Improvement on the right lead canter

We started taking away my crutches today, and Shannon made me ride off the rail, so particularly for the right lead canter, I can't use the three corners of the arena as helpful corner forcers. Everything works (somewhat awkwardly, but works) if I keep my left hand down and pull back, either with a squeeze with my fingers or actual elbow back. What doesn't work is when I fling my right hand open. We also took some video today, and while a lot of things look better to me, the relative improvement in those areas accentuates my constantly moving hands and how obvious it is when I quit thinking about my aids, and my heels swing back up instead of doing the pinch aid. But what was good about it is there are moments - short and infrequent, but there if you don't blink - where I've got it together. So my goal for this year is to make those moments last longer and come more often. We did 20 meter, 15 meter, 10 meter circles, and then some center line work (so she could see how straight we were) and then some shoulder-in. I'm really happy that the progress is showing in the right lead canter. My body still moves very awkwardly compared to the left, but it's slowly slowly fixing.

4 ground exercises to strengthen my left side

Shannon and I went to John's today for a jump lesson, and he had vertigo once, so had some ground exercises and very quickly identified what was going on. It was eerie how quickly he was able to identify everything (and explain it's source) without even seeing me ride, and that it was identical to Shannon's observations over the past month and a half or so. He suggested that I stand on one leg (the right one) and first hold my left leg out until it is stable, then start moving it around so that it is independent of my hand. Second, get a stress ball and squeeze it with my left hand (which is weaker than my right, and probably why those fingers are always opening). Third, put some big rubberbands on my left forearm with my sleeve pushed up, attach them to the breastplate/martingale strap, and then my left arm won't be able to cross over the neck or move too far up the neck without the rubber band tension reminding it to stop (in other words, the rubber band tells me what I can't feel, like Shannon can do in a lesson but that I reinforce when I'm alone because I can't feel where that arm is). Fourth, try doing more with my left hand. Like brushing my teeth or grooming Charlie - the left side is basically atrophying because I use the right side so dominantly. Then he had us warm up by riding in a circle in between two standards, so I HAD to steer Charlie properly. Then we jumped a cross rail with that same hard right hand turn through the standards to the right to the fence, so I had to make the right hand turn in a hard way three times on the circle. Then we jumped two fences in a modified figure 8. Same exercise here with the right hand, only I had more space, and to the left, the focus was on bending his neck to the left. This one was awful because out of, I don't know - 12-20 times - I maybe landed on the correct lead twice. Even a 50/50 chance would have better results. These exercises worked because of just the slightest difference in the wording of what I should do - pull my left elbow BACK. It prevents my left hand from crossing over his neck, it acts like a half halt, and it steers. But when I think pull on my left hand, I pull it up or forward or over. The other tip was to act like my right elbow was attached to my hip, making a hinge. I can still open my right hand, but I can't lift my elbow out. And then after I was able to turn to the right again, the next level of refinement was to ask for the canter to be bigger first, ask with my right leg, then pull the left hand back. This got Charlie to come around the corner very well balanced, and it made a huge difference in our approach to the fence. I think these are the same things as before - ride from the outside rein, bend, connect - but something about having vertigo suddenly accentuated all of it, and both Shannon and John were right in now that we've identified it, we can fix it.

Pema Chodron and the C student

Pema Chodron is the only buddhist I've ever been able to read (or listen to, in a book on tape in the car) and really understand what she's saying. She claims, in one lecture, it's because she's a C student and because she had to work so hard at things that came naturally to other people studying buddhism, it helps her explain things now. Personally, I think it's probably more because she used to be a kindergarten teacher and thus, can explain it at the lowest common denominator. Regardless, it's what I was thinking of today when I had a total meltdown and just lost my marbles because of my continued inability to turn right at the canter. I can use three of the walls, but the one corner that needs actual steering, I can't do it, we just drift down the long side of the arena. This post is merely to say that I can't turn right in the hopes that one day, I'll look back and be glad I'm past this phase, and that it really didn't take as long as it feels like it is going to. The magic has something to do with NOT lifting my left hand, but I have no idea what it is that's wrong since I can do it in the walk and the trot and I try to mimic all of the feelings exactly.

A couple things are better; some perpetual issues

Today was kind of a discouraging lesson because even though I'm all fired up and looking forward to this year's show season, I'm still a passive rider. It's like no matter how many tools are in my tool belt, until Shannon tells me what to do, I don't think or try to do anything myself. It's infuriating. And I'll focus on one thing, and it's just random luck when I happen to be focusing on the thing that needs to be focused on. We jumped today, and the goods part were Shannon raised the jumps a bit and it didn't faze me at all, my lower leg feels pretty good and steady underneath me, and riding up in my half seat with my hands pushed into his neck feels really comfortable now compared to how it felt all new and different last year. The bad news? I still ride passive and quiet to the fence, can't correct an error when it starts, and my right hand is still a loony tune. Shannon had me ride in the warm up with my right hand pressed into his mane, forward up his neck, and the left hand pressed down near the martingale strap. This feels crazy, but she said it's to reset the feeling where "correct" is. We had two additions that proved to be more difficult than they should have, plus two run-outs that I completely failed to correct. First, we rode a barrel on its side, with wings, so there was a tiny narrow part to jump over. We did this late last summer just fine, so I approached it focusing on the prior instruction - eyes up and forward, instead of looking down at what we were jumping. So even though I felt the run-out coming from way far away, I did NOTHING to stop it. No kicking, no growling, no smack with the whip. We just ran out, ran past it, and then finally wound down to a halt. So then the next five times, I tried to fix it, but instead of kicking and sitting up, I'd see saw with my hands, especially my right hand, making him bulge out through the left shoulder, and we'd jump it at a wonky angle. I had to clamp the right hand into his neck, and then focus on riding assertively with my legs to make it work. Then our next hard fence was a diagonal line - straight over the wall and then stay on a line so we jumped a barrel vertical at an angle. And for this one, Charlie kept charging in between the two. So for this one, I had to think "half halt" to re-balance around the corner to the fence, before the fence, as soon as we jumped, and then I'd half halt again a couple strides in, and then we could fit in the stride and jump the line, but he charged a bit after the last half halt. Shannon said this was because he was bored once he knew what the exercise was. I looked back at the lessons from a year ago to see what we were working on then, and sadly, it was my goofy right hand. I think one of the obstacles is that I do the one jump lesson a week, and don't jump in between, so I really only work on this during the lesson. Originally, what I wanted to do was have Shannon ride once a week to keep him tuned up, jump twice a week (once in a lesson), give him a day off, a day of trail riding/conditioning, and then two days of dressage.

Humble pie eating contest

We are racing out the door to White Pass, so this is a very brief synopsis of my lesson - which is fine because it's not the sort I could pleasantly dwell on. I'm going to tell myself that breakthroughs to the next level don't happen until you're really struggling, although I'm not sure that's true, but I WAS struggling today. We went back a few lessons to leg yielding. To one direction (the right) it's a cakewalk. The other way (left), I get myself all tangled up, we start going sideways and eventually just halt. There's a lot going wrong. My right hand lifts up and then opens - my right leg squeezes up to the saddle pad, my left hand starts pulling, and my legs are kicking inconsistently. We had to break it down into a walk, then with Shannon walking alongside me with each specific instruction, and finally, with her riding and me watching. First - I need to give the leg aid when his hind leg is lifting. So if we're going right, it is when his left hind leg lifts, which is when my right hip starts to move forward. My leg sputters. Second - My leg aid isn't correct. I either twist my toe out to dig my heel in, or lift my heel up to squeeze way up high next to the saddle pad. This was easiest to see standing on the ground watching Shannon give the aid. She squeezes from the lower leg but doesn't really use her heel at all. This part, oddly, was absolutely the hardest for me to wrap my tiny brain around. Third - I get frustrated and then start spazzing out with my hands and legs. Fourth - So Charlie stops listening because it's information overload, and then, on the rare occasion when I get it right, he doesn't respond, so I don't realize whether or not I've gotten it right. (Until Shannon gets on, gets him responsive, and then I get on again.) I'm having a low moment where I feel like there's no way I should be competing or even wasting instructor's time, and then I repeat to myself that this is just the next layer of refinement, and it feels overwhelming because it's all so new, but just like struggling to keep my leg from swinging two years ago is now just habit, one day this will be too and I'll be working on something even more refined and feeling just as frustrated about how I'm the worst rider in the world. In other words, I'm trying to put a positive spin on this (It's progress!) instead of a negative (I suck!).

Sluggish reaction time

Charlie got the beginning of the week off for some epsom soaking, but an abscess never popped out. On Thursday he was a delight to ride - frisky so I didn't need any leg, but happy to be back to work - Friday he was a poop for Shannon. We jumped outside today, taking advantage of the rare February clear, dry day. Charlie was a champ, except for one very embarrassing run out, although I'm not even sure you could call it that since it started so incredibly far away. A branch fell in the arena, and sometimes Charlie spooks at it and sometimes he doesn't. We hadn't ridden past it until we were heading for the fence today, and so he saw it and zeroed in on it, and although I could feel it coming from what felt like a million miles away, I couldn't figure out how to prevent the spook. So he had lots and lots of time to decide what he was going to do while I sat there and did nothing. Then, once he started to react, I did exactly the wrong thing (turned him in the direction he was already going) and then when I caught myself and remembered I was supposed to use the opposite hand, I made us go the other wrong way. Shannon's instructions were, no matter what - keep him going towards the fence. Even if you have to stop and then hop over it from a standstill. After that initial reaction, though, the rest of the lesson was a cakewalk. We did the skinny wall to a vertical with barrels under it (side note: When Shannon looks like she is playing Donkey Kong and rolling a barrel, Charlie keeps a careful eye on her), with a right hand turn to an oxer that Shannon raised a hole from the last lesson, so Charlie made himself nice and round over it. I noticed I prefer jumping because I like riding in my half seat with my hands pressed into the side of his neck. Everything is easier when my hands are up there out of the way. I also got one fence where I got the "extra" stride in instead of launching (last year's lessons stuck with me!) and another where I launched my hands forward, which is something I noticed at the end of last year that I started to do.