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!

The no-longer-quite-as-elusive One Stride

For the longest time, one of my biggest issues with Val has been my complete inability to get the typical "horse" stride- 12ft- out of him. The key word in that sentence, sadly, is "my". He has no issue whatsoever with getting a "horse-sized" stride with other riders. So, it's clearly something I'm doing to hold him back.

We've tried many things- my trainer has even watched as I "pushed" him right after landing, clearly asking for him to speed up and take the jump in one stride, and seen him ignore my signals and take it in two. And she got on right after that incident, and he gave it willingly to her! It felt like even if I was doing everything right, he was convinced I wanted two strides. Which, when I was a less forward, less confident rider, I did! I wasn't ready for him to be that forward. That's not the case anymore.

So, today, we tried a different approach- I had a lesson, and after I jumped a simple cross rail a couple times, we turned it into an oxer and built a cross rail in front of it. It was set on a short one-stride distance- 18'. Gradually, we built it up all the way to 22', an-almost-standard one-stride distance, and not once did we get two strides! That was definitely a good moment.

My lower leg position was much better today, and my toes were even pointing in the semi-right direction! Unfortunately, my upper body had become locked and stiff. I wasn't hitting Val in the mouth or landing on his back, but I was like a completely rigid board he had to carry. By the end, I was bending- bending in my elbows, bending in my hips... getting closer to a more fluid jumping position.

The only negative part of the lesson was Val's inattentiveness, at times. He was so excited to be jumping, and so confident in his abilities, he felt that he could go as fast and disorganized as he pleased. He didn't need MY input; he knew how to jump! Well, we set that straight with a few circles before and after the fence, and he had calmed down and was just taking me to them instead of rushing towards them at the end. A very productive lesson, overall.

Yesterday, I had planned to jump some little stuff, but the arena was terribly crowded and both Val and I were sick and TIRED of being inside. It was a fairly nice day, and although it was incredibly muddy, we decided to head off into the wild blue yonder for a trail ride.

There is something about being alone while you're with your own horse that's amazing. When you spend as much time with them as I do, you feel like you know them inside and out. You know when they're tense; when they're going to spook at something. You know if they have devious thoughts of barreling back toward the barn at a gallop. And you also know when you can trust them.

I trust Val. We were out in the open, for the first time in several months, and I didn't even get on or canter him once inside the arena. I took him off the cross ties, bridled him, and hopped on. And I had a fantastic ride. We went in and around some of the light woods at the back of the property. We rode a little near the pond. We even "schooled" water via going through puddles. I even let him canter a little when we turned around. We were on the back stretch; not the actual path that led straight to the barn, but I could feel him thinking "barn!" and I let him pick up a slow gallop anyhow. And when I asked, he came right back down. He thought about not, but the thing is, he did.

Sometimes I wonder if I trust him too much. But other times, I think that a lack of trust in your horse is what causes some of the worst accidents, especially jumping accidents. If you're pointing you horse at a fence and you're simply not sure if they'll go or not, it is incredibly easy to pass your uncertainty on to them. And one thing I know about horses is that they (at least all the ones I've been acquainted with) aren't big fans of things their riders are unsure of. Anyone that rides cross country has got to trust their horse; we owe it to them to not create some self-fulfilling prophecy with our own doubt.

And that's my deep thought of the day, I suppose. Sadly, I have to stay at school very late this week for newspaper, which pretty much means I can't ride, not with the amount of homework I have to do. Best case scenario, I'll get to ride again on Thursday. Ah, well.

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!

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!

Good Hands?

Today we had another mini jumping lesson. I was a part of my cousin's lesson; I got to go through the line several more times and Val and I have really got that particular exercise down!

We did them a bit bigger today; when we finished, two were verticals and the cross rails were bigger than yesterday. Probably close to but not quite at the height we've jumped in the past. I'd guess they were 2'9", but I'm rotten with guessing height! Anyhow, the size is mostly unimportant. The good thing is that my hands were doing the right thing for once!

When I first started riding, my release was really not so good. I had the tendency to not release very much, which was pretty quickly replaced with the tendency to throw my hands to my horse's ears; as my trainer calls it, "punching my horse in the eye". That has been slowly replaced with a good crest release. Today, I finally had something good going on with my hands. I did not accidentally grab Val in the mouth once; I did not punch him in the eye.

It was funny, it didn't take a huge amount of effort, it was more like allowing my hands to do what they wanted to all along. When we were going over the ground poles without jumps, I was just squeezing really lightly in rhythm with him; I just started doing that without really thinking about it. When I said this to my trainer, she said that that was what she'd been trying to accomplish! When we started actually jumping, she said my hands were as good as they've ever been. Instead of concentrating on them, I just followed Val's motion; my release wasn't over-dramatic, just enough to give him his head. Now if only I can keep doing it this way!

I think my leg was bit better than yesterday too, although when I finally have free time to ride outside of a lesson, I want to work on a lot of two point and posting without stirrups. That's always so much fun!

Near the end of lesson, my cousin and I switched horses. She got to have fun with the trained horse that actually did walk-to-canters, and I got to play around with Stewie, a fairly green, beautiful appendix buckskin. I've got to say, I like Val better! I have seen Stewie ridden a lot by one of my trainer's really good students, and she can make him look like a jumper and get him around a whole course. I discovered that this was not as easy at it looked. Stewie turns like an absolute tank! I didn't get the chance to jump him but I did get to take him through the ground poles, and that went fairly well. He just feels so different from Val. I want to ride him more in the future; I'm really getting too accustomed to Val. Stewie felt down-right uncomfortable after riding my horse.

One particularly interesting part of that ride was when I asked him, twice, for a canter and he ignored me. I reached back with my crop and gave him a fairly moderate slap, and he blasted forward like a bullet! Laughing, my trainer informed me that he took the whip very seriously. However, he readily cantered the next time I asked! Silly horses.A picture taken on Thursday at the AECs while we were having a dressage lesson. A friend took this picture and I absolutely love it! Val looks so intense. Plus she did some cool editing.

Mini Jumping Lesson

It has gotten very cold here! I'm not really surprised, though. We never really had hot summer weather, and I predicted that because of our mild/cold summer, we will have a very long and cold winter. As our first freezing temperatures occurred last night (October 10th! The 10th of October!) and we had a chance of snow, I'm thinking I might be right... It's a good thing I like cold weather, I suppose!

I went out to the barn yesterday around noon and grabbed Val out of his stall. After I yanked his blanket off, we went out to our sand outdoor and I let him run off the steam he accumulated the last few weeks. Surprisingly, despite the cold wind and the fact that he hadn't been worked in over two weeks, he didn't really run very fast or buck at all. So, after convincing him to trot/canter from one end of the arena to the other a few times, we went inside and got tacked up. I ran the whip I'd borrowed to encourage him to run back to where it belonged and saw my trainer, who said that if I put my jumping saddle on Val I could use the same exercise she was going to do with another student who was having a lesson. I agreed.

When I put Val in the cross ties and came back with his saddle and accouterments, he looked at me with his ears pricked forward and a happy expression on his face. "We riding, mom? We riding? Let's go let'sgolet'sGO!" It was great to see. With Val all suited up for battle, we went back to the outdoor.

It was so cold and windy that I took my helmet off, put the hood of my hoodie on my head, and then put the helmet back on top! I was incredibly happy it fit; my ears would have frozen off otherwise. Then I got on Val, who felt energetic, but not crazily so. We started trotting around to warm-up, then cantered a bit.

In the middle of the arena, my trainer had set up a series of what would become one-strides with poles in the middle. Before they became jumps, we cantered over them, getting the proper stride length and drive that would allow Val and Stewie, the other horse, to "fit" in them nicely. Val tends to be short-strided, and Stewie has the tendency to go long, so we both had work to do. After a few tries, both of us could do the poles without trouble.

Then, the ground poles became small cross-rails one at a time, until we had 5 altogether with poles in the middle. I was definitely a little rusty, and my position was not the best. I have one particularly awful run when two cross-rails were set up where I got poor Val in the mouth pretty bad on the first one, then landed on his back, and then jumped too far ahead of him on the next cross rail. Fortunately, Val did not dump me on my head as I deserved. Oh, what they put up with from us humans!

Our last 3-4 runs went very smoothly. Val tried the whole time to trot between the first ground poles and the first cross rail, so I had to really push him forward to that, and we got it the last two times through. What was really fun was after the line, making the sharp turn (since the line took up most of the long side of the arena) to the left or right, depending on the lead you were on, and letting Val have a bit of speed, then setting him back on his haunches for another turn to go down the line again.

Although I've definitely lost some of my polish in the past month or so, it was really nice to see that I haven't regressed to an absolute pleb. Writing this, I keep thinking about when I first got Val. He used to not want to canter for me because he felt that I was unbalanced, and now this horse does walk-to-canters happily and gallops cross country exuberantly in my hands. Definitely makes me happy looking at how far we've come.
Val and I before our dressage at Briar Fox Farm, where we took 3rd place. Heh, perhaps this blog should be called sleepy-eyed eventers!

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...

Jumping on Terrain

Yesterday we put together a dressage arena back in the area next to the pond to school in today, and set up some jumps back there that we schooled over yesterday. Man, was it a lot of (icky!) work hauling the standards and jumps, completely covered in mud, goop, and spiders, into the back of mom's truck, then unloading them and carrying them around the hills until we got everything set up.

And how many jumps did we make? 4. 5, if you count the one that was a pole wedged into a small split tree, held at the other end by a human "standard". We had a combination that could be ridden either uphill or down, a jump in the woods augmented with some real logs, and a plank-jump by a large tree.

We warmed up in the field by the pond, then walked over to the jumping area. We had some barrels set up just before you crossed a small trough made by two equally small hills, and we jumped those a few times before we moved over to where the real jumps were. We started with the plank fence by the tree, which was a just a cross-rail for warm up.

Our first approach to it, Val spooked and actually ran out to the left, and I didn't do as much as I could have to stop it. I did reach back and smack him, but I didn't pull the right rein like I should have to redirect him to the right. So, I got a bit of a talking-to about not riding every fence. My trainer pointed out that since I most likely could have gotten him over it the first time, I should have, because if the same thing happens at nationals, we won't want the points that come with a run out if we can help it! On the plus side, though, I wasn't even vaguely put off balance by his refusal, which is definitely an improvement. In the past, refusals would at the very least put me very off-balance and only half-on my horse, and at the worst, I would fall. That's a good improvement, anyhow.

We approached the plank-jump again, and this time got over it, although I was a bit tight on his face because I wanted to prevent another run-out. He jumped pretty happily over it, although I didn't release the way I should have. A third attempt had him jumping it like it was no big deal, and me releasing well. It turns out that we use a crest release, which we do probably 98% of the time, the place where his mane switches from white to black is where my hands belong. How convenient!

We then jumped the second piece of the downhill as part of a circle with the plank jump going the other direction. Once we had that well, we did the downhill. We trotted it the first time, because the approach to the first part of the downhill is a pretty sharp turn, and we weren't quite as balanced as we should have been. We then tried it again at a canter, this time with instructions to go to the "natural" fence with the logs in the trees if things went well. They did, and as we approached the jump, Val hesitated and dropped to a trot, but I added leg and smacked him on the shoulder with the bat and he jumped it gamely enough. Then we were instructed to ride the natural fence the opposite way, and do the uphill combination, which we did.

After all these uphills and downhills, I was really starting to like the influence terrain had on my horse's stride. This is probably the first time I've really jumped uphill and down besides banks in our XC schooling, and it's quite a bit different. We practiced getting a good, balanced canter going downhill and keeping our impulsion going uphill, both of which were fun.

Finally, we jumped the jump in the split trees. Val had absolutely no apprehensions about it, and although we did take a few small branches with us, he jumped it well. We ended on that and went back to the barn feeling pretty good. Another of my trainer's students, an older woman who primarily does endurance, was waiting in the dressage arena for us to get done, and assumed the lead on the path to the barn, which is very long and straight. Val is always ansy about being behind other horses, so I always try to make him deal with it.

He got exceptionally displeased when Elmer began to trot, and we began leg yielding to the right and then back to the left. When he broke to a very prancy trot, my trainer told me that he could either walk, or he could piaffe back to the barn. So, although we obviously couldn't produce it under normal circumstances, we got to do a few steps of what was apparently a fairly decent piaffe as Val threw a fit that he wasn't allowed to trot after Elmer. It was a very, very cool feeling. I'd never really realized just how much they shifted their weight back to their haunches when they did a piaffe, and you could really feel that shift while Val was doing it. He finally calmed down and was allowed to walk back to the barn on a loose rain, happy as a clam.

Today we're back to dressage, and I'm going to drop my whip before going in to the arena we set up yesterday to simulate the conditions of the test on Friday. I am doing lots of mental "prep" for the AECs; every time I think about them, I try to imagine myself setting in front of the dressage arena waiting for the person before me to finish, and then I try to push away my nerves and exchange them for a very calm, sedated feeling. This year, we had a couple of dressage tests that started with us cantering center line because of my nerves, so I'm doing everything I can to make sure that doesn't happen at the AECs! I have no idea if this well help or not, but it certainly can't hurt!

Finally, Val got his tail and mane washed last night, and for the rest of the days leading up to the AECs, his legs will get washed every night to help get out any embedded stains, so that they'll shine nice and white for the competition! His tail turned out especially nice; it's even in a fairly decent braid to keep it as clean as possible until Tuesday evening when he gets his final bath.

So, the schedule until we leave:
Today- Dressage lesson. Wash white. Bring all tack home.
Monday- Val's day off. Wash white. Clean tack/boots. Wash sheet.
Tuesday- Bring tack back. Dressage lesson. Wash Val completely. Pack trailer.
Wednesday- Wrap legs. Leave! (Wash legs in morning if necessary.)

We leave early Wednesday morning. 3 days. Here we come!

"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.