Small Victories

I've been bad :-( I haven't ridden since my last lesson. My excuses are (1) I've been super busy at work and (2) It's been ungodly hot outside! Even for Georgia the heat and humidity have been awful and it came on awfully fast.

I was supposed to have a lesson this morning, but was asked to reschedule until tomorrow evening -- fine by me! So, I went out around 7pm tonight to get some riding in. It was way too hot to deal with a saddle so I just put the bareback pad on and hopped on. After two laps of a warm-up walk, I started trotting her. She's back to doing her cowboy jog that I love so much, VERY easy to sit. I started asking her to stop with my seat and she wasn't listening very well so I did the tight circles that I described in my previous post. After three of those each way she was listening to my seat and the voice command "whoa". So, I trotted her straight down the rail, sat back, said "whoa" and she immediately dropped to a walk. We repeated that a few times until I was satisfied.

Then I started trying to practice the bending circles. This is HARD without a saddle (at least for me)! But it was VERY good practice for improving my seat and my balance. I only did a few of these because I was distracted... my friend who was riding with me was cantering her horse around the outside of the arena while I was working on my circles.

Watching her I SO BADLY wanted to canter too. I trotted a few more times just to make sure that I felt super comfortable with my seat at that gait, then I told my friend, "I'm gonna canter a few strides... don't laugh when I fall." So I came around past the gate and gave the canter cue. It was SO cute, Secret flicked her ears back at me and I felt her hesitate as though she was asking, "Are you SURE?" So I gave the cue again and off we went! I got three GREAT strides before I panicked, looked down at the rail and thought, "I'll break several bones if I fall and hit that!" At which point I grabbed mane and said, "whoa!" Secret immediately transitioned down to a walk (I knew she loved me!).

Given my fears surrounding the canter, this was more than a small victory for me. I feel ecstatic,  like I'm really making progress again. I remember this time last year when I did the same thing with the trot; trot four steps and stop, trot another four steps and stop, repeat. So, I feel like if I keep being brave and cantering bareback, if only just for 3-4 strides at a time, then I'll soon feel as comfortable at the canter as I do at the trot. In the meantime, Secret will be coming along and learning new things as well. For the first time in a long time, after several months of dejection, I feel like we are closer to our goals than ever!