Trust the Process

I ended up cancelling last week's lesson because of disgusting icy snow rain that started the night before and finished late morning with a base of ice under three inches of heavy, wet snow. Not my type of hauling weather, thanks. I'm waiting to hear back from DL now to see if we can change this week's as well because they're now projecting a "snow maker" on Friday. Thanks, weather. Save the best for the one day a week I want to trailer somewhere. 

So instead of lessoning, last Friday I did some jumping in the afternoon in preparation for the barn's jumper night. I thought Opie was going to be a monster for it because he was twitchy AF and spooking at the jumps as we walked by them, but I trotted him to a few 2'6" verticals in hopes it would keep getting rabid out of his mind. He was indeed super for those. I then sent him through a bounce that he wanted to go charging through as it was the first jumps I let him canter. Fortunately that worked out exactly the way I planned--the bounce itself slowed him down and made him look a fool for trying to blast through it, and we had zero rushing issues after that. 

Mentally, however, even though he was on point, I wasn't into it and decided to bow out of jumper night. That ended up working out because 50mph winds and random white out snow squalls moved in by the afternoon and it was postponed. Gotta love winter in New York. Today is 50* with bright sunshine and no wind to be found. 

Back to dressage world though!

I managed to snag Hubby for once yesterday afternoon and had him come take video of what our typical rides look like lately.

Warm up trot:

First sitting trot: 

Canter left:

Canter right:

More sitting trot:

Really right now my only focus is on myself/my position as this has been all my two lessons have been about. Doing my homework and all that. Are my wrists straight? Am I carrying my hands? Are my elbows my anchor points so my hands and wrists can be soft? Are my shoulders back? Am I sitting in the middle of the saddle instead of leaning right?

The answer to pretty much all of those is "no" LOL, but I am fucking trying!

I can tell the difference when I get it right. My seat is plugged in? The horse responds. My contact is even and not pulling? The horse responds. It's for a giant work in progress, but I know we're going down the right road in the long run.

This morning I had an awesome ride in the double where everything just felt very easy. I mean, I was working my lady balls off the whole time and my legs felt like rubber when I got off, but I felt like I was making good choices and Opie was there to play. 

The canter especially felt locked in, and we had the most awesome moment when I cut my turn wonky, but I plugged in my left seat bone (oh, hey, friend, there you are!), gave a half halt, and his shoulders came up about fifteen feet, and it was the most magical three strides on canter I have ever ridden. 

We finished up the real work with TOH where I thought half steps coming into it--aka get short, but keep the hind end marching, and dammit Opie, I want to feel a fucking difference!--which resulted in no crossing with the hind legs. He still wants to step wide behind, but getting rid of that crossover is such a big thing for us. 

He got tons of snackies when we were done and I could tell he was quite pleased with himself. 

Lean on me

....my right leg says, and my whole body happily obliges by throwing all my weight into my right side. 

That was the theme of our lesson yesterday: sit the fuck in the center of the saddle. 

got a much needed goat beard trim

My saddle fitter did manage to drop me off a usable dressage saddle the afternoon before our lesson, so even though it was a bit too small in the seat it was better than fighting my jump saddle. 

During our quick warm up, DL reiterated that the canter is his gait and I reiterated that everyone says that, but I find it so hard to ride. I think it's mostly because even though Bobby was a giant, he had such tiny pony gaits that you never really moved on him. DL said I did a good job of hiding that because it's definitely our high point. 

We worked pretty much exclusively on the circle again which was fine by me so here are the highlights:

• Right off the bat she put me in a driving rein because I couldn't stop breaking my wrist.
• We took a few minutes to establish what steady contact feels like. 
• Always have a "2". If I have to go to a 3 because he's pulling, go back down to a 2 not to a 0.
• Use the elbows as the anchor, not the hands and wrists. The hands and wrists are soft and elastic, the elbows can block and say no if they need to. 
• She thinks his head wag comes from not being entirely through. He uses his hind end really well, but the throughness is getting stuck somewhere along his back--probably pretty close to his shoulders which do not want to get off the ground and do work.
• Opie and I both lean to the right so one of us has to get straight to lead the other one back to center. Being the thinking human being part of the relationship, that falls on me. Which sucks. Because it's really fucking hard.
• In the trot I finally picked up on the fact that my right calf was aching and my left leg was just chilling, coming along from the ride. So that will be a good tell for me when I ride by myself. 
• In the canter she had me look over my outside shoulder to center myself. I could feel it easier when I was centered in the canter because I felt like I had shifted my entire seat to the left side of Opie--which was, in fact, the center of his back. DL agreed I would probably get straight faster in the canter than the trot.
• She also rode my ass about slouching, and actually miraculously got me sitting straight!! I seriously didn't think that was a position my body was even capable of.
• She had me put my stirrups down a hole, and said she eventually wanted to see them come down one more for a true draping dressage leg. I can't imagine it, I already almost feel like I'm reaching for them.

warm enough to be naked when we got back

• Her takeaways were that:
• I ride like an eventer. I'm effective and I'm getting it done, but it doesn't look pretty.
• I've put a good, correct base on him and we're not going to have to go back and fix any basics. Pretty much the best compliment ever!

That's the bulk of what we worked on. I was able to feel the changes she was forcing on my crooked AF body, and in the canter I finally felt a deep but soft dressage seat. 

This morning I worked on my homework: sitting up and sitting straight. It's hard. It's so fucking hard, and when my horse wants to brace or go like a llama I went to wiggle him down and then drop all contact when he gets round--and that's fucking hard to not do, too. 

Riding is so harddddd.

one of us got a pemf session when we got back.
the other one of us has been going nonstop for the
past three days and needs a nap.

I did it!

I reached out to a local dressage trainer (by email, phone, and text--it as a lot of anxiety battling for me), set up a lesson, hauled out to it, and then scheduled another one!

won't stop sticking his head in trees and bushes
to save his life

I've had my eye on DL for awhile as she's the first to pop up when you search local dressage trainers, but also because one of my former barn mates (who now lives in CA) trained with her for awhile and was super happy with her--and how she went to DL with a very specific goal (place in Regionals at Second), and that's exactly what they accomplished. 

It was an easy peasy thirty minute ride down DL's barn where Opie unloaded and hung out tied to the trailer calmly while I got him tacked up. 

desperate times call for desperate buys.
hoping his fenwick hood helps with the zen.

The first thing she asked when she came into the ring was, "Are you an eventer?" Sporting my jump saddle and double bridle like a complete jamoke. I had to explain that no, I was STILL waiting on my custom saddle to come in. I told her that I want to finish out my bronze this year and while he has a change each way, they're next level wild. 

She had me warm him up while she watched. We did some shallow leg yields, some 15m circles, changes of directions, and rein backs. She asked if this was his starting out tempo or his usual tempo. Meh, both? Better after a canter, but honestly we all know going forward into big gaits isn't my strong suit. 

She let us finish a quick w/t/c ("OK well the canter is certainly his gait, isn't it?" Yes, says every dressage judge ever, but riding it is so hard.), and then had us try an ice cream cone exercise: half circle at A and then leg yield when you get X. The timing of it made no sense to me tbh. Her indoor is a short court and it didn't seem like there was any room to actually accomplish this. Even as she talked me through the timing, I was like, "Eh?"

Honestly it wasn't a great start. I know I need my basics polished as a rider and Opie has some holes to fill in. I'm happy to work on both of these things 100%, but I wasn't feeling it so far. 

Fortunately I think she got the sense that this was all pretty lackluster because she pulled us on to a 20m circle. Truly, honestly my favorite place to be. 

For the next twenty minutes straight we trotted on a circle. Sometimes we got to go down the long side in shoulder-fore. I didn't have my spurs on because I pulled them off last week when he was being Satan and he seemed happier, and boy did I regret that. She kept asking me to push for more--push, push, more, PUSHHHH. Opie and I were both like, OMG we got nothing left to give! Finally she deemed it an acceptable working trot. 

::cue sobbing:: 

LOL.

She got after me a ton for collapsing my right side including my right hand and needing to pull my left shoulder back. She said she could see how he would find the changes hard because the straightness isn't there. Agreed, and this horse does his best to pull you crooked, but he won't even let you make him straight when it comes to the changes. 

When we moved on to the canter he instantly flipped a switch and tried to get wound up. My go-to was to shut him down into a smaller sitting trot. DL said, nah make that fucker go. Back to our calf-killing "working" trot, then some sitting trot transitions, down to three steps of walk, and then into the canter. 

We didn't do much there. It was the end of the lesson. I felt like he was going a hundred miles an hour and falling in on his shoulder, neither of which she said anything about. When we were done, she was like, "You have to get out of this saddle. You're all over the place in it and can't plug into it." Yeah, wouldn't it be great if I had a saddle made just for the both of us? Grrrrrr. I did email my fitter again to ask WTF?!

Overall her observations were:

• He's very happy in the double. I think she had serious doubts about this. I can't blame her, we look ridiculous. 
• He looks very happy overall. He doesn't look like any of the work he's done up to this point has made him sour, and he wants to try. 
• Bring the spurs to the next lesson, he's lazy and needs the extra encouragement.
• I need to work on being straighter in my body, carrying my hands, pulling my shoulders back, and asking for waaaaaaaay more from both of us. 

we were both ready for snacks and a nap afterwards

We go back next Friday morning. If I don't have a dressage saddle from my fucking fitter by then, BM has one from a horse that passed away she thinks might work for us. We're going to make something happen. I do kind of know what I'm doing, I'd like to be able to show that.