Difficulty Multitasking

This weekend it was *actually* sunny for the first time in a long time. I've lived in the bay area my whole life and have never experienced this sort of crazy rain. There are three highways that can take me over the mountains to get to work, and all three have been shut down regularly. Meaning I have to drive completely out of my way to get around the mountain range, then drive all the way back up to where I would have gotten off before driving further to work. All on back roads. It's been insane.

So the few days that we get glorious sun here and there are really great. It's almost weird at this point to get a break in the rain. And obviously I was sick. On weekends where it pours rain all weekend? Totally not sick. On the one weekend where it isn't raining? Of course I'm sick.

But there's a fine line between too sick to work and too sick to

jump ponies

Last time there was a break in the rain, I went to ride Ginger with Kate (almost a month ago!), and since then I haven't really ridden. I've been on Rico maybe three times at the walk, and ridden TC a handful of times doing 3-5 minutes of trot each. Other than that, no riding.

I wasn't about to let being sick and seriously out of shape keep me from jumping again, so come Sunday I headed up to her barn.

I got there and her students ran to get me Ginger again. I'm seriously loving this pony and definitely need a 15.2h version of her after TC and I figure out what we're doing. We warmed up a bit, giving my lungs a break whenever I struggled to breathe (which was a lot). Kate asked to see my half seat and I was able to hold it for like... not very long. Maybe eight strides, but that'd be being generous I think. It's such a foreign feeling, and I mean even just being ON horses at this point for longer than a few minutes is, so half seat is extra foreign. Especially with really short appropriately long stirrups.

My leg was NOT going to stay where it needed to be, and I got into my old habit of nagging with my heel every stride. Something I do NOT do if my butt is in the saddle. I think it makes me feel more stable when I'm up in half seat though. So I worked on keeping my leg down, which then made me feel like I was going to fall backwards, causing me to float forward over my hand because, you know, I fall off the back all the time. Gah.

No more pony pictures because my phone ran out of battery,

boo. But here's Rico

We did a two stride, me only realizing it was two strides after a few times through, it's so funny how what used to be really natural behavior (counting strides between jumps) is now taking extra brainpower that apparently I can't let go, lest I run at the jump, let the pony drift, or lean forward/sideways/all over.

But even with more bad habits coming up, we did work on *different* things from last time, and I only got told I was jumping ahead a few times (that first picture is a good example of it, too bad my phone ran out of battery! I think it got better... maybe not).

And you know what, this time the fun outweighed the frustration. It didn't feel so odd to be cantering down to the jumps, I didn't have this weird deer-in-the-headlights feeling about jumping. And when Kate put the jumps up, my eyes didn't bug out of my head quite so much. I mean they still did. But not as much as they did last time. 

We ended with a little course, riding the line and then turning in the air over the last fence to a diagonal fence, then going back to the line the other direction. At first it was *really* hard to turn and jump at the same time.

I told Kate that I can't do more than one thing on a horse at a time. Okay so I can do the pirouette pattern from the Grand Prix test pretty well, enough for some solid 7s at my last test- pirouette on centerline thinking about sitting tall, weighting the outside hind leg, controlling the shoulder/steps/speed/roundness/vomit coming up my esophagus, ride out straight on centerline to a straight clean big expressive change without tipping or kicking or swinging sideways and immediately set up for the second pirouette in much the same way as the first before spicing up the canter around the corner to prep for the next movement... but please don't make me turn AND jump at the same time.

I gave him the worst haircut the other day and I really need

to go redo it lol

So the first try ended with me landing and then having to do a simple change for the turn, as the pony likes to push off more with her right hind than her left, causing her to want to jump right-left and land on the left lead. The next time around I managed to get the lead over the second fence in the line, but then the pony ran out at the diagonal fence because I once again left a door open, woops.

Finally the last time, I got leads over both fences AND we jumped all the fences. Buuuuut I totally did this move I used to do on Stretch when I was showing him many years ago and leaned hard sideways to get the leads. I laughed because I feel like I'm taking Kate on a rapid journey through my jumping career. I used to duck quite a lot, now that I'm not doing that anymore, I'm revisiting my jumping ahead and leaning that plagued my teenage years.

I wonder what's coming up next! Nothing for a while, as we're entering yet another crazy rainstorm that will likely leave me off the cutest pony ever for a while.

After the lesson we went to see if Junior was feeling better from his thrush (seriously SO MUCH RAIN these days) so that I could pay Kate back for her lessons by helping her with some Second level stuff with him. Alas he avoided the work, so I gave Kate my three favorite counter canter exercises and promised to help her next time!