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!

Improving my seat

Because Secret spent so many months working totally off her front end because of a twisted pelvis, I'm trying to really be concious of getting her back on her hind end and re-building those atrophied muscles. I saw an episode of Downunder Horsemanship on RFD-TV the other day (I DVR all of these people... I don't sit at home and wait for them. DVR is the way to go BTW, by skipping the commercials these half-hour shows are done in 10 min!). Anyway, it was showing a more intermediate "lunging-for-respect" excercise where you make the horse do roll-backs to change direction. I thought it looked like I could kill two birds with one stone -- "lunge-for-respect" and get her working on the back.  So I've tried it twice now and I'm actually pretty pleased. Yesterday she got herself all worked up because she's not used to being asked to do something so abruptly. But, even though she was upset and it took me ~15min to get her to just walk again, she was doing lovely roll-backs! So I think her pelvis is feeling better! I'll continue to do this exercise.

After I let her cool off from all that, I put the bareback pad on. I figured it would be a good day to work on my seat since she'd already tired herself out some. I've always heard, and its been my experience, that bareback riding is great for developing an independent seat and balance. Well, I must have been doing something right these last few months because last time I rode in the bareback pad the forward trot was a terrifying thing! Yesterday we trotted/jogged in the indoor arena for a few laps and I felt so good about it that I was adventurous enough to go out to the big outdoor arena (the one without a gate!) and trot out there. Even when she hit the forward trot, making a B-line for the exit, and we had to argue a bit about staying inside the arena on the rail as opposed to actually exiting, I still felt pretty secure. That was really great! I see alot more bareback riding in our future. I really won't be happy until I can feel comfortable cantering bareback!

Again, I know this sounds crazy-rita, but I really feel alot closer to my horse after the whole animal communicator thing. Yesterday I really felt like she was taking care of me... I don't know if I've ever felt that before. It was awesome. Now, this could all be psychosomatic... all in my head... but the reality is that, even if it is all in my head, it's improved my confidence (which is shaky at best) and made me love riding again. So, whether its real or imagined, its made all the difference and that's well worth $40 to me!