Burning Abs and Other Side Effects of Dressage Lessons

Rico saw the chiropractor on Saturday and his back is all better! He was just a tad out in his pelvis and lower back, plus a little sore in his under neck and lower back- all very normal, according to my chiropractor, for a horse at his level. It was nice to hear how good Rico was looking too! I think he looks great but I'm a tad biased. 

I was able to work on the pirouette exercise on Sunday, then did another stretchy snaffle ride on Monday before my lesson tonight. 

The lesson was BRUTAL. Upon hearing that my back was okay to sit the trot (I sat on Monday and it was weak but not painful), Tracey proceeded to demonstrate over and over again that despite the level I'm riding at, I have NO idea what I'm doing up there. 

It's all a lie up there... 

Lies! 

First was attacking my position. I've always been a *pretty* rider, not always very effective, but I always sat pretty in the tack. Because of this, no one really taught me HOW to sit in the tack, especially at the trot. I told Tracey this and she said that a lot of trainers neglect the trot biomechanics on people who aren't actively against the horse. I can see how that happens, I certainly don't spend weeks and months improving the sitting trot in my riders who don't need it. But at this level and as we're moving (albeit at a snails pace with a lot of obstacles in front of us) toward Grand Prix, I need to sit perfect in the tack.

So today I had one of my first lessons on the biomechanics of sitting the trot. 

I tend to get behind the motion slightly. Tracey said that the front of my body from my collarbone to the saddle and the back of my body from my shoulders to the saddle need to be the same length. I was shortening the back of my body and lengthening the front of my body which would then lead to my reins being too long and Rico being folded up slightly behind the vertical as I'm essentially waterskiing behind him. 

Instead, I needed to pull my seat back in the tack (which is made harder by the riser pad under my saddle that I don't think I need anymore) and push my chest forward, not by arching my back, but by bending my hip. This allowed me to absorb shock better and VOILA my legs stayed still! I've been being harassed by Tracey about my legs for a few months now and no matter what I did, I couldn't keep them still without tightening my entire body up. 

She then insisted that I sit like this for the remainder of our lesson (uhhh what?). Despite my intensely burning abdomen, it was MUCH easier to ride once I was in the correct balance! Rico was a lot more forward and much better in the connection. It was also a lot easier for me to focus on the quality of the trot once I could actually feel the cadence better. 

We did some lateral work at the trot, playing with maintaining the cadence I had gained by sitting correctly, and also maintaining the lateral suppleness in the right half pass and shoulder-in. Rico tends to suck back away from the left rein, which means that in his lateral work to the right, he gets a bit tilty in the poll. 

After trot work, we briefly rode some walk pirouettes which reminded me that I needed to spend more time in walk. I struggle with feeling what is going on underneath me at the walk and can't aid effectively enough. Sigh...

We then played with the half pass at the canter. The right is fine, but the left is BAD. SO BAD. We spent a lot of time on it, but what we realized was that I am so crooked that direction that I don't know what a real half pass feels like. I'm always shoving him more and more sideways and more and more crooked that when he's doing it right, it feels bad, and when he's struggling and doing it poorly, it feels fine! 

So my homework is to stare at the mirror until I sit better and can half pass effectively! 

In other news, Rico's 18th birthday is TOMORROW!! 

Eighteen?!

AND guess who we see in a couple weeks?

Back to Alfredo!!

Fantastic Pirouettes

This morning I woke up in a lot of pain because I had tried to push myself up in the middle of the night without thinking and had hyperextended my back. It felt kind of twinge-y all day in a spot that hasn't hurt me in a long long time.

About 8 years ago, my back was seriously injured by a certain brown horse at his first show at First level. A water truck came into the arena and this horse chucked me up into the air and then generously caught me on his back. Unfortunately my back was arched at the time and when I landed, a disc in my back slipped. Obviously it was very painful, but it also gave me a weird twinge in the joint, like it was unstable.

"I would NEVER do that"

I took a couple weeks off of riding, pledged never to ride without my back brace again, and managed to get through half of Junior Championships before being forced off my horse for 6 months that winter. Ugh. Luckily, it hasn't hurt me since. My other injury (facets in L4, L5, S1) have certainly hurt, but not this weird disc thing.

Until now!

That being said, tonight I had a lesson with Tracey and it was great! I tried to sit the trot during warm up and my back wasn't having it. I went into canter and it felt okay so we worked primarily at walk and canter.

We started with some walk-halt and halt-walk transitions. One of the most wonderful and most frustrating parts about lessons with Tracey is her amazing ability to make any exercise, big or small, rather difficult. By the time I got to Prix St George, I'd have thought I knew how to halt. Turns out, nope. Rico tends to *stop* which is very different from a *halt* which I didn't really know. When I ask for halt, Rico stops his legs. They just stop moving. Evidently this doesn't count as a halt.

We worked on keeping him up to the bridle and over his back in the walk, then insisted that he complete the halt with all 4 legs, not just one and then the rest cement into the ground. By the end, I really felt a big difference!

After that, we did a bit of work in the quality of the canter before moving on to a great canter pirouette exercise.

Rico has been getting MUCH better at his pirouettes lately. But it still feels like I aid for it, then I hold on, he does the pirouette, then I regain control. So from the outside, they're looking better! But from where I'm sitting, I still don't have much control over what happens inside them.

Zero control but nice sitting on
Rico's part!

Tracey had me establish a good connection on a 20 meter circle, then had me maintain the connection, length in the neck, bend, energy, and collection as I went to a 10 meter circle. This alone was hard! Rico wanted to get short in the neck, lose the energy, collect too much, and become hollow in his neck and back. We did a lot of just cantering on a 10 meter circle allowing me to gain more influence over these requirements.

After that, she had me put him in haunches-in on the 10 meter circle maintaining that long list of requirements. To the left, Rico was able to figure it out pretty well! To the right, we both struggled but by the end were able to get something resembling a working pirouette.


I was really pleased with the exercise because it felt like I had a lot more influence over the connection, bend, energy, and collection in a way that I hadn't before. Like during a pirouette I could actually make a correction and that correction would go through without making the pirouette worse.

This made me feel like we were making some real progress!