following through with my outside and making the connection uneven, and I really felt like that was better today. My leg also seemed better-behaved than it has been in a while, and so I was given some small spurs to help with Val's lack of forward.

We did some trot-canter-trot transitions, keeping the amount of canter about 1/2-3/4 of a circle and focusing on the transitions; Val not "dying" in the canter-trot transition, and me not gripping (yet another bad habit!) in the trot-canter. The downs were very good, but I still tend to grip too much on the ups. There's always something more to fix!

After a very good canter-trot-stretchdown trot transition, we ended happily. It was the best ride I'd had in some time, barring a jumping lesson I had about a week and a half ago.

To briefly summarize that lesson, which was also very, very good, we focused on being forward over fences. Val's at the point where he needs to keep the same forward pace on the approach and he needs to go forward instead of dwelling after the landings. When he doesn't, my trainer says, "He's landing like a ton of bricks!" which isn't too far off from the truth. She had me ride several fences with the reins in one hand, with me really focusing on not checking him back on the way to the jump, then giving him a healthy smack on the landing if he dwelled. We're both secure enough that we don't need to go like snails anymore, and that's another of the goals for this winter- upping our jump speed. Anyhow, jumping one-handed is surprisingly secure-feeling, and the pace made jumping twice as fun as it's been in the past. Plus, he was really rounding up, and towards the end of that lesson he gave me one jump where I could just feel his knees tuck up! I don't think he's ever jumped that well and that round before.

So, that's a brief summary of the last two weeks. I am eagerly awaiting Thanksgiving break- we're out starting Wednesday! And Christmas isn't even that far away... I think we only have 2 1/2 weeks when we get back, then I loose one class after semester and gain a study hall, which should mean that I'm able to ride Val more. Fingers crossed!

Back on Track

We're finally getting everything back together. I had a pretty great 4-day weekend, where I managed to ride 3 times in 4 days. We had a lesson Thursday, I practiced on Saturday, and we had another, 10x better lesson today!

Val had been feeling odd recently. His transitions were getting lazy; he was moving sluggishly in all gates. In our lesson, our trainer was able to pinpoint the problem. I was doing too much collection and not allowing him to stretch; I was basically asking him to move forward, but then never letting him. So we spent the first lesson establishing a contact in a "stretch-down" frame and got him moving forward to the bit, then Saturday, I spent the day keeping the stretch connection through transitions and changes of bend, and I even played with shortening the reins back up and getting him to reach forward to the bit in his dressage-length reins.

Today, we put the finesse on the stretchy frame and went over some trot poles. The exercise was a square made up of 4 trot rails so that you could approach it from any direction. The idea was to get straight to it, not mess with him over the poles, then re-establish the stretchy connection before turning after going over the poles.

In the past, I've had difficulties getting him over poles without him tripping over them, but today he was right on and he hardly even nicked a pole once. That went very well, and we also got Val moving off my outside leg and softening on the left rein, which he sometimes gets stiff on.

We're supposed to start cantering over some poles to get a little more lift in his canter; my trainer says he is getting a bit flat.

Val has also, finally, been getting pieces of a bath. On Saturday, I did his legs and tail, and today, he got his mane and neck done. Eventually he'll have his face cleaned, and I'll have a 100% white horse! Of course, his main body is still fairly clean; he always has his blanket on when he rolls.

And that was my fantastic four-day weekend. I'm going to do my best to ride tomorrow; we'll see how that goes!

Relaxing Trail Ride

Yesterday, I made an attempt at dressage with Val. I rode him for at least an hour, and we tried to remember all the things we used to know. We did lots of getting an even contact in the walk, and I did quite a bit of posting without stirrups (ouch) to get my leg where it belonged. We did change of bend in the trot, and I tried to work on my sitting the canter. When my trainer came in to give someone else a lesson, she gave me a few pointers, so I stayed for maybe another 15 minutes after that.

According to her, he was tight across the top line and not taking the right rein correctly, so we worked on that for a while until I felt like we'd made a little progress. I was a bit frustrated with how hard it was for me to keep my position decent and how I was having trouble getting Val to do what he needed to do, so I eventually said the heck with it and hit the trails.

We have a couple loops behind our barns, and Val and I followed one of my favorites. They probably take only 10 minutes to ride max, so they're not particularly long trails, but I still like them. We found this one place in the woods where there's this old, dead, tree that's twisted from the wind. We stopped there for a while and just listened. It was cool to hear the birds slowly gather their courage to start chattering again after Val and I disturbed the peace.

Then we followed the path until it comes out by the river/stream, and we realized that when it's been raining really hard there's a mini-rapid that you can see. Also, there's a path that goes straight down to the water, which might be worth investigating for this summer. I'd have to go in on foot and make sure it's safe, but it probably is. It might be too muddy, though.

So we had a little adventure and relaxed and forgot all about dressage for a little while. Just what we needed.

First Dressage Lesson in Ages

Oh, and were we ever rusty! But that's to be expected. Val felt pretty good, but he was stiff through his top line and locking his jaw on the right. My trainer got on him for about 10 minutes and presto-change-o, his back was swinging again and he was even in my hands when I got back on. We continued to work on asking him to come up to the outside rein, but he started locking his jaw on me again, which of course means it's something funky I'm doing him that's making him stiff.

We worked on a new exercise in shoulder-in that's very nifty. I will draw up a diagram when I have time, but a description will have to suffice for now. We would do shoulder-in down the long side from F to B, then do a trot lengthening from B to M. To sum up, shoulder-in from corner to middle letter, middle letter to opposite wall letter. My trainer says it really helps to get them to stay "together" in their lengthenings.

I also was nagging at the poor guy constantly with my heels, especially at the trot. Nag, nag, nag. My trainer "vocalizing" each nag helped me to stop, but the only way I was able to keep it from happening was to brace on my toe. I need more work on my foot position, but I did find a thought/image that helps me get my weight off the outside of my foot and more towards the inside: I imagined I was squishing a bug with my big toes! Gross, but it helped. Although that was causing my feet to want to make like flippers and stick straight out to the sides. Big sigh. With much finessing and straining, I could get my toes to point forward-ish and have my weight on my big toes. Yay! And now my heels need to go down more. Oh, the never-ending cycle!

So, my "homework" for the next few rides is:

1. Don't nag.
2. Keep him forward!
3. Re-establish bend. (We've gone from having way too much to having too little. Whoops!)
4. Make sure he's reaching forward to the contact and is even.
5. Start trying to react to what exactly he is doing and what needs fixing every day, instead of just following instructions.

Number 5 is definitely a long-term goal. The reason we went from having too much bend to having too little is because I was just following directions: asking for less bend every day, instead of realizing that Val was learning that I wanted a little less bend and was giving it. Oops!

So, lots of little things to work on. We also need to work on sitting trot if I'm going to do 1st level in the spring. I was also told that 3' jumpers is probably not quite do-able this winter; so I'll have to be happy with 2'6". I wish they had a 2'9" jumper class! Ah, well. Finally, I was informed that snow actually makes good footing, so long as there isn't ice underneath. The snowy trail-ride plan is a-go! Now we just need some snow...

AEC's!

I finally have time to write about the AEC's! I have to say that my trip to Lamp Light was probably the best possible way to end the season for Val and I. Although our final score was 109.9, and we were, quite obviously, in dead last, it was actually a phenomenal weekend. Yes, really!

We arrived Wednesday evening around 6, unloaded the boys, and got them settled in to their stalls. We unloaded everything from the trailer, including our trunks, saddles, and other junk, and got everything situated in to the tack stall. We had a great spot; we were in the permanent stalls, so we were very close to the water, and our stalls were literally right across from the muck pile.

After everything was organized, we got Val and my instructor's horse, Strider, out for a walk. We ran in to Andrea and GoGo from Eventing-a-GoGo in one of the dressage warm-up arenas. We talked for a while, but a piece of caution tape was spooking GoGo a bit, and she became a bit disturbed when it got caught on her ear. She started backing up rather quickly, so Val and I made haste to get out of her way! She stopped before she ran into us, thankfully. We talked a bit more, then went on our separate ways.

The next day, we spent the morning watching the advanced dressage. Sadly, nearly all of the horses were noticeably behind the vertical for large portions of their tests. One horse and rider who were not, Nate Chambers on Rolling Stone II, instantly became my favorite pair, although Rolling Stone did not have the flashy movement of the other horses. They ended up in 3rd overall!

Later in the evening, when the arenas we would be riding in the next day were open for schooling, I saddled up Val and got on for a lesson ride. We started in the dressage warm up arena, and it was absolutely the most phenomenal ride I've ever had. It was like everything my trainer had been telling me for the past year finally sunk in! We had a stellar warm up, then rode over to the competition ring and pretended just like it was our test, although there were others schooling in the ring too. We went around it once, then rode down center line and did an improvised version of the test, so that Val wouldn't memorize it.

It was excellent! With very little input from my trainer, I managed to do the best test I'd ever ridden in my entire life. When Val was finished, I got off in the arena, loosened his girth, and gave him a big pat. We left, and my trainer said that we looked like the best pair out there! I couldn't have been happier.

Warm-up the next day was almost as good; it wasn't quite on the same level as the previous one, but still a lot better than in the past. When it was finally our turn to go around the arena, I felt so confident and prepared, although I was a bit nervous. As I was riding around, waiting for the bell, the announcer, who is also the announcer for some local shows and knows my trainer, was reading what I had written on the information sheet I sent in. He read my thanks to my trainer and my mom for me; I almost teared up a little, and after the test, I found out that they had too.

When I went in, I could feel that Val had gained some extra energy from my nerves. We did our test, but we did have 2 breaks to the canter from the trot, which stemmed from my nerves. The rest of the test was very good, and on the movements where we didn't have breaks, we had higher scores than we ever had in the past. We were nailed for the breaks as expected, so we were tied for 47th with several other horses with our 41.5. I was still estatic; it was a great test where it wasn't bad!

The next day was cross country. I was incredibly excited; I'd walked it the night before and earlier that morning and was pleased with the course. There were lots of difficult things that I knew my horse and I could handle, and I felt very prepared.

We had a pretty good warm up, and both Val and my form felt very good. We got down there very early, and although we had plenty of time, we worked Val pretty lightly because my trainer and I were concerned that Val might get tired towards the end of the course. I was feeling a bit nervous, but I tried to ignore that. When it was time to head over to the start box, we jumped one warm-up fence and galloped over to it. We waited until the person in front of me had been gone for 2 minutes, then we walked into the box for our countdown. With a 3, 2, 1, go!, we were off.

I felt just a hint of hesitation at the first fence, but it jumped fairly well. As we made our way to fence 2, a coop decorated with wooden chevrons, Val spooked a bit at a light patch of gravel on the dirt, and he was still unsure of himself as we came to the jump. He actually refused; he just slid to a stop. I smacked him a bit on the shoulder and turned him around to try again. This time he went, and we galloped our way to fence 3, a small-bench shaped jump called "The Seat of Power." I was feeling pretty nervous at this point; worse than I ever have before. I was a little surprised; cross country has always been my favorite and our best phase. My nervousness in warm up had definitely followed us onto the course and it certainly affected Val's confidence.

When I lost my stirrup on the way to fence 3, I had a mini panic-attack. I have no idea what happened; I've jumped without stirrups before, and a lot higher than that fence was! Instead of just heading to the fence, I circled in front of fence 3. As I tried desperately to get it back, Val was going faster and faster. I realized I was accidentally asking him for more speed with my other leg. When I finally reassessed, I pulled my leg off, stopped the "circle of doom", and got myself back together. We jumped fences 3 and 4, a little cabin before the water, with no problem.

As we approached the water, Val ran out his shoulder over to the edge of the sand so he didn't have to touch the water. I tried to correct him, but I only got one foot in before we jumped out over fence 5, a log painted like a snake, and were on our way to 6, the sawmill jump. I felt very out of control at this point, and my goal was to simply finish cross country. I was determined to not get eliminated and not fall off. Val was hardly listening at all at this point; he was resistant to any input I tried to give him. When I tried to harness his forward and turn it in to a balanced gallop, his butt went sideways and he continued at a pace that was a good deal faster than I was happy with.

I focused on keeping my upper body back at the fences and my lower leg locked forward. I did the best I could to collect Val before the fences, and I rode every one. Fence 6 rode well, as did the in and out that came after it. We then went down a forest path to a sharp turn to fence 7, a roll top; while on the path, he switched his lead behind, so I had him trot and fix it. The sharp turn to the roll top rode well, but I couldn't get him as collected as I'd wanted before the next jumps, a mini-coffin, and we ended up jumping the first part, a simple flower stand, too far to the left; which nearly ran us into a tree. I over-corrected to the right, so instead of barreling at the ditch at an angle, I just circled to the right and got him together before we went over it.

The next fence, a simple cabin, was easy. As we approached the second water, I felt misgivings on his part. I slowed him to a walk, and he went in without hesitation, immediately picking up a trot, and then a canter. We were out over jump 11, a log, heading to a neat log that was set up with two logs. It could be jumped on the left, where the logs were right on top of each other and made a vertical jump and you had to go around a tree, or you could angle it and jump it on the right side, where it was an oxer and you could go straight to the up bank. We jumped it at an angle like I had planned, went up the bank nicely, and then down a hill. We made a tight right turn at the bottom to 16, a stair step fence, and were over the last fence fairly easy.

I was a bit disappointed with our run, but I still felt like I accomplished something by riding through my nerves and finishing the course, plus handling Val's little "out-of-control"ness. Fortunately, my horse's "out-of-control" isn't too terrible! My trainer is also specualting that he may have gotten his toungue over the bit, which would have caused some of my difficulties in slowing him.

The day before, we heard a girl bawling her eyes off because her dressage test hadn't gone as planned. Apparently her horse had an allergy attack and sneezed through the whole thing. And instead of laughing it off,(because really, it wasn't her or the horse's fault) she was crying so loud the entire barn could hear her, for over 15 minutes- "But I wanted it to be perfect!"

When we got back to the stalls, I put on my best teary-voice and said, "But I wanted it to be perfect!" Not a one of us could stop laughing for quite some time.

So, after that, we were in dead last. The person who is last goes first in show-jumping. My goal was simple: to go out there and make people wonder what on earth we were doing in dead last. The course was very, very simple. 1 jump on the long side, then diagonal, diagonal, diagonal, outside line, final jump. For those ambitiously minded, or for those with nothing to lose, there were two ways to get to jump 2. You could go around the final fence, or you could make a 90-angle turn right after you landed after the first fence and go between two other fences. My goal was making this turn.

As Val was being a tad inattentive the day before, we spent the warm up making sure he was listening. We warmed up on a loose rein as usual, then we started doing some really fun stuff. Walk to canter, canter to trot to halt, walk to canter in a different direction serpentines (we can't do canter-halt yet). These really got him pushing off his hind end, and he was being incredibly well-behaved. We started jumping, and after we'd jumped the vertical a couple of times, we halted a few strides out from the vertical, then jumped it, just to check and make sure that he was listening. His jump improved tremendously with these; especially when we did this at the oxer. He was really pushing over the fences.

So, that was the horse I took out into the jumping arena. Val will occasionally lengthen his stride on the way to fences, but I really held him to a spot on our first fence. We landed, made the turn look easy, and continued on to do a near-perfect course. We didn't touch one rail! It was the best round I have ever had, and I couldn't have been more proud of him. The announcer was saying my thanks to my mom and trainer again. I wrote, "My trainer deserves a huge kudos as well, for all the long hours she's spent trying to make me a rider," and after he read it, he said that it looked like she'd succeeded! It was such a cool thing to hear.

As we came out of the arena, we were handed our AEC Completion ribbon. I stuck it on Val's breast collar, and felt like I had won first place rather than ended in last. I jumped off, loosened his girth, and told him what a good boy he was. Then we packed up and came home.

And that was my AEC adventure! Although things didn't go as planned, I had a great time and wouldn't have changed my experience for the world. Val's having a bit of a break after all this hard work; we're scaling back to only a few rides a week for a while to give him a rest. I rode him today for the first time since we've been back and he was great! We did dressage and some more of those neat canter serpentines. He felt really engaged in his work and happy to be being ridden; he was in such a good mood when I saddled him up! He has even asked for some attention while in his stall the last few days. That is pretty odd for him; he's never been one of those horses that wants to be in your lap.

And even after our AEC "flop", the thing I love the most about my horse is that he doesn't care that our ribbon was purple and maroon. He still nickers at me when I whistle to him, and that's all that really matters.



Edit: Thought I'd put up this picture too, even if my expression is rather interesting. Look at those perfect knees! Those happy, pricked-forward ears!

"I stand on the outside, would die to get in..."

"I stand on the outside/ would die to get in/ I crawl inside just to begin again." -Shinedown, "Begin Again"

I think I'm really beginning to understand the extent of what I don't know about dressage. We've been focusing pretty heard on it for the last week and a half, and although we've improved, I feel like I've finally reached the top of a really big hill, and now I can finally see most of everything in "DressageLand". And 90% looks foreign and compeltely difficult!

Today, my trainer rode Val before my lesson and I got to watch. She was explaining how she wanted me to work on keeping the contact even. After having my trainer on him for an hour, Val started to look really, really good. He was really reaching with his hind end and he was taking a soft and steady connection to the bit. It was so great to see!

Then I got on and could feel just how much she had changed. It was a huge difference; it was like riding a school master dressage horse. I asked, and he just did. It was a great feeling, but it just makes me wish more and more that I could get him that way myself! She said that I had been ignoring or not pushing him on lots of little tiny thing, like him not taking a strong enough contact to the right reign here, or him throwing his haunches or shoulders a bit here... obviously I can't catch these tiny flaws yet. My trainer points out that she's been riding dressage/eventing for over 12 years, and she still can't feel every minute imperfection he produces.

She says that being able to make those changes will come in time, and while we'll work on it in our next lessons, it's difficult for me to try to make those changes when I don't know exactly what I'm asking for.

All of this is true, but it just serves to make me feel very, very humble. Humble, introspective... all good adjectives to describe how I feel at the moment.

I also got to see Breeze work. He's an old horse of my trainer's trainer, and he went all the way to Intermediate eventing! Which, to me, mean's he's practically a god. He did canter pirouettes, and tempi changes, and canter half-passes, and even piaffe (although he doesn't have the greatest piaffe). He's a paint, so he doesn't have the most spectacular movement on the face of the planet, but he still looks great for being nearly 25! The idea of a horse with huge, sweeping gates doing what Breeze did just leaves my jaw completely dropped. I'm trying to imagine multiplying the amazing things he did x 5 or so. It should be lots of fun to watch the upper level dressage at the AECs!

I'm alive when I'm vulnerable...

"I'm alive when I'm vulnerable/ I'm out of control, I'm losing my soul."
-"Alive" Papa Roach

Our schooling show went very well last Sunday! In dressage, we put in one of the best, most forward tests we have the entire year and ended up with a score in the low 30's. He needed to be rounder through parts, and there was one trot circle where he almost broke to a canter, but other than that, that's the test I want at nationals! We got all 6's and 7's :)

Then, we went and did stadium, where we had one refusal at this brick wall. I didn't realize fast enough to swat him and get him over, but I did realize in time to shove my lower leg forward so I didn't come off! Then we went right to the XC box, walked around for a few minutes, then went.

The refusal in stadium rattled me a bit, so I was nervous and really pushing him to all the jumps and riding defensively, but that wasn't exactly a bad thing! We did everything at a really good pace, with a pretty controlled gallop, and even cantered through the water with zero hesitation. We got 2 strides in this one combination, which I was happy with. He's short-strided, so we have a tendency to put 3 strides in that combination and get a bleh spot to the second jump. It rode well, though. We ended in 3rd place! So a very good weekend. Without the refusal, we'd have been in first!

This week, my trainer has called to my attention the we've been making some holes in our dressage. Of course we have! He's started to carry his haunches to the inside in the canter, and we can't have that. He's also started to go a bit above the bit, so we spent the lesson on Friday working on making the contact even in my hands.

We did a pretty simple test: give one rein forward 2 inches. Does he reach forward and take the contact? If he does, squeeze the rein you've given and take the contact up a bit (you did the right thing!) and release the other rein for a step (good boy!). If he doesn't, ask with the leg on the side of the rein you've given to encourage him to do so. You can do it with both reins going either direction, and it really helps them to understand, "Yes, you need to hold the contact like this."

I've apparently been really lax with what I've been accepting in our dressage works as far as roundness goes. I can't really feel the difference between what he's been giving me and what he needs to be giving me. So we're trying to always ride under the eyes of my trainer and really make sure we're doing everything right on the way to nationals. Since dressage is the most important part of the score, we really need to do well.

Nationals in 12 days! Yikes. Yikes, yikes, yikes.

I'm so excited.

Back to Regular Riding!

So I went three whole days without riding. Saturday, Sunday, and Monday, I focused exclusively on homework, and I just barely managed to get it finished for Tuesday! (Yes, it was entirely my fault for putting off until that late in the first place.) Fortunately, I got to go back to actually riding on Tuesday. Thank goodness!

We did just simple dressage on Tuesday. He was surprisingly good; I really thought he'd act up more than he did, considering it was very windy and threatening to rain. He was a really good boy! We did lots of quality work in the walk especially. I did one of his least favorite exercises; where we turn in to the rail suddenly and his haunches follow my seat until he makes a 90 degree angle with the rail. Then, I ask for a few steps of leg yield. He's best going right (off the left leg), so I tried to do a bit more going left (off the right leg).

We also worked some more on our shoulder-in in both the walk and trot, and that's starting to get better. Funny how things do that when you actually work on them! He was also really responsive to my leg aids when I asked for lengthenings. We did a lot of work on the rail, since there were tons of lesson kids who were also using the arena and jumping a course!

Today, we did just a little bit of jumping. I was planning on riding for at least an hour, but we jumped everything that was set up out there at least 5 or so times, and completed the one really tight turn that was set up well several times, so I decided to cut it short. Oddly enough, he gave me two wrong leads on his walk-to-canters. I must have been doing something wrong; he usually never gives me wrong leads on those! Both times I just brought him back down to a walk, made sure his haunches weren't to the outside, and asked again, and he got it. Walk-to-canters really give him the impulsion and drive he needs for jumping, so we do a lot of them.

I've actually been schooling him over jumps in his elevator gag, but on the snaffle ring, so it's basically just a snaffle with no gag action. He's been great! In dressage, he goes in a fat, double-jointed snaffle. I'm glad we've been able to back off on his bits; it makes me worry much less about my hands! When I first got him, he was in a plain snaffle for dressage, then we moved up to a Dr. Bristol, then we just used the Dr. Bristol for shows and the snaffle for at home, and now we just use our double-jointed all the time. Progress! :)

We're supposed to have a XC schooling on Saturday followed by a one-day schooling show on Sunday, but I'm not sure it'll be held with all this rain we're having. If it gets too muddy, the footing can be dangerous for XC and the course can get really chewed up by the horses. Maybe they'll just make it a combined test? Fingers crossed, because we really need the schooling before nationals.

I also borrowed a meter wheel today so that I can wheel the perimeter and finally start working on figuring out our speeds- probably just 350 mpm to start with, since that's BN speed. I hope I can get out and do that tomorrow. I have to figure out what I'm going to mark the distances with, though!

A Beautiful but Tiring Day

Today looked like it was going to be real hot, but it leveled out real nice in the evening, and it was beautiful when I got to the barn around 7. I put him out in one of the dirt turnouts while I did his stall and got him new shavings, then I tacked him up and rode outdoors. The sun was setting while I was riding, so there was plenty of light but virtually no heat.

I've been working lately on not getting stuck in a rut and doing the same exercises over and over again. I have a tendency to just focus on the newest thing I've learned in my lessons (or worse, just ride the same 20m circle over and over!), and not do some of the older exercises that are still very important. So, I dug out an old one I remembered that actually incorporated what we did last lesson, just in a different pattern.

The "Bow Tie" Pattern
It's just a figure 8-ish shape that touches the long side of an arena, such as at B. You ride from B to M in a working trot, make about a 15 m turn off the rail, and come back to B at an lengthened trot. Then, B to F, you can ride shoulder in. Another 15 m turn off the rail, and come back to B by leg-yielding. There are tons of variations you can do, but we worked on a lengthening / shoulder-in and leg yield bow tie. We don't really have a true lengthening yet, but we're working in that direction. He did really well with it, especially the leg yields.

We set up a course in the outdoor on Wednesday, and the jumps were still set up today, so we had to get a little creative in our bow tie, but it worked just the same. The hardest part for us is definitely the shoulder-in, so we schooled a lot of that at the walk before we started the bow tie exercise. His lengthenings were getting better at the end, too.

Since we're currently planning on going to nationals, where you can't use whips in dressage, my instructor said I should ride without it every once in a while, and today was the first day I tried it. He was really good in the "forward" aspect of the things, but I just didn't feel like I had the same control in our lateral movements like the leg yields, and especially the shoulder-in. I ended up picking it back up about half-way through the ride. I definitely want to school some more without it. Makes me glad our test doesn't have any shoulder-ins!

After the ride, I cooled him off and was thinking about just leaving when I got really motivated, for some odd reason, and decided to do my instructor's two stalls, too. So I lugged two more loads of shavings to their respective stalls, and got completely covered in the itchy stuff. Thank goodness it comes off easy!

I wish I could ride tomorrow, but I am completely swamped with summer homework that needs to be done by Tuesday, and I have to help clean house in the morning, plus we have company in the afternoon. I'm thinking he'll just have his day off tomorrow instead of Monday for a change. Although I might apparently be taking said company out to the barn to meet pony. We'll see!