Easing Back

In a surprising turn of events, I did two dressage rides in a row this weekend on my horse due to my work schedule and (the more surprising part of it) my life outside of work and horses getting in the way of any off property adventures.

The work part of it did include a last minute show for one of my students who earned a couple of 65%+ scores at her first ever dressage show. I had to translate them into event scores for her and then she was very excited.

Life outside of horses and work included this
cup of hot chocolate and one more cookie
than I was initially provided with

TC was still a very good boy for those rides! The dressage is coming along and I figured I'd share in bullet points because I'm tired.

The Good

- We had some of the best quality canter in a long time with a nice big moment of suspension

- On Sunday, I was able to add pressure to the trot without him losing his mind

- The walk pirouettes are still on point and are helping me (and him probably) get a feeling of where I want his balance all the time

- He still has a shoulder-in and haunches-in

- We both had fun!


The... Still Needs Improvement

- With working to get him in self carriage in his larger gaits, the steering has gone to shit, especially at the canter.

- I still want more rideability in the canter in terms of half halts and lateral work

- The sitting trot still feels like I'm holding him back quite a bit

- Everything obviously still needs way more tone, but we're starting to work on that now

He's been napping the last couple of times I've come to get him
and he's so freaking cute

This week he had Monday off because I didn't get enough sleep Friday, Saturday, or Sunday nights and by the time I got to Monday morning I was just NOT having it.

Tuesday (which is happening right now) and Wednesday I'm planning on one long line session and one ride. Then he'll get Thursday off and then Friday another ride before, fingers crossed, Saturday we go on a trail ride. I have a lot of work to do Saturday (phew, as April was not a good teaching month) so it might get in the way, but hopefully we'll hit the trails sooner or later.

In other news, we signed up for our second ever working equitation clinic in a couple of weeks! I'm really excited to play with the obstacle course again. He was so good last time that I think this time I'll be able to relax and have a bit more fun doing it.

Finding a Balance

My blog has gotten pretty boring lately. It's kind of just post after post of me riding my horse on the trails.

As much as I love dressage, I'm really enjoying not having it be my main focus right now. Trail riding is so much fun, and last week I hopped on TC bareback and wandered around the ranch on him one morning.

Where shall we go, TC?

I do want to do dressage though. But I am trying to come up with a way of doing it that is less intense for me. TC is still at a low enough level where he doesn't need to do dressage 5-6x per week to make progress. I went straight from riding Rico at a very high level to then applying a lot of my dedication and type-A-ness on TC. For a while, he was young and then he was on rehab, so I had a lot of down time.

But having 2017 be all about Training Level and 2018 be all about First Level put a ton of pressure on me to have 2019 be about Second Level and then 2020 be about Third Level and then hopefully somewhere in there skip up to PSG for 2021 and go to championships then and then make Grand Prix before he hit a certain age so I could have two years then and then sell him for THIS amount of money and put THIS percentage away and take at least THIS much to buy my next prospect...

I had unknowingly thrown myself back into that intensity. This winter with everything slowing us down just made me more eager, setting up the show season, making plans, putting in the rides even though it was cold and rainy and awful outside and my horse's crazy made me crazy.

So when things got a little tricky with TC (as they always do with training horses), I did what I knew to do, throw myself into it even harder. But the more I worked, the worse things got, and that's when I brought him down to ground work for a few weeks.

Wandering is so fun

Since then, things have been way better and I'm actually enjoying it all a lot more. Not because of the future and what it holds, not because I'm thinking of how much this work will pay off in the show ring, or imagining cantering down centerline in my shadbelly again, but because I enjoyed my ride today. And I enjoyed my ride yesterday. And I enjoyed trail riding this last weekend and riding bareback.

But where to go from here?

It's very true that I am way way happier without doing dressage seriously. I've had moments where I wonder if I should just forgo competing all together and just play with TC. Sometimes that means dressage, sometimes that means trail riding, sometimes that means bareback riding, sometimes that means ground work.

BUT there's more to my life with horses aside from just having a good freaking time. I love dressage, I love tangible progress, I love showing, I love taking lessons, and I love learning. It's hard sometimes but it's all worth it. My Gold medal was worth all the hours of work, the blood, the sweat, the tears (lots of tears).

I've thought a lot about it, a lot, and I think the best path forward is to find a healthy balance. But I am not a person who is good at balance. I go go go go until I burn out and then I get frustrated, take a second, reevaluate, overthink things, and then go go go go again until burn out hits me.

Trails are definitely the cure for burn out

I want my cake and I want to eat it too. I want to wander around bareback, go on trail rides whenever I have a free day, ride TC at the beach, do working equitation, play around with ground work, and just enjoy my horse without my show schedule and goals looming over me. I also want to compete and achieve those goals and get high scores and get pretty ribbons and have a super fun rideable horse in the arena.

It's not rocket science to find a balance. I've put together a sample schedule, it was really easy:

Monday: day off
Tuesday: dressage
Wednesday: long line/ ground work
Thursday: dressage
Friday: day off
Saturday: dressage
Sunday: trail ride

But sticking to a schedule feels like I'm getting all Type-A about my fun. Oh, you can only have non-dressage fun on your assigned non-dressage fun days, the other days are for dressage (which is fun but a different kind of fun, you know?).

More trails please

So I'm not sure what balance will eventually look like. I might have to force fun on myself as I swing back into dressage.

I think as long as I keep trail rides in my calendar every weekend that I have open, and I use TC's days off to ride him around bareback, and I do at least one ground work day a week, I think I should be able to delay burning out again. Who knows? For now, I'm just glad to be back to enjoying essentially every moment I spend with my horse.

L Program: The Beginning

I mentioned in passing a while back that I signed up for the L program that starts this fall! I'm really excited for a number of reasons.

First, other than the Mary clinics (which feel different), I haven't devoted this kind of time to horse-related education in a long time. Don't get me wrong, I take lessons and am nearly constantly disseminating information with Kate, but this involves a test and a body of knowledge that has been prepared for me rather than drawing my own conclusions at my own pace. I love school (I work at one) so it feels more school-like than anything! Fun!

Second, I do want to be a judge in some capacity. It's good additional money and I like being judgmental. But it will also be great to be able to bring a judge's perspective to my teaching. Even the other week I had a young student get a 0 on a test and was able to tell them that the judge was out of line, you should not get a 0 ever (they should ring you off course if you don't perform the movement and you should get at least a 1 or a 2 if you even attempt the movement). But I had to confirm that with my judge friend to be able to say "my judge friend says this is true," vs being able to say "I've had judge training and know this from that."

I'm not sure what my end goal with the judging is. Being an L grad (L grads are not judges FYI) allows me to judge at schooling shows, which is great. But as you move up, the training becomes more expensive and more involved and we'll see if the other programs seem worth doing.

Weeeeee

The L program is split into two parts.

Part 1: "A Judge's Perspective"
Open to all USDF Members

Session A: introduction to judging and biomechanics
Session B: judging criteria for gaits and paces, movements, and figures
Session C: collective marks, equitation, rider biomechanics, and basics


Part 2: "Candidates Evaluation"
Open to Participating Members with 3 verified scores from USEF. Two scores of 65% or higher at the highest test of Second level and one score of 62% or higher at Third level or above.

Session D1: practicing judging full tests in each of the levels at recognized competition
Session D2: emphasis on testing situation and preparation of final exam
Final Exam: written and practical exam

The final written exam is all true/false and multiple choice. The practical exam involves judging full tests and some oral judging as well.

I get a 10 on that last movement
every time

So far, only a part one has been planned for October, November, and January. If they get enough interest, they will hold a part two but there's a chance I may need to fly even further to get a part two in time, but I'm focusing on the part one first.

I've paid the deposit for the first part ($550) and will owe the rest (I want to say $400-800 but you can tell I forget how much it is) in September. I'm also going to be flying there, renting a hotel and maybe a car (or racking up uber expenses), and having to feed myself. Plus the loss of work on those weekends! Luckily I have a ton of travel points saved up so I will be utilizing that for this program. I was saving to fully cover the travel-related expenses for a trip to Europe but I'm like, hey, let's be real here, I'm not going to Europe any time soon on this budget.


I plan on blogging the entire experience, of course, most of my life is on this blog. My plan for this series is to share as much as possible about the process. I want to share the education materials (as much as I'm allowed, not sure what they look like yet), how the program goes for me, and of course, what it all costs.

Has anyone gone through the entire program?

Q1 Goals Review and Q2 Goals

Woops.

At the beginning of April, I should have gone through my first quarter's goals, but I was busy going rogue with that kind of thing. Worth looking back on though, and setting up some goals between now and July!


Q1 Goals (Jan, Feb, Mar)

TC
- stay sane and sound
Sound, yep, sane, debatable but getting better

- TC comes back into work well
Yep!

- fix the corkscrew (tilting off his left hind onto his right side)
I'm not noticing it much anymore! 

- see if the LR change comes on when that is done
It did, but then I didn't work on them

- improve the RL change
It was getting better but now we're not working on them

- perfect the haunches-in
Not working on it

- perfect the counter canter
Not working on it

- shoulder-fore for days, especially in canter
Not working on it

- go on a field trip somewhere
We've been on a ton of trips this year!

- take at least two lessons
I took only one (I've taken two but the second one was in April)

- maybe make our rated Second level debut at Greenville at the end of March
Nope



My Riding
- have fun at the Mary Wanless clinic!
Yes!

- keep working to draw him to my left side by letting go with my left thigh
Definitely improved

- keep working on my hips being a bit less stuck
Still a struggle

- elbows soft in the sitting trot
Definitely improved


Teaching
- keep working on squashing the impostor syndrome
Still really struggling but getting better

- hit 20 lessons each month of this quarter
I did in January and March

- teach 2 new people
I think I did... 

- reach out to pony clubs
Yep

- put up two fliers
No fliers yet... 

- sign up for the L program :D
Yes!


Msc
- find a new crossfit box that works for me
Yes!

- see my massage therapist for my wrist injury at least three times
Looking for a new one, the schedule is too hard to maintain :( 

- get my cardio and strength back to where it was pre-smoke
It's back! It's even better than it was

- PR on anything would be great
PR power clean! 

- more dedication to meal prep & getting enough calories
Now that I'm working out less, calories hasn't been as hard, I've only had a few days where I ate significantly less than I should have

- more dedication to staying hydrated
This has been hit or miss



So it was kind of a bust, but that's fine!


Q2 Goals (April, May, June)

TC
- stay sane and sound
- trail ride a lot
- continue ground work 1-2x/week
- continue working on his aversion to pressure
- slowly get back to work in the arena
- improve connection, esp on the outside, esp tracking left
- would love to be back to schooling all of Second by the end of the quarter
- take at least one lesson a month

My Riding
- work on kneeling on the right side
- fix my weird canter connection issues to the left
- increase bear down
- decrease dependence on thigh at canter

Teaching
- put up fliers
- hit 20 lessons/rides a month this quarter
- teach two new people this quarter
- update website
- post on social media

Msc
- Another PR on something would be nice (as of writing this I've already PR'd my strict press by 15lbs)
- incorporate some strength/accessory work at home or at my work gym (my box programs a TON of cardio, not enough strength IMO)
- see PT for my wrist and anterior ankle impingement
- find a massage therapist in this area for my wrist

Windy Day Wanderings

This weekend, TC and I managed to squeeze in our fourth trail ride of the year!

I was busy all weekend, so I inadvertently set us up for a really bad time. It was cold and windy when I put him in the trailer late on Sunday afternoon. He'd had a day off the day before and as I pulled in, there was another trailer with horses tied to it there to distract him.

Best view! 

Because I'm a smart person, I also decided to go on a new trail for him that day.

TC has been on two trails at that facility, what we called the short loop and the long loop. The short loop is where we normally ride, it's a little over 4 miles and really friendly. The long loop, we've only done once a very long time ago. It's almost 6 miles but has a ton of climbing.

This weekend we did a little over 6 miles with less climbing and despite what I said above, TC was great!

There were a lot of opportunities to be naughty too, like the wild turkey that ran across our path (TC did strongly consider murdering it), all the birds playing in the wind, the very narrow single track trail we were on for a while, and so on.

There were some great views from this trail

I'm still so enjoying trail riding him. I've mapped out a few more trails to try at this facility, and then I think it's time to branch out.

All the other facilities are a bit further. This one is only a 10 minute haul from the barn so it makes it pretty easy to get out  there. The next place we'll probably go is Calero, which is about a 30 minute haul, possibly a bit further because the road gets narrow sometimes and I go slowly.

Bel-Eighted

TC turned eight last week! I was not on top of my game with his birthday celebration so I ended up doing it on Friday and then forgetting that I had the pictures until this week. Oops.

I've been able to celebrate the majority of his birthdays with him so far (four, five, six, seven, and now eight), though the tradition of dressing him up started with his sixth birthday.

He got an 8 made of carrots

When he was six, he was kind of horrified about it. When he was seven, he was still mildly horrified. This time it seemed like he was like "oh this, when she puts weird shit on me" and just let me do it! He's always been really skeptical of wearing things on his head (hates them touching his ears) but another year's worth of tormenting him with wearing everything as a hat has paid off.

I had to scour my pictures to get an unpleasant facial expression for instagram, but look how happy he is!

I ended up moving him out of the sun to get better lighting,
but look at his cute face! 

It's my birthday??

TC's seven year old year was great! We worked hard on the dressage to finish the year as champions at First level for his breed. We also earned reserve champion for First level for our chapter of our enormous GMO.

I'm so looking forward to branching out a bit for his eight year old year. On the docket this year we have lots of trail riding, doing another working equitation clinic, maybe competing in cowboy dressage (they have a ground work test!), riding at the beach, maybe horse camping, and of course, hopefully debuting in the rated ring at Second level.

Happy pony

WW: Current Progress

Kate was so nice to video a ton of my lesson on Saturday! It took me a second, but here are a bunch of gifs. I think for not being ridden in a while, he looks pretty good. I've got plenty to work on myself but I'm not unhappy with the way we look! 

Trot work early on

Definitely haven't sat enough trot recently, yikes

Canter left was only a bit unsteerable

He was such a good boy in the bridle this lesson

Mildly out of control to the right at the canter

I just felt so rusty, but I like how soft he is (both dressage-wise
and non-dressage-wise) 

Pinnacles National Park

It was my dad's 65th birthday on Sunday and he didn't want a party or a big deal made of him, he wanted to see birds. More specifically, he wanted to see the California Condors that reside at Pinnacles National Park. So Sunday morning, my brother, my dad, and I hopped in the car with our hiking and birding equipment and headed south.

High Peaks Trail

My aunts (dad's sister and her wife) met us there and we had such an amazing time! We did the High Peaks trail that looped along to the Condor Gulch trail. There were no caves on this trail, but that was okay because for my dad's birthday, we saw three California Condors! They were huge.

I was super pleased with my cardiovascular fitness and recovery. I never once felt tired or even all that out of breath. The moment I stopped walking, I recovered super quickly.

Here are some (more)  pictures from the day!

The moment we saw the Condors!

Even more birding

Saw them again!

Brother, dad, aunt, aunt (dad's sister), me! 

Love me some national parks

Flora 

There were tons of poppies! 

Unfurling

On Saturday, I had a lesson! I was kind of apprehensive about this lesson just because I had only ridden him in an enclosed space... twice... in about three weeks. But luckily the clinician is a friend and I explained the situation to her.

The day before, Friday, TC was really good in the arena. The last time we rode in the covered arena, he was a tense mess of a horse, but this time with my new tools, I was able to diffuse any tension or nerves caused by external stimuli and kept the pressure off of him on my part. So we ended up having a great ride and I felt better about my lesson.

Some pictures from Pinnacles on Sunday!

Saturday was nice and warm (as opposed to today which has RAIN on the weather report, wtf) and I rode early enough to avoid the heat without it being so early that it was cold. I was excited to have Alexis finally see TC in person and to finally get a lesson again.

Here's some stuff we went over:

Increase Pressure in Walk First

Alexis said that one of the ways she deals with her pressure-averse horse is to increase pressure at the walk in warm up and do some walk pirouettes. I have more control in the walk anyway and can address his weirdness with pressure there before taking it into trot or canter. Will definitely be trying this!

Almost at the very top, looking back on what we just climbed

Back to Front Force in My Body

I expressed that one of the issues I was having was the feeling that I had backward thinking hands all the time. I had to kind of low key hold TC back at all times and when I went to forward thinking hands, he zipped off.

I do have to give both TC and I credit, he was VERY good about not doing this on Saturday and I was very happy with that.

Alexis noted that when I go to forward thinking hands, I let go of my upper body too much. I got scolded for trying to catch him in a bad moment (like testing him) rather than giving him the rein to help with his balance. Part of me is like, sure, I should support him more, it's not fair to throw him away. The other part of me is like, he shouldn't just surge forward even if I were to chuck the reins at him and fling myself around on top of him. There can be a balance there though, and I will work on increasing support with the rest of my body when I push my hands forward.

But things did improve when I focused a lot on bringing my front to back force on and pushing my hands forward while engaging my lats, biceps, and upper back.

It was such a nice day

Unfurling Front Leg

Alexis noted that TC has a weird mechanic with his front legs. As he's trotting (and in the canter, the non-leading front leg does this too), he doesn't complete his step where his toe is pointed, and instead starts to retract his leg before it hits the ground.

After thinking about this for a day and a half, I think this is completely related to (if not the exact same thing in different words) his tendency to lead with his chest. When he leads with his chest, his chest gets in front of the foot before it lands, versus landing and then pulling backward.

As I got his chest better back, his leg looked way more normal, though he felt way more downhill. When his foot lands directly under his body rather than in front of it, it positions his elbow under his shoulder and that causes him to feel (artificially) more uphill to me. I had to think about pushing him more downhill in the shoulder to get him to flatten the shoulder, pull his chest back, and get his foot out in front of him rather than under him so much.

Just another reason why I NEED MIRRORS, and probably more lessons. TC has historically not felt the same way that he looks.

It was such a cool hike, more on that tomorrow

Instead of Reinventing Him, Change Him 1%

Alexis was not thrilled with my decision to take him to ground work for a couple of weeks. She wanted me to be happier with small changes day to day and work slowly to improve what he was giving me rather than scratching all of that and redoing it in the round pen.

There are many roads that lead to Rome, and that is definitely one of them. I could slowly work on transitions day to day, slowly gain more control over his balance, and slowly get him back to where he was. That totally would have worked. What I did didn't not work though, and it was, IMO, way better for my own mental health as well as, IMO, way better for his.

I am a professional in that I teach lessons and show in the open division, but on my own horse, I am way more like an amateur. I ride in the mornings before sitting in my car for my too-long commute on the way to my office where I sit for another eight hours doing sometimes stressful things, I cross train at the gym in the evenings and get home too late and go right to bed to then get up and ride my one horse again. When one horse out of eight I ride each day is stressful, I have the other seven to remind myself that I know what I'm doing and that progress happens. When 100% of my horses are stressful each day (aka 1/1), I then go to work and dwell on it.

The last couple of weeks at work have been more stressful than usual, so taking things back to ground work was not because I thought it was the only solution or even that I thought it was the best solution, it was a way to change the conversation into one I wanted to have with him so that I left the barn feeling good about things and not adding to the stress of my job. Work has settled down and TC has continued to improve the last few weeks. He's fun to ride again!

There isn't one answer, and maybe I didn't pick the most effective one, but it worked and I'm happy with our progress. I will definitely work on being happy with a 1% change, but I am also going to set both TC and I up for success and sometimes that means changing the subject for a week or two!

It's not the most beautiful national park, but I do love it

Generally

I'm pretty happy with how my lesson went! It was a good combination of all toolkits, I have some tangible homework to work on, and it is always great to hear things I haven't heard before.

I'm still working on finding a trainer to ride with in this area, but Alexis will eventually be back in the area and has offered to ride TC next time! He's been ridden by a few different people so far, but never been ridden by someone with her experience. So I'm prepared to be told how feral he is.

WW: Trail Horse

I keep taking pictures out on the trail and they all look the same, but I still wanted to post them. I love this facility! We definitely need to branch out soon, but I'm so enjoying riding on these trails so often. I'm finding myself super bummed out that I won't be back out there until at least the 20th. 

Creeping on people

Sneaking up the secret back trail that was
kind of muddy

This place is so damn pretty

Screaming the song of his people

Looking out over the valley

Hi Silicon Valley!

Wandering

I love that tree

My favorite tree

Hanging out with a cow

Love this view

Back Undersaddle

I rode my horse yesterday! Like in an enclosed space! For the first time in a week and a half or so.

I stopped riding him mostly because of my own issues, I was getting frustrated and that's not the way to deal with a horse with a lot of tension.

Since my last arena ride, he's gone on a few trail rides and also been chiropracted (thanks Kate for arranging it!) where he was deemed as being pretty messed up. He was struggling with his lumbar area, which was basically frozen. It's a normal thing for him, though I didn't realize how bad it had gotten. Definitely getting her out regularly for a while!

I opted to ride him in the round pen, which kept me in a better mindset than I think the covered arena would.

Round pen! 

My main goals recently have been to get TC more comfortable in self carriage. Both in the bridle and just being able to pick up the trot and not just get faster and faster and faster. He needs to be in charge of his own balance. In addition, I want to feel like my aids go through him and he stays with me.

I've watched two of Kate's recent lessons with new trainers and both of them have very different perspectives (one isn't a dressage trainer actually) that made me think about TC's situation and I applied things from them on Monday.

I started at the walk on a loose rein. When TC would get distracted, I would take the inside rein and bring him around on a small circle (trainer 1) to redirect him. Rather than add tension when he's distracted, I just changed the subject and insisted that he stay with me without closing any doors (outside rein remained loose). TC slowly relaxed a bit and while it wasn't as dressage-oriented as it will eventually need to be, I did feel like he stayed with me and was way softer (in a non-dressage way) than he had started out.

Lots of grass in the paddock (well, not anymore)

From there, I did some turns on the forehand (trainer 2) to help him loosen up his lumbar area and be able to put my leg on him without him zipping off. I also paired this with a rein aid. Trainer 2 is probably not someone I will ride with, but she did have a really good point to say that she likes to pair the rein aid with engagement of the hindquarters, so then when you use the rein, the horse thinks with their hind feet. I was able to use my inside rein in combination with my inside leg to ask him to step over with his inside hind leg and I could feel him soften both to the rein aid and over his back.

We picked up the trot to the left and it felt really great, he still wants to get charging though, but his whoa button is real sharp right now, so I didn't feel like I had to hold him back so much with the reins.

To the right though, complete disaster. I switched to sitting trot and got the familiar zippy feeling before I came back to walk and worked on the turns again. I kept him in the turn on the forehand (which is way more like shoulder-in on a small circle than an actual turn on the forehand) from rein and leg aid and then asked him to trot and holy shit, he stayed with me for the first time tracking right in a long time. It was hard for him, but instead of running off, he just walked when he got fatigued. If he got quick, I could increase the angle of the turn and he'd get his hind legs under him and slow down. All of this with minimal connection on the outside rein, so he never got to that claustrophobic place where he wanted to bust through the reins.

Portrait mode is endlessly entertaining to me

It wasn't perfect and we have SO LONG to go before I really feel like I can ride him for real again, but the point is that we had a really positive, fun ride with no major bolting or tension.

My plan is to continue working on this stuff until it becomes way more ingrained, and then back off to a schedule that still includes long lining at least once a week (also a trail ride!). With him out in the paddock too, days off can happen more often without me feeling bad about it. So I think his life will be very different this year.

Generally I'm feeling really good about this progress. I've been working a lot on myself with taking off the pressure of showing (and showing because I want to not because I feel obligated to) and just freaking enjoying my horse and the process of training him. It's been a really fun few weeks and I'm looking forward to returning to dressage with a better mindset and a horse with a better foundation!