Spiraling

Y'all. Not even over my horse for once. He's actually continuing to do really well--we'll get to him in a minute.

I am spiraling over myself. Total menty b. Cried to Hubby. Whined to friends. Pouted on my own. Been through it.

Let me show you why and then we'll break it down.

UGHHHHHHHHHH.

IT'S LIKE NOT RIDING REGULARLY FOR MONTHS ON END REVERTS YOU TO SUCKING AS A RIDER.

AND I WASN'T EVEN THAT GOOD TO START WITH, I DID NOT HAVE GROUND TO LOSE HERE.

this is why we all do screenshots, no?

I audited a clinic last winter where the clinician told one of the riders she needed to bounce more in her sitting trot. All of us ammys were like, "Pardon?! You're not supposed to bounce in the saddle!" But her point was the seat needs to be absorbing the motion of the horse's movement, like bouncing on a yoga ball. This ended up being a really great breakthrough for me. My seat stays in the saddle, the hips are loose, I feel locked in to my seat. Only I stopped doing real riding for so long, all my other parts have begun bouncing as well. And I assure you none of those are doing absorption work. They're just bouncing. 

Now, coinciding with my horse going lame this summer, I decided to work on my weight and fitness. Therapy helped a lot with this as it's hard to break the emotional eating and deep, deep depression cycle if you don't bitch slap the root of the problem. But I also wanted to make sure I didn't turn into even more of a garbage human being than I already have in the past five years and become even more of a fat weakling if my horse ever decided to be rideable again. 

In the past five months, I've lost 25lbs through working out and eating less like a toddler with a credit card. I do a ton of pilates and can comfortably run several miles a day. I feel AM stronger, but as Hubby and MB have repeatedly told me, there is no substitute for riding. You can be as strong (and skinny) as you want, but you need the riding miles.

I don't love that as an answer, especially because my riding opportunities rest solely on a horse working through rehab. But it is what it is, so in yesterday and today's rides, I toughened up and made myself focus on me and not just on Opie. My leg is swinging in the wind? Ok, stop. Positive tension. You have abs now--actually you have access to multiple ab muscles! Use them to hold things down. I feel better about that already. Quite frankly I don't know what to do about my boobs bouncing. They're big boobs. Send sports bra recommendations that are on par with a corset I guess. Also I'm allowed to weight my elbows, even if my horse says I'm not.

Enough whining about myself, let's whine about Opie.

He's getting stronger every day, but he is still weak behind. Not surprising, we're just going to keep on keeping on as long as he continues to stay sound and feel better every ride. This is his last ride before he got his SI injections--I was getting video to show the vet, so yes folks, I know he was lame. This is from this past weekend.

The beginning of our rides are always awkward as I navigate what he needs to feel his best, so it's usually a lot of stopping and starting and some lurching around until we both settle into a rhythm and get to work. Plus I have to mentally fight with myself over "Is he doing this because his SI/LH is broken?" versus "Is he doing this because it's one of his go-to evasions?" For instance, this morning he was giving me some drama about me sitting on his right side/putting my right leg on him. He's been doing this for years--it's literally his favorite complaint. 

We've also been working really hard on standing still. Opie haaaaates not doing things. Why take a break when you could be WORKING. His brain is just never quiet. A lot of times when we halt, he immediately starts raging. Much drama, much flinging himself around--he basically turns himself into my body in the sitting trot lolololol. But we're getting there with repetition.

would rather annoy his friends and be covered in
poop than stand patiently

In conclusion, I'm in a weird funk with everything. Me, myself, and my bouncing body....and my horse, my weight, my strength, my abilities, etc. Hopefully the horse keeps improving so I can keep logging the minutes, and by spring not only will I have a sound, strong show horse, I'll be able to ride it without cringing. 

Trucking Along

The good news is, everything is continuing along in an upward trajectory.

The bad news is, that's super boring.

Kind of a bummer to finally decide to return to blogging only to have the star of the show spend the majority of the year going from one lameness to another. I mean really, Opie, we have content to create here. The people want to see media. The people want cantering. Instead the people are going to get another post about trit-trotting for five minutes.

Our rides are basically walking for fifteen-ish minutes, trotting for five-ish minutes, and then finishing trying to convince Opie that a chill stretchy walk after such a boring workout is actually super duper fun. He's sort of starting to get on board with relaxing, but he's a horse that really likes having a job and doing the job, and he's much happier being overworked than under. Rest breaks are offensive, this stupid limited workload is offensive, wrapping things up after twenty minutes of low impact work is offensive, etc etc. 

He's been feeling consistently sound enough lately--although still weak on that LH--that I've felt comfortable bringing back in some brain exercises. For instance, today in our lesson we worked on upward and downward w/t transitions AND the halfpass! 

in our lesson 2 weeks ago we worked on riding a circle without
pulling on the inside rein. you can see why this was an issue lol.

Opie's transitions have always sucked because he anticipates everything and braces. It's great you want to be a smart boy and know the answer before it's even being asked, but maybe you could try to wait and listen. 

We were able to identify pretty quickly that he convinces me he cannot possibly go any faster if I insist on keeping my outside rein to myself, so I just chuck it at him. That's not correct obvi, so I focused on keeping my elbow cemented to my side and he just had to get over himself and move off my leg. That's the fun part of dressage--you never ever get done cleaning up the basics. Forever and always. 

He was quite annoyed with our insistence he could do things on our terms and not us giving in to his every demand. Instead of forcing the issue too much, once we got "good enough for now, just do those another thousand times (thanks, MB)" we got to work on the halfpass to give his brain something tricky to work on. 

i've been playing with bits since we're not doing anything
exciting and putting him back in his baby full cheek has fixed
his weird right head tilt

To the right, we went SI to HP to SI and back again, focusing on getting him to stand up his shoulders. The goal was to make him elevate in front so much he doesn't look like a pony anymore: "Opie, you look like you're 16.1hh now!" To the left it was renvers to HP without letting him get quick and crooked.

We did a few each way at the walk, and one each way in the trot, and then he got to be all done and actually deigned to do a really good stretch while only kind of running off with me. He says that was much better than what we have been doing, but mentally he could have done a whole lot more. Your weak AF butt disagrees, sir.

first snow of the season!
and today he's a nakey horse in the sun.

Hopefully we can keep trucking along on this path over the winter. I'd rather go too slow and bore poor Dopie to death and come out in the spring feeling sound and strong then rush things because it's boring and put us back at square one yet again. 

I'm planning on working on our right lead canter transitions next month if he continues to feel stronger like he is. Another thing to give him "work" without getting too wild. Add it to our fun list of: turns on the haunches, leg yields, straight circles (not pulling my horse's head and neck in), SI, HP, and stretching without raging. So many things to do in the walk! 

And for his cooperation, he keeps getting his red light therapy, PEMF, stretching, and special shoes. And custom diet that he mostly deigns to eat. We can't have things be too easy.