Two sessions with Beth; one on a fjord, one on Charlie

I can now confidently say that I have spent my entire life not using my lower abs.  Much like you can't control the muscles that are making your heart beat (unless everyone else has always been able to do that too), I have little to no control over those muscles, although I know they're there because every once in a while they turn on.
So the takeaway from a pilates session with Beth up in Redmond, a mat class down here in Olympia, and two riding lessons is that I am going to be working very hard this winter on mastering those muscles and then getting them stronger (and under my control).
Because Charlie was still healing up and then beginning light work from his hock injections, Anne very graciously let me ride one of her fjords for my first lesson, and then I brought Charlie the second day.  First, a shout out to Charlie.  He has had almost two weeks off, it was very chilly, and yet Mr. Manners stood quietly and didn't go tearing around, even though all we did was mostly walk with a bit of trot.
It was very different, like always, to ride the two of them.  What I've noticed is that with Charlie, I tend to stick my left foot far further out (to the left) than on other horses - and I also move my hands a lot more.  I'm wondering if it's his shape, or the fact that he needs some encouragement to go - that causes me to react that way, since I'm clearly capable of remaining (relatively) still on other horses.
While they were different, my issues were the same:
1)  Sit on my seat bones underneath me, not pointing towards his back
2)  Sit on them evenly - not with the weight heavier in the left.  To correct this, I can either lift my hip (the left one almost always) - like a hula dancer, or push my waist to the right - which is also lifting my hip but a slightly different visual to accomplish it.  This has the secondary effect of making my legs even in the stirrups (which are even) instead of one leg hanging lower than the other.
3)  Reduce the "S" that makes up my back - make a Martha-pancake where I am flat and pulled together from front to back low (hips), middle (waist), and back (no rounded shoulders).  To get rid of the rounded shoulders, pull my shoulder blades together and down from the center of my back - not by rolling my shoulders up and back.  Then roll my shoulders back - like there is a strap that fastens one shoulder blade to the other, not DOWN, like suspenders.  However, the pancake comes from a set of front and back suspenders, with a solid wall behind me.  This is incredibly visual and difficult to explain (but easy to feel once I get it right) and I need to spend some time practicing with the minute movements to get it right.
4)  Keep my shoulders on the same plane as his.  My body's default position is to twist right (left shoulder leading) regardless of whether we're going right or left.  If I make my spine into a pole and swivel around it so my shoulders match his, I stay more balanced over his back.
We worked on walk/halt transitions without hands or legs - just from stilling my hips.  With Charlie, I also had to stay firm in my upper back for just a second at the end to keep him from popping his head.
Then we worked on leg yields where I kept my weight in the center - by thinking about pushing my waist to the outside - i.e. if we were leg yielding left, I pushed my waist to the right - to keep my weight centered instead of heavy on the left leg, and timing my aid with his inside leg lifting.  (Beth does this as when your seat bone slides back.)
The other thing to think about in the walk is getting aligned evenly (if I'm wearing a jacket with a zipper, I can look down and see the zipper going to the center of the pommel; if I'm wearing a shirt, I can look at where the wrinkles are across the belly), and then moving the motion from a front back with my chest and back, to the right and left coming out of my hips where my legs swing with his barrel.  There are some floor exercises that also help separate these two movements.  When I try to stop moving front and back, I make my whole body one stiff block from my shoulders to my knees, and I need to have better independent movement of each portion.
Then we did an infinitely harder leg yield where we came down the center line and did a couple steps left, a couple steps right.  This needs practice!  I can think of all the aids going one way, but my brain can't process fast enough to flip them back and forth.
Then we did trot work on two 20 meter circles where I kept a "wall" to my left to stay evenly centered over Charlie and then on the straight in between the two circles, tried to reduce the amount of time I spent switching directions, I started at 5 strides and got down to 3, but I couldn't get it down to 1.  Another practice area!  This is mostly to do with adjusting my shoulder plane rotation to the new direction, which sounds so simple when I type it.
On Anne's fjord, we worked on a lot of the same lower body control, including making my "pancake" firm enough that I control the trot tempo.  I could do this sometimes, but not consistently, and Anne helped by saying she thinks of it as lifting the horse up, which is the way it feels when I get it right - like their back is connected with a spring to my seat.  And for the first time - a light bulb went off and I could feel that on a left circle, I was facing right, and how hard that makes it for the horse to balance under me.  Much like with my lessons with John when I finally felt my hands pull at the last second over a fence, I finally FELT it, so now I can start fixing it without just memorizing each individual movement.  And, I have the tools to address it, so I know what to feel for, and then what to do to my body to feel instead.  Progress!

Dr. Revenaugh

Charlie has been a wee bit off, which is not like him, so Dr. Revenaugh saw him earlier this week.
He noted that Charlie's neck is sore (the chiropractor comes tonight) and his front feet were just a little sore, but that nothing seemed especially unusual.  His hocks are bothering him a bit, so he got hock injections - which we skipped last year because he didn't seem like he needed them.
Then I'm going to give him the pack of Adequan in December, and probably follow that up with another one in June, so he gets the packs twice a year.
If he's not feeling better by the end of December, we'll take him down for a bone scan instead of experimenting for months trying to find whatever is bothering him.
I also got three more weeks of the general antibiotic for his sheath, which accumulates crud faster than any gelding I've ever known.

Hind leg at trot; outside hand

With our busy competition calendar and my lessons limited to weekends, it's been a while since I've had a flat lesson with Shannon.  Yesterday we had a very satisfying one.  The lesson before that - which I never had time to recap - Shannon suggested a hip exercise, which I have remembered to do twice.  It was swinging it forward and back, and then across, to stretch out both directions of movement.
In yesterday's lesson, there were a few themes:  Keep the contact with my outside hand - especially with the left hand, I like to cross it over his neck still; For lateral work, keep the weight balanced and even - going to the right, I put all my weight in my left hip and my left leg and then the right leg sticks uselessly out like a rudder; and then we worked on feeling when the outside hind leg is lifting.  At the walk, it is when your inside hip is moving forward, and at the trot, it is when you are sitting in the posting trot - when his inside shoulder moves forward. 
The outside hand is huge - it is why on sharp turns, especially to the right - I lose it.  That left hand goes limp or crosses over, so I have to do a big sweeping turn off his face instead of through his body.  We practiced doing 5 loop serpentines, and that helped a lot to feel how different each side is and how much smoother the turn is when I ride him into the outside hand.
Shannon also checked my warm up and said the long and low is good, so long as his head is going down - not forward and out, but that I need to ride it more forward (instead of dragging his feet around), and not to warm up like that the entire ride, but to do a few laps then get to work.
The other thing was to make sure we are set up for transitions - he should be in the Major Beale round frame, ready to canter, and straight - not go ahead and lunge for the transition without preparing.

Charlie's Dressage Test

Novice A

Fall NWEC

John knows the answer to everything

Here is what is frustrating - brain understanding is nowhere near the same as muscle memory.  It is like watching paint dry waiting for my muscles to catch up with my brain, but I'm not sure, other than running through the checklist each time I'm ride, how to speed that up beyond what we're already doing.
Charlie's run out xc:
I probably had long reins; + Charlie long and stretched out on the forehand; + rode aggressively into the ditch; + then relaxed; + probably rode a bit to the left of center (because the right leg is stronger than the left); = Charlie can't fit two stretched out strides in, is already angling left to give himself more space, and then is like what the hell, I'm already way over here, and at the last second, just runs out.
The second one was most likely him just being naughty.
The biggest error?  I said "Well, it was cross country so I was relaxed and not worried like I am for dressage and show jumping."  And the remarkable show jumping round the next day?  Because I was so pissed I actually rode it instead of cruising around waiting for Charlie to take care of everything.
I also said "I didn't have any trouble with the hard fences" and John took that as proof that when I'm riding, I ride fine, but when I'm relaxed and just cruising around (all of which was painfully true), I expect poor Charlie to just figure it all out and do it.
He said he sees it even with prelim riders; they have refusals before or after the hard fence because they are thinking about that fence - or relaxing because it's done - and not riding every fence.  He also said that usually when someone blows dressage, they ride great the next two days because they're so mad that they really ride. 
Lessons:
Keep my reins shorter.  If I can't keep them short, then shorten them back up between each fence.
Keep Charlie in between my legs and in the center of the fences.
Ride every fence like he is going to refuse.  Relax afterwards, then ride the next fence like he is going to refuse.
Don't let him get strung out and on the forehand - get big, but not long.
Keep the contact on the outside rein.  Don't yank him around with the inside hand.
Don't squeeze like an anaconda.  Aid is calf off-on-off-on, and if he's ignoring me, a hard off-on and a big smack with the whip.  Stop lifting my heels as the harder aid.
It was actually a relief, even if a huge slice of humble pie, for John to label it and tell me how to fix it.
He had us ride a course with a combination, and the first time through was irrefutable proof - I had jumped in, drifted way over to the left, and you could see Charlie's take off hoof prints from almost at the edge of the fence.
The good news?  I still have a lot more time to think than I did at this time last year, and I am starting to be able to feel my heels come up, which I think is step 2 towards being able to get them down.
We also looked at my rainy season training schedule, and John approved it:
Monday - off
Tuesday - Dressage
Wednesday - Jump
Thursday - Shannon rides
Friday - Dressage
Saturday - Lesson at John's
Sunday - Condition

October Major Beale clinic - audit or wait list

Major Jeremy Beale (from the British 3 day team and exceptional dressage instructor) will be in Olympia on October 12-13 for a clinic.  The clinic is already full, but contact Cynthia Dickinson at Peteton Farm to audit and get on the wait list for an unforgettable experience.
http://www.dressagefoundation.org/Jeremy_Beale.htm

Our first 8 in collective marks!

We knocked the socks off of our Caber dressage test two weeks ago, and had a great test.  It wasn't enough to put us in the top 5 - Novice champs is a lot harder than BN champs.
I'm happy because in reflecting on what I struggled with last year and what I am struggling with this year, this year's issues are different and a wee bit more advanced.
Also, I was really nervous about this ride - I had 5 things making me nervous - but after my nerves at Caber I had a plan, and it worked.  I really concentrated on Shannon in the warm up and tried to ignore the other riders (and also tried to ride in the quietest part of the warm up), and then as we went in, I tried to focus on rocking it instead of on how nervous I was.
Shannon point out the big improvement area is after the free walk, I don't pick my reins far enough up so we did the second half of the test more on the forehand and long than the first half.  That's an easy one to remember and fix (in theory).  She said I do the same thing on the outside of the arena - I go from an 8 trot warming up to a 4 as soon as I get out of warm up into the outside of the test.
We also only had one "bend more" comment!
The other thing that really helped was we were riding in a regular arena instead of the small one.  Charlie is so long that it gives me a lot more room to work.

Team FPEC

Jumping with John - big wasn't better

On Sunday, Shannon and I went down for a jump lesson.  It started out superb - we had our distances, we were round, we had quick changes of lead.  Then John made the fences a little bigger, which usually helps us improve, but instead, this time, we just kind of fell apart.  Not completely apart, which was almost more infuriating.  We got really hit or miss - we'd either nail the fence and float perfectly over it - or totally screw it up (in any one of what felt like an endless number of ways).  And no matter how hard I tried, I could just not pull it all together to ride them all smoothly.  It was like fine - flop - fine - fine - flop - flop.
Bigger canter.  Which means more impulsion.  Which means quit digging in my heels so when I give an aid, Charlie leaps forward.  But this is where I'm hopelessly stuck.  If I give one aid - even with a whip smack - he goes back to dull.  That is probably because I have my legs glued on, but I can't feel it. 
Faster and more precise canter lead changes.  When I get overwhelmed, I give sloppy aids and we plunge onto the forehand and quite frequently go back on the wrong lead.  If I just take a breath and think - outside hand, inside leg, outside leg, it is going slower to go faster.
Sit up in between the fences.  Especially on a long line, start with the half halt and the rebalancing about half way between the two fences - not two strides out.  And mean it.
I know this is a lot better than last year - I can think of more things and feel like I have more time between the fences - I can feel the mistakes faster, and now a lot of the time I know what to do - I'm not always fast enough or effective enough, but at least I'm not completely ignorant.  But I am going crazy that I can't figure out my lower leg for impulsion. 
As Shannon pointed out, at the show she came up with a system that works - walk on a loose rein, ask for a trot, and if he doesn't spring into it, he gets three smacks with the whip.  Then ask for it again, and usually the next three or four requests, he springs forward into it.  So that fixes the start.
But how do I fix the anaconda cling around the whole course when I can't feel I'm doing it?  I got the pulling hands about a month ago when suddenly, in a eureka moment, I could feel I was pulling, and since then, I've been able to not pull.  So I'm just waiting for that eureka moment with my heels too.  But I'm ready for you, eureka moment - I'm ready to be done working on that and start working on the next thing.  I'm tired of Shannon and John having to tell me the same thing over and over and over again.  It's humiliating that I can't get that one thing right.

Pilates with Beth

On Saturday, Charlie and I had our first pilates lesson on horseback.  It was interesting, because Beth could see the same things as Shannon, John, and Major Beale, but she had a different approach to trying to fix it.
The first visual is aligning two planes of your body - the lower pelvis (I sit too far forward, on the front points of my pelvis, so that angle needs to go back) and then your shoulder (I sit too rounded, so that angle needs to come forward).
The second series were about use of the core.  First, tightening the "armpits" which is really that muscle that's running under your armpit and connects your back.  Second is not letting my belly flop forward and back so much, but keeping it more still and letting my hips and legs absorb the motion.  Third is making my core still to halt or do a down transition.
Third is to fix the crooked pelvis.  There are a couple ways to approach this.  Going either direction, I need to twist both my hips and my shoulders to the left - to keep them lined up with Charlie.  This feels really wonky, but Beth says it's just barely straight.  The weird thing that happens here is because my pelvis is crooked, my legs feel different in the saddle when I straighten - what feels even is actually heavy on the right seat bone.
The good news was that Beth thinks these are all the same problem, so once we get it fixed, it should be a big golden moment.
I haven't had a chance to ride dressage again since the lesson, so it will be really interesting to see if I can feel it and make the adjustments on my own.

New mantra

"There are no secrets to success.  It is the result of preparation, hard work, and learning from failure."
- Colin Powell
(Thanks to my Real Simple quote of the day) 

Help wanted

Forest Park Equestrian Center is looking for a part time worker to turn out horses, clean stalls, and feed.  If you're in the Olympia area and interested, please post your contact information in a comment (I won't publish it) and I'll forward it to the owner.

Caber Farms is also looking for an upper level working student.

Willig's eulogy

I'm sorry, Willig.
I'm not sure which of the images would be your future that would make you happy, but I hope you're at peace.
Willig was a difficult horse to love, but he had his charms - his cross legged bow, his bravery chasing off his biggest fear - the deer - to protect me, and doing his best at horse shows. 
This was a terrible decision and one I hope I never have to make again. 

Charlie's show jumping round

We had a rail down, which kept us in 12th, but I'm still considering the day a success because I could feel the rail coming, and *** I knew what to do to correct it!  I didn't do it in time, or successfully, but not only could I tell what was coming, I knew how to react.  So if I had just been a little faster or a little better at the correction, the rail wouldn't have gone down.  In theory.
That's huge progress from last year!

I'm a sore loser, but I like learning lessons

I rode like crap yesterday during our dressage test at Caber.  I was pissy most of the day - although trying hard not to be - because I couldn't figure out what went wrong.  I get it that I make all kinds of mistakes, and I am still blissfully ignorant of most of them, but usually, when I flop terribly, I have an idea why.  Yesterday was a total blank, and because it was such a big jump from our status quo so far, I wanted it to be blindingly obvious why.
The day started at 4:30 am, which contributed to the pissiness, but not the flop.  On the way there, through a random bit of conversation, I realized I learned the wrong dressage test.  Ok, not the end of the world, although I also forgot my USEA book, because I had ridden it once before.  I could remember the first three movements, but that was it.  So I wandered around the show grounds until I found a rider nice enough to let me borrow her book.  I refreshed my memory of the test, and then ran it through my head several times - but I had trouble focusing on the movements the way I had been doing on the other test.  Then - lo and behold, Shannon and I both read the schedule wrong, and realized we were there all day, not just half a day.  So then I tried to get through to work, feeling like a total ass, because I had promised them I'd be in towards the end of the day.  Caber barely gets a cell signal, so I was on top of Shannon's truck trying to get an email to send to them because I couldn't get the call to go through.
And then it was time to ride.  And I just couldn't focus.
The test wasn't that bad overall - it was just one big flub of a mistake really that ruined us.  I picked up the incorrect lead on the first canter, and then did a perfect counter canter the entire next three movements.  It really was a divine counter canter - perfectly balanced.  I had no idea we were on the wrong lead.  It was not an A+ test on the other movements, but I felt pretty good about it because I could feel the little issues and could work on fixing them during the test, which is huge progress from last year.
But that wrong lead tanked me.
Then today I started having trouble focusing again.  I thought today was going to feel like a cake walk because now that I was very very close to the bottom of the pack, all the pressure was off not making a mistake.  Who cares if you make a mistake if you're already losing?
But no, I couldn't focus again, and we even had a run out over the tiny log in the warm up.
And that's when the light bulb went off and it all became worth it.  I was trying to figure out what was the difference between the derby a couple weeks ago and this show.  I have Shannon with me, so I should be doing even better, but instead, I'm riding much worse.  And then something Shannon said yesterday finally became clear - it's all the people.  The derby was relatively low key and I was alone most of the time.  The recognized show is intense - we had people almost run into us - like a couple inches away - twice in the warm up.
And let's say I have 5 units of concentration - at the recognized show I spend about 3 of them - maybe 4 - watching the other riders and stuff going on, even if I'm trying to just ride and listen to Shannon.  Shannon's voice gets through, but it's like I can't get all cylinders firing.
So I wanted to try two things - one is focus on just three things to think about when I'm competing.  Today it was "heels down, turn from the outside rein, and ride like stink".  I think my heels did ok (you can see on video), we did better than if I hadn't been thinking about turning from the outside rein, and I took "stink" to mean super fast, which was not quite what Shannon meant, but was really fun.
And the other thing I want to try is when I feel overwhelmed, Shannon said first just let her know and we can walk until there's a break, and then we'll warm up in the breaks - those weird moments where there's only a few other riders in, and just walk when it's 10-15 of them.
Of course, what I want is now that I identified what is maybe the problem, for the whole thing to just instantly be solved.
Oh, and three - I'm going to take a few moments before each ride and channel the same energy I use when I'm in court and use that in the arena.  It's bravado, I think, and I fake it in court even when I don't feel it.
I'm really disappointed in myself, but it will have been totally worth it if we made another step forward in me actually learning how to ride.
And plus, Charlie loves cross country.  It is so awesome how he perks up and just loves doing it.  He's so amazing.

Charlie the slightly slowed down lightning bolt

Charlie the lightning bolt

Jumping with John; Flatwork with Erin

Erin started my lesson today with some flat work, and having a new person saying the same thing was just what I needed.  I noticed the two rides before this one that my legs felt more drapey, but I can't figure out if it is the pilates I'm doing with the Beth Glosten video, or just (FINALLY) all of the concentrating on my legs clicking into place, so I was really curious how it would look to John and in a jump saddle.
What made it nice was we could focus on the next layer of the onion - which is keeping the outside hand steady with the contact, so that I can bend Charlie on the inside into the outside rein, which then helps him lift up.  The other thing Erin said, when Charlie was lugging around, was "off-on-off-on" with my legs, which is a helpful way for me to think about it, because my natural tendency is to "squeeze-squeeze harder-squeeze-squeeze harder". 
The other thing we worked on was being clear with the aids for the transitions - do a half halt with the outside rein, then add inside leg, then add outside leg.  When I do them clearly and in steps like that, Charlie leaps up into the canter, instead of tossing his head and falling forward into it.
Then John started with one of the same ideas - hold that outside contact steady, do a leg yield off the inside leg - have the proper bend - and THEN ask for impulsion in the trot.  This way, visually (sort of), Charlie's withers are the high point, and the front of them sort of tips down while the back lifts up.  I can feel this when it's right, but it is harder for me to get all on my own.

Then we worked up to a little course, and although it was nowhere near perfect, it was wonderful because - for the second time - I felt some of the things John and Shannon have been telling me click.  And not just click, but click in time for me to do something about it.  And not just do something - know what to do!  It was amazing!  Like a couple lessons ago when all of a sudden I could feel my hands pulling a few strides out from the fence, and once I could feel it, I could stop doing it, and I had the immediate gratification of as soon as I stopped doing it, it cleaned up the lines and made them perfect distances.  This was similar - I could feel a few strides out what needed to be fixed, and I could at least start fixing it - even if I wasn't fast enough to fix it all the way.  John commented on it too - that instead of sitting up there passive, I am finally reacting.

We also talked about next year and some of the upcoming shows, and John is going to make me a five week training schedule to get ready for NWEC.  Then I watched someone's youtube video of their training level course in the spring and thought there's no way even with five weeks, or maybe even all next year, I'll be ready!  I know Charlie can do it, but man - what a step up.  Not on the height, but on the ... technical side?  The fences are closer together, there are more turns, and more combinations and it's faster. 

Also, I need trailer driving lessons.  Mark had to get me out from between the fence and ditches.  I didn't fit through the fence, and then was unable to back out the way I came.  It was mortifying.

Day 2 with Major Beale

Today we did some crazy collected canter that neither I nor Charlie had any idea he could do!  We worked hard the entire lesson, but the only thing I can remember, just a few hours later, is how bouncy that canter was.  It was basically like Charlie was a carousel horse, going up and down on his pole.  We alternated it with some medium canter, and Charlie made it clear that he prefers doing one or the other, once he figures out what you want, but not switching all willy nilly back and forth.  He got tired towards the end, and started using any excuse he could to break to trot.
And I gave him lots of excuses because what we worked on was trying to time the transition from canter to be on the "1" beat (first hind leg underneath) so that he could step right into walk.  It was really cool, because like yesterday, what is amazing when he starts to engage his hind end is how much better I can feel everything (in addition to him being easier to ride), but I can feel the 1-2-3-hang of the canter so I know when the "1" is.  The problem is I'm thinking 1-2-3-hang and so even if I give the aid at "hang", by the time my brain thinks it and translates it down to my leg, we're already at 2 or even 3 and the aid is at the wrong time.
The other mistake I make is that I still throw my hands forward right when he does the down transition, so he stumbles into a trot instead of easing into a walk.  That one is "easy" to fix (although I haven't fixed it yet, despite Shannon telling me I do it probably two years ago), because I just have to think about planting my hands when I ask for the transition and give them some of my attention so that they stay planted, until I reverse that muscle memory.
It was so amazing, though, to be able to ride that, and to have asked for it and gotten it by myself! 
We also did some half pass at the trot (half pass is a leg yield but with their head bent in the direction of travel - so if you are turning up the center line and half passing right, the bend is to the right), and ended with some shoulder in at the trot.
I think I forgot to mention that when we worked on lengthening yesterday, you have to give a little bit so he can stretch over the topline.  I used to do that, but I was throwing my hands away, so then I quit moving them at all, and a happy medium is much better.  Too much forward and he gets unbalanced and rushing, too tight and he can't lengthen.
It was really fun and useful, and I hope to make more progress before he comes back in October.