Pitiful helpless left hand

We worked more on the hard circle today - going to the right, spiraling in - and were able to further identify the problem. While I can put my left hand up the neck no problem, when I try to put my right hand up, my left hand follows it. And if I try to hold it still, my whole body bends to try to follow it. We did a few other exercises where all I could feel was that terrible limp left hand not doing its job, like riding in a straight line in the canter off the rail, and we'd just drift, drift, drift to the left because my left hand couldn't "block the water" like the Centered Riding analogy has for the hose. Shannon made me first try to bend each way (couldn't bend to the left) and then ride a leg yield (?) in to the right off the left leg, which forced my left hand to clamp down and my left leg to do its job. It was a very good, but very frustrating lesson. When we peeled that layer off the onion to "polish" I had no idea how difficult this next level was going to be. I can't wait until future me is looking back and reading this and being relieved that the phase was over with. In other words, keep the faith present Martha.

Sinister left hand!

My left hand ran amok today. After a brief warm up and review of some of the position suggestions I had from Major Beale and John, we started working on the circle that spirals in and spirals out. This was ok going to the left, but when we tried going to the right (clockwise), things fell apart. It took a while to figure out where the source of the problem was (for me), but it ended up being my left hand, which refused to obey me. We had to go way, way down - to a halt - and then very slowly and deliberately work our way back up to the spiral circle in and out at the trot. It was infuriating that I couldn't get my hand to obey me, and that it threw off the whole exercise so dramatically. It was also good to get it isolated - and fixed - so that I can work on that on my own. The list of things I am working on, though, has gone from "proficient but polishing" to "everything" and so I am wrestling a bit with overthinking every single thing and not being able to keep them all in my head. Charlie was moving nice (once we got going) and my seat at the canter felt really improved, but that hand! Good lord!

Challenged by simplicity

Today's weather was sunshine with intermittent holy fury of god rainstorms. We tacked up in the rainstorm. Got inside and watched the rider before us finishing in sunshine. Started riding in rainstorm. Had to strain to hear John in rainstorm. Then, once tired and wanting excuse of couldn't hear, sunshine. Then cooled off in rainstorm. You get the drift. Now that fall is upon us, I had my first inside John lesson. He had a very simple set-up - a single white vertical and then a 2 stride combination, vertical to vertical, but with flowers and colorful rails. First he gave me some pointers on the same posture issues that I've been working on with Shannon and that Major Beale identified. For my clamped right knee, which he says comes from too tight quad, open the knee. I was shocked, and then looked at my left knee and saw it looked the same. Rolling the knee open means the quad can't overpower the rest of my leg, and it, somewhat unexpectedly, puts the front of my calf on Charlie as my aid instead of the back. Then for the arched back, he said for dressage, think of something poking a finger right in between your shoulder blades, and you want to grab it with your shoulder blades. For the lower back, think about a flat palm against your shoulder blades and pushing into it, and also lengthening the rib cage up - like making more space between your hip and the bottom of your rib cage, but also elevating the whole rib cage, like a balloon is tied to it. Then, after you get used to those feelings, you undo them just a bit - so your knee doesn't really fly out a mile above the saddle. We did a bit of warm up, and I had a hard time keeping Charlie together instead of strung out. I think we were both tired from the clinic. Then we jumped the white fence as a cross rail, vertical, bigger vertical, much bigger vertical. My main instruction was to sit up around the corner, half halt at the corner, and then, infuriatingly, every single time I went to the left (we were riding a clockwise circle) when I landed. John put down a rail which helped a bit. I needed to use my left hand and my right leg - Charlie was coming in crooked (the same crooked from Major Beale's clinic, his haunches in, so bulging out through his left shoulder - off my right leg in other words), and I'd try to straighten him which would push us further left (instead of pushing with my left leg to straighten him into the center of the fence, I'd push with my right and get us even further towards the standard). This tiny little simple thing eluded me, and the elusiveness chased me to the next exercise on the combination. Here, we did it both directions, and for the life of me, I could not ride the damn thing straight, even though it was only two strides in between. Eventually, John had me halt afterwards, side pass to the right (off the left leg) and then turn left and go again. Shannon also said we tended to chip the first fence, so even though I was counting, I was coming in funny. John pointed out that I might be able to scoot through a double, but a triple, as I drift to the left each fence, is going to make us off on the strides and really hard for Charlie to bunch up and go over it. So the key take-away for this week's triple combination? STRAIGHTNESS! I was feeling sorry for myself and how pitiful a rider I was, but then I looked at the dressage pyramid and was pleased to see that straightness at least was not the very bottom of the pyramid. Charlie jumps like a champ though. The fences weren't really that big (I checked when we walked past cooling off - they were just BN), but he was really rounding up over them.

2nd day of Major Beale clinic

One freak change led to fortuitous happenstance at today's clinic. Due to some scheduling changes, we brought my dressage saddle for Charlie. Even though things shifted again and I didn't need it, I was too lazy to take it off, so I started my ride in it. Major Beale said that it helped my seat tremendously, and from now on, to ride Charlie in that saddle. So hats off to fortune! Today's ride made me feel a little less like a waste of his time and a lot more like the cherry on the slice of humble pie. First, and the most glaring follow up from yesterday, was he took my whip and set it on the saddle behind my butt (so it ran up my back and ended at my helmet). Then he had me put my hand behind my back to feel how big the gap was between my back and my whip. Then he had me try to suck my back into the whip - which was close to impossible for me to do without rounding my shoulders. When I finally got it right, it felt like I was hunched forward in my shoulders, even though actual hunched forward is a very different feeling. So I am going to tackle that all winter - with the mirrors in our arena, and at work and home with one of those inflatable balls and mirrors. I am pretty sure what I am missing is "stacking the blocks". Next, we worked again on straightness. The big revelation here is that the source of the problem is I can't feel straight - I can't feel the back end of the horse, whether it's crooked or straight or which way (or which hind foot is stepping underneath). So this is another one Shannon is going to work with me on over the winter. Another instruction was to watch my leg - it likes to creep backwards, and I need to give the aid from the girth. Major Beale suggested thinking of my bringing my seat forward over my leg, instead of my leg backward under my seat. Then we did a whole series of different exercises from yesterday, which sadly I am not going to do justice to. The main take away was how good Charlie felt, and the consistent things I needed to do were: keep my hands the soft "wall" that stopped the forward energy and let it "poof" up - but the "poof" comes from using my core as the real brake, not my hands pulling backwards; continuing to work on knees and toes pointed forward (toes feels pigeon toed) and the front of my leg giving the aid and the rest of the time staying off his side; steering Charlie like a wheelbarrow, with both hands making a tunnel for him; using the left leg as a block - to stop him from bulging out from the strong right leg; in the canter, again using my stomach to root my seat into the saddle - when this plugs in it feels so solid and wonderful. We worked on shoulder-in down the long side, then lengthening circles or halt transitions; and leg yields down the long side facing the wall keeping the momentum going and not slowing down. Major Beale explained what I call the poof as kinetic vs. potential energy. Kinetic energy is a horse moving forward. Potential energy is impulsion. I get the idea of impulsion, and I feel like I'm just the hair's breadth away from the light bulb going off so that I can make it happen on my own. Just like yesterday, it felt amazing, and Charlie was, like always, a total champ and good sport, helping me out as best he could. It was such an incredible experience and I'm so lucky to have had this opportunity.

More humble pie

I'm pretty close to as humbled as you can get. Today was my first time riding in a clinic with Major Beale, and for my overview, I told him that as I've worked closely with Shannon on Charlie this year, as we progressed, I began to realize that I was fudging the basics. As one example, Charlie is usually bent to the right. Major Beale then proceeded to turn my whole world on its ear. First, he had me walk both directions. Then I rode a circle at the trot, each direction without my inside stirrup. Then he told me that my right leg is clamped on - without the stirrup, it doesn't move, but with both stirrups, it is so dominant that I post crooked - up and to the left. So that makes Charlie's left shoulder bulge out, which makes me clamp on with my right hand, which bends him to the right, which ends up in that "C" shape to the right. So he said, innocently enough, that we'd work on correcting that. Here's my confession. I wanted him to see me ride, identify a tiny fix, and then praise me for having a wonderful natural seat despite really only having a couple years of good training from Mike and Shannon. I didn't know I wanted this until I was pouring sweat at the end of the ride. So the primary exercise we did was standing up in the stirrups, at the trot for half the arena, then a shoulder-fore or haunches-out down the other side of the arena. Then we worked without stirrups completely on the canter, on a circle, and for this one, we worked on pulling my legs away from the saddle (hard to do, even without stirrups), and then tucking my tail-bone under but not arching my back. For both of these, we also worked on asking Charlie to keep his impulsion with only the whip - no leg - because the second I'd quit thinking about my leg, it would start clamping on him again. We also worked on the inside track - I think to keep me from using the outside rail as a crutch. Every once in a while, I would pull it all together, and there would be that moment of magic like I had in the lesson with Shannon a couple lessons ago - where I felt everything fall into place, and I was completely and utterly plugged in to Charlie and felt perfectly in place. Most of the time, I felt like my body had a mind of its own and was impossible for me to control. Major Beale will say to stretch my leg long, and I would try to stretch it long, but it would pretty much blow me off. We also had very humiliating moment (for me) where he asked me how to steer, and I guessed pretty much everything under the sun BUT the reins. I can't even bear to repeat everything I guessed other than the reins. It was a brilliant lesson, and he did a great job seeing all my foibles (the humble pie for me), and those moments felt incredible, but it's just that I thought I was an ok rider, and it turns out I know close to nothing. I WANT to know this stuff, I just wish I had learned it earlier. It's also just a bit out of my grasp. I feel it when it is right, I am just not sure how to control my body to make it right. Also, my right hip and my sacrum are SORE already!

Ride every step!

Today's jump lesson at John's started like we'd been shot out of a cannon. Instead of my usual style of poking around for 30 minutes "warming up", we did our flat warm up, a cross rail at a trot, a vertical at a canter, and then moved right into an oxer with a hard left turn to a panel (I missed it the first time). From there, we did several courses, the only common element being oxers and a bendy line (oxer to vertical to vertical). What this showed was my weaknesses, and doing so many variations gave me several chances to fix them. What would usually happen would be I'd fix one, but drop another one, so while I had good fences, I don't think I ever rode an entire course without errors (error = sloppy jump on my end). For example, I'd kind of angle the oxer to vertical to vertical to make it a straight line, because I had trouble making the two bends (sitting up, half halting was key #1). When I tried to ride it bend to bend, I'd miss the strides and we'd have to chip or launch. What I needed to do was ride straight to the middle of each fence, which required me to ride very precisely and not just shoot around. But usually I'd have to not screw up on the oxer - if I did, my reactions weren't fast enough to correct in between the two. A couple of times I got it right, which felt amazing. The big lesson was to ride precisely. Second, adjust my canter - lengthen it and then half halt before the corner to the fence - then sit up tall, ride to it, and keep my hands planted so I don't mess with stuff at the last second. Like always, look ahead to the next fence, and use that outside rein (and outside leg!) to make those tight corners. I was panting the entire way through the lesson, and bright red, but afterwards, we walked the fences and they were just regular old beginner novice height, so making the course more technical really worked a number on me. Although the one line I did that Holly got to skip (thank god Shannon trained Charlie to be such a champ), had an oxer in to a 2 stride (?) to a vertical. I am pretty sure I have never in my life ridden an oxer to a vertical (it's always vertical to oxer) and it was amazing the difference it made in how I looked at the line. It was a GREAT lesson that made me wish I had more time during the week to practice so I could hopefully speed up the retraining of some of these sticky bad habits. Actually, it makes me wish I could only ride - be a working student half time for a dressage trainer and half time for a jumper. That would be pretty much the coolest life ever.

Dyno move - or Flip Side of the Coin

Today's lesson is going to be one big analogy and not a lot of description about what we were actually doing, but bear with me for the explanation why. Ok, this summer, as we progressed into 2nd level movements, it dawned on me that I have been, perhaps, fudging the basics. I am the walking, talking example of why going the long route is the short route as we re-start my basics and undo my bad habits. That means that over the last month, I have spent my time riding thinking this: 1. toes in; 2. heels down; 3. legs forward; 4. hips open; 5. stomach tight (keeps my back from being sway back); 6. shoulders up and down (slide my shoulder blades down my back); 7. stomach tight (I have to do it again after my shoulders); 8. hands even (horizontal and vertical plane); and 9. elbows on hips. What this did was neglect the other basics - moving forward and not slogging around the arena, so today's lesson brought that to the forefront. We ignored my stupid heels and worked on Charlie moving forward. This is what I both love and hate about riding. I love that it is always a challenge - that there is always room to grow. But I hate how I can have been riding for 20 years and still need a lesson on moving a horse forward. I KNOW that if you could get to Grand Prix after 5 years of riding, I would have quit riding at year 6, but sometimes I wonder whether I'm the worst rider in the universe that at 20 years, I'm still working on what feels like basics. So I have to look for objective information, and what I'm going to focus on here is the training pyramid and impulsion. But I think the training pyramid should really be a training staircase - or, more realistically, a dyno board. I used to do a lot of rock climbing, and one of my least favorite exercises were pull-ups on the dyno board. You'd hang from it and do a pull up, then launch yourself up one level and do a pull-up on a slightly smaller grip, then launch yourself up and do a pull-up on just your fingertips, etc. And making the jump from one stage of the pyramid to the next is kind of like this wall, and you're beating your head against it, and then you figure out how to leap, fall off, and then leap again until you get the grip and scramble up. Then you fall off again, but this time you climb up faster. So the flip side of the coin is that I ride for the challenge, but I also prefer the times when I'm victorious on top of the step. But after a little while up there, I'm ready for the next step. And the tricky part is that you can't really see the steps above you until you're on them - you think you're doing ok because you can't see just how many steps there are. At least, I have. It feels like I have been beating my head against this particular step for a year now. While I'm glad to be improving (now I know the step is there, which I did not know two years ago), I'm ready to be scrambling onto that step instead of still looking at it. Today's lesson was a good example of how I'm standing at the base of it looking up. At the end of the lesson, I have a few glimpses of the top of the step, but I am completely incapable of describing what I DO when I ride to get that feeling. When I am alone, getting that feeling is the exception rather than the rule, but I can now get it every once in a while. And I recognize it when it's there, but I don't know to get it. So that means I can't really describe what we did today. I know it's the step, and I like how it feels on the top, and it's the essential next step, I just wish the reward was coming a little faster.

Rider, correct thyself!

Yesterday Shannon and I went down to Caber for another lesson with John. Starting at the end, we both jumped this whopper fence - an oxer that I think was at least training level height! Shannon did it on Holly, which was amazing to see a good rider teaching a young horse, and I did it on Charlie, who thought it wasn't a big thing, but it looked enormous to me! The lesson from the flat was to turn from the outside, when Charlie cocks his head instead of bending, lift that hand up (and then drop it when he corrects), and to sit up long and tall. The main two lessons over the fence were to keep my eyes up (look at the last rail of the last fence in the grid until we get there - don't gaze off unfocused into space), and to correct myself and not wait for John to tell me (or Shannon) - I kept drifting left along the grid from the start to the end, and I didn't fix anything until John told me to switch my whip and then use that left leg. After the fence, the lessons were to sit up around the corners, and to keep those damn heels down! After our warm up on the flat (some lengthening and collection with proper bend), we did a small cross rail which very quickly turned into a vertical (changing direction after it like a figure 8), and then the vertical to a much bigger rail with a vertical and the same figure 8. John said that we tend to relax after about 5-10 fences, and that at a show, that'll come up a lot sooner, so to keep riding every fence. Then we did a grid with three fences, and John turned the final vertical into an oxer, and then gradually raised it. It was an excellent confidence-building exercise because the grid worked on us, and the oxer was so gradual, that by the end, looking back at it, I was amazed at how smoothly it rode. It was another GREAT lesson.