Confusing Myself with Two Philosophies

I discovered that as of October 1st, I'd only had fifteen lessons in 2020. Sure, the global pandemic has made things *challenging* but I told myself at the beginning of this year that I'd take way more lessons. And I haven't. Ugh. But it's okay, it means I can go a little nuts this fall without feeling guilty at least! 

So, on Wednesday of last week, I had another lesson with Tracey. 

Once again, it was very different from my lesson with Tanya, but still useful, although this ride-with-two-very-different-trainers thing is starting to bug me. So, like a crazy person, I have scheduled two lessons with yet another trainer to talk to her about these things (and because she's been my friend/mentor/someone I look up to for the last 10+ years) this weekend. 

But, THIS lesson. 

This is not from the lesson but a couple days after

Tracey watched me warm up and didn't yell at me for walking too fast, so that was good. I rode as much of my typical Tanya warm up as possible - lots of bending exercises and lateral work, lots of forward and back. I have to hand it to TC, he is getting way better in that work and comes out more and more through each day, it definitely makes me feel like SOMETHING is working? Who knows what at this point though. 

Her main feedback in the beginning is to make sure I come back enough in my forward and back. That I'm too quick to shoot him off and not quick enough to half halt. Valid. I definitely feel better sending this horse over the ground (and horses in general, let's be honest) than putting him in collection. 

She also had me go a little less sideways in our leg yields for a little more balance, which was a good call because it did seem more effective that way. Given that my mantra leaving my Tanya lesson was "don't let her tell you these things again," I think we're doing well. Tanya is always saying more sideways and more forward, so next time I want to bring her a completely terrifyingly forward horse that won't go in any kind of a straight line. According to Tracey, I might have achieved this. 

Making sure it's tracking me lol

From there, she put us into canter and I instantly regretted doing it. He started out very behind me and when I put my leg on, I felt him prop behind, which is his first step toward bucking through an entire ride. I think this was in response to him getting worked somewhat hard the day before in canter in the covered arena. He hates cantering in that arena and it always makes him more behind the leg in the dressage court for some reason. 

We never really got it right. Tracey did not appreciate my way of dealing with it, but she didn't have a lot of ways to fix it other than telling me to not ask him to do anything that made him kick out. Okay. But he kicks out when I put my leg on and to me, a Third level horse scoring in the high 60s and low 70s should, I don't know, probably not kick out when I put my leg on. He does this about once a month and we just have a nice galloping day and he is committed to being in front of me for the next month. Vet has checked him out blah blah blah, it's just a thing we do. 

This set me on a rampage and I felt a little bad for getting frustrated at her. I challenged her when she said good, saying that it may look good, but I had no ability to ride him when I couldn't feel his hind legs. We had a discussion about how this might just be his conformation and maybe I just will never be able to feel his hind legs and I shot back that I could feel his hind legs just fine when he's got enough power. We honestly didn't end on a good note in the canter and I kind of want to stop writing about what a shit show it was. 

Stretching to contact like a good pony

Back in trot, I was probably a little too combative (with her, not TC, poor Tracey) after the canter. I basically said that I needed to feel his hind legs and that's all I wanted to work on. There's no point in riding this horse through movements without his hind legs because they're not going to be good and I'd already gotten a couple of digs about TC not being anywhere near ready for the level of collection required for Third level. Of course he's not showing the level of collection required, I have no hind legs. I made it very clear that when I have him in the right place, I've never not been able to ride a movement. There is even a canter I can get out of this horse where I could easily put a canter pirouette on him. I dunno, it felt kind of shitty to make proclamations to me when we've already proven that we have enough collection for Third level by scoring so well.

So we brought it way down and worked on half steps to collected trot to half steps. Tracey was impressed that TC knew his half steps and he was a good boy about coming back into them and stepping out of them. In this work, she had me think a lot about making my sit trot mechanic more vertical and said that she wanted him to be responsive to that. 

The change was great, he was way more engaged, way more collected, and seemed more softly responsive to the aids. He seemed to like it. But I couldn't shake the feeling that there was just no power in it. There's no way we move up the levels with respectable scores without power. So I asked Tracey, I like the trot, it's a nice trot, it feels good, he looks good... but it's not powerful, there's no medium trot living in it, there's a lot of floatiness but not a lot of digging into the ground and pressing upward/forward. She explained that he just needed time to gain the power in that posture/collection and I called it a day after that discussion. But I don't know, is collection attainable without impulsion? No. I wouldn't call what we got a trot with a lot of impulsion. But he did get more vertical in his chest and more upright in his front end, which is a better place for him to be and not where we get him with Tanya with his neck out like that. 

He looks downright SHORT in his back and that
inside hind leg is under my seat, whaaaaat, neither
trainer got him moving like this!

So at this point, I'm struggling with the two trainers with very different philosophies thing. All last week and weekend, I rode him a little softer and swingier than Tanya wanted, but with more energy than Tracey wanted. That seemed to be helpful (where these screenshots came from, the whole ride was like that on Friday) and I was happy with where he was. He was not as rideable as he is with Tanya, but his posture was much better. He was not as collected as he was with Tracey, but he is much more forward. You could say it was the best of both worlds or that it fell short of what both trainers want. 

If I had my pick, I'd take the power and responsiveness that Tanya provides us and combine it with the posture and collection that Tracey provides us. 

Basically, Tanya is willing to get his neck a little short and get him a little unloaded behind in order to get forward first, then we half halt to fix his neck. But I can't help thinking that I don't really ever want his neck short and his hind legs unloaded. And then on the other side, Tracey is willing to sacrifice the electric responsiveness to my aids (and therefore the power/energy) to get him in the right posture, then when he's strong there, we add the responsiveness back. But I can't help thinking that I don't really ever want him behind my leg or unresponsive. 

Hopefully my trainer friend will help me out this coming weekend. I think getting fresh eyes on him from someone who has been extraordinarily successful at all levels on off breeds and from someone who knows me so well (but not him, she only knew him as a 4yo) will be unbelievably helpful. Also as a bonus, she's fabulous at putting piaffe and passage on horses! So we'll be at least getting those half steps better developed. Fingers crossed she's the help I need! 

Sitting

At home, mostly, but also in the car and on the horse. And encouraging the horse to do so as well.

But TC is not built to sit, he is built to pull a cart. I am the dumb one here deciding to try to make a horse built to pull a cart sit down and carry himself and also me around.

Currently, TC is deep in the collection part of the training scale. We still work on the other rungs through warm up: he needs more energy/tone a lot of days, wants to get quick in the tempo, wants to retract from the connection, and wants to tilt to the right with his withers. But that's all addressed in warm up and then most days, we jump into collection.

The most difficult part for TC is the engagement, defined as the lowering of the haunches via putting more bend in the hocks during the stance phase of the gait. Another difficulty for him, being a lower tone horse, is to keep tone in his thoracic sling, which allows him to pop his withers up. Pulling a cart would not be very efficient if he kept his chest up and back and his hind legs well under his body.

Um this creature is not meant to be able to do this. The magic
of clicker training!

Soloshot decided not to get very much video of my right lead

So the collected exercises are going to be tough for him, namely the pirouettes and the piaffe. And we've started on both of those now in their lower level forms: school canter and half steps.

The school canter has taken and will continue to take a LONG TIME. He is learning to sit down though, and it's made the canter so much more accessible. I can now ride a pretty controlled canter half pass in both directions, not particularly steep, but it's recognizable! Good enough for Third level. And I've been playing with shoulder-in and haunches-in on a circle in the school canter, which has been helping me teach him that he needs to keep his front end mobile and his outside hind leg engaged which is, of course, necessary for the pirouettes.

Sitting him down in his collected canter

Letting him out of it, love his reach here, and how much he is
lifting through his chest, that's not a natural thing for him

The in hand work is stellar. He is such a pro already! His transitions in and out of the half steps have gotten better, he's much straighter, much more relaxed over his topline, and at this point, I don't even use the whip unless it's to touch him lightly on the hip, which he then gets a little surprised by.

OMG I AM SO SORRY, WILL TUCK BUTT MORE - TC

I feel bad for him when I do touch him and he gets like the above picture, even though, with a little work, that's a fucking amazing piaffe right there. He got immediately praised, fed grain, and got a break. That tension doesn't last though, he relaxes right after all of this work every single time. I've learned from several pros that this is absolutely necessary. He needs to be relaxed in this work, despite it taking everything he's got. So we do a lot of praising for relaxation before and after as well.

Generally, I'm so pleased at where he's at right now. I'm excited to be able to develop him the way I want to right now, without the pressure of shows or qualifying for All Breeds. I was hoping to do Second and Third this year, then Fourth next year and PSG in 2022, but as long as I can keep training him and all goes well, we may be shifting his move up date to PSG much sooner. Amazing how much progress happens when you can ignore shows and stop thinking of your horse as "my Second level horse" because he's doing so much more than that right now, I don't really know what level I'd put him at, but not just Second. Definitely food for thought for my plans to develop my next horse...

Mandatory Shelter In Place

As of last night at midnight, my county, along with several other counties in the bay area and beyond, put out a mandatory shelter in place.

If you're not aware (I wasn't and definitely initially thought that meant mandatory homeless shelters, which I was supportive of), this means that all bay area residents have been instructed to not leave their houses for any reason other than absolute necessities.

Every morning I feel like I have a mild panic attack reading
the news, ugh

When it was announced, I was working TC in hand. We had stopped to take a break and I'd taken off his side rein and we were just chilling. Immediately upon figuring out what it really meant, but not reading much further, I had a pit in my stomach. The one shining light in this horrible horrible storm of COVID-19 has been the barn. It's the only place I feel normal, the only place that the world doesn't seem to be collapsing in upon. The threat of that being taken away was one thing, but then a horse got cast and panicked, thrashing around, and I very nearly lost it.

It reminds me of several articles I read on chronic stress in the brain during grad school. Underlying stress, such as the stress of housing insecurity or food insecurity or even just living a life where scarcity is a big part of it (paycheck to paycheck) takes a major toll on the brain. Brains don't work properly under stress. It's why you see the rich chastise the poor for buying unnecessarily or not making good financial decisions. Decision making and self control are not easily accessible when under chronic stress.

And so while a horse being cast and panicking (horse was fine, by the way, got up and standing on all four legs just fine) normally would make me a little worried for the horse, it now sent me into near hysterics. TC was also nervous, but he immediately recovered when the horse got up. I needed a bit longer to stand there and tell myself it was okay, giving him a hug while he stood with a foot rested, begging me to start training again so he could get clicks and treats for doing his fancy prancing.

Hah, not even

We did go back to work and had a great in-hand session, then had a good rest of our ride after that. I did some lead changes and pirouette canter and then we called it a day. I might have definitely kept riding him around the ranch a little extra while getting on my conference call. Every day we get to ride right now is a gift so I'm going to take advantage of being at the barn for as long as possible each day.

Reading between the lines of the mandatory shelter in place policy, it DOES look like it's okay to go take care of people and animals. Would my horse die without me coming down to brush him, hug him, ride him, and feed him? Absolutely not. Would I suffer mentally so much that I might commit homicide? Um, decline to comment. But at this point, a lot of bay area riders (myself included) are choosing to interpret this as us being allowed to continue to ride. But some barns have already shut down even to boarders...

My barn owner walked around and told everyone yesterday that the barn would remain open. I figure it will as long as he's in charge of that decision, so for now, we are okay. Whether things will progress, well, we'll see in a week, or maybe even in an hour or two.

Hey it's me, also the rest of us

My job in academia has transitioned to full remote and we've all admitted that work seems so silly right now. It's a good distraction though, so we are starting some fun new things to help our faculty and staff access data off the network. Teaching, as far as I know it, is still happening. I've had one client decide to do remote lessons, as they are at a private facility and need to limit people coming into the property. More power to you, I'd do the same if I had my horses at home and could control that. I haven't yet heard from my other clients, so we'll see what actually happens, but I am not going to be the one to decide not to teach, at least not yet.

I'm luckily okay without my business income right now due to the SO and I combining forces housing-wise. I can't show or take lessons or do anything fun without it, but those things are off the table anyway. It'll be tight, but I'm okay.

That being said, I'm bored as shit and it would be nice to be able to do some of the things to help small businesses like buying gift cards and all that. So I'm opening up remote lessons (variable rate, please inquire), video lessons ($40/lesson), and video test riding ($10/test, I'm still in training so I figure this helps me too). If anyone is interested, please message me on IG (@alchemy.dressage) or shoot me an email (alchemydressage at gmail).

Kate and I are talking about having some zoom meetings where we just chat about biomechanics or what she's learning from her amazing groundwork person or what I'm learning from the L program. It won't be very structured or anything, but we like to think we're entertaining when we chat on the phone about this stuff. We're going to talk more about it and then if we do decide to do it, we'll make some kind of invite for people, stay tuned if you want entertainment.

Literally the SO was like "do we have enough oreos??"

Fingers crossed that the barn remains open indefinitely and that we are successful at flattening the curve. So far I've had a slight fever last Saturday evening that only lasted a few hours and was gone. I immediately canceled my clinic on Sunday and spent the entire day inside mildly freaking out as my temperature stayed normal all day. Monday I went back to normal (lol "normal" what does that word even mean right now) and I've been feeling fine since.

Hope you are all staying safe and staying at home to the best of your ability. We haven't yet seen the worst and without testing anyone, we don't know how much our efforts are working.

Piaffe Training & Fixing the Canter

On Friday, I went down to see TC. I wasn't going to, because I was going to go into work and stay there all day for a meeting. But my boss and I chatted on Thursday night and I told him that the best part of my day had been something I ate for breakfast, so he took the meeting I was supposed to go to on Friday and let me work from home. So I slept in, the boyfriend made me a latte while I worked, I put a bunch of plants in pots for our front porch, and then went down to play with TC before teaching.

I just rode TC around bareback and chatted with my trainer friend at the barn about flying changes and how difficult dressage is in general. It's nice to have such a great community of trainers to chat with on a regular basis, even if it's just to have a good bitch session.

Saturday, I prepared for the worst. Like I said yesterday, I honestly thought about not going, but I did want Tanya to help me with his piaffe, so I told myself I could just tell her that I'd deal with the canter issues on my own and that we could focus on piaffe and the trot work. But it ended up being really good, so no regrets.

More beautiful pictures from the ride on Sunday

I parked the trailer and TC unloaded totally relaxed. He's only been to this barn once before and he was a happy camper to be out and doing stuff even as we got rained on a bit while tacking up. I grabbed all my stuff for in hand work and went over to the ring. Tanya had me do a bit of warm up walking and trotting and then we walked over to the outdoor (the rain stopped, phew) with a fence so we could begin his piaffe training officially.

I've played with it a bit but Tanya is adamant that this horse have a piaffe on him by the end of the year, so we are getting serious.

Tanya's way of doing it is very simple and really worked with TC's claustrophobia. I stood in front of him, held a longe line attached to his left bit ring and a whip to use if he blew through me as we walked slowly forward. We had a side rein attached to his right bit ring to keep him straight on that side. Then Tanya came through with the piaffe whip on the hind legs. Our goal was to get two really clear, rhythmic piaffe steps and then stop and praise. We did maybe 15-20 minutes total, most of it walking or resting, and TC was a freaking star! No rearing, like I'd thought we might get to, no blasting through me. I only had to use my whip twice to remind him to give me space.

SO's spare bike that I get to ride! We're looking for one for me
but I refuse to spend too much on it because, and I quote "if I
had $3k, it'd be in my saddle fund" so we're looking for a used one

So I was stoked on that in itself! I honestly thought about being like "thanks! bye!" and heading home. But after seeing how easy the piaffe came to him, knowing that the passage was going to be his easiest gait, and feeling how much his trot has developed over the last month... I was determined to figure out what was going on with his canter.

We headed back to the arena and did a little trot work. TC felt way more under himself after the piaffe work and felt quite energetic too, phew. But then we went into canter and did some collected canter to medium canter transitions and well... it was more like behind the leg to bucking transitions.

I've spoken before about TC's weirdness with the GO aids at the canter, like uh, yesterday's post. I don't know if it's years of being told not to go under any circumstance or just his lack of a quality canter coming out. Either way, he's pretty convinced that leg on and/or whip on = buck. And so, buck we did, until he figured out that I wasn't going to let go of the reins or stop asking him to go forward. At one point, we scattered the people watching from the sidelines because he was kicking out right at eye level. At another point, I heard "don't fall off, Megan!" and I thought HE'LL HAVE TO PRY ME OFF WITH A FUCKING CROWBAR.

It took a while, but it definitely went through and I suddenly had a canter to match his trot work. He was round and jumping up under himself, and most importantly, when I put my leg on, he WENT. Tanya and I discussed the importance of me  not ever letting go of the reins on this horse. She wants him to essentially be dragging me around everywhere. Excellent, not like I spent ten years on a horse who wasn't allowed to put any weight in the bridle because he was so damn heavy, nor did I totally hop on a very heavy client's horse the day before TC. This shit is hard, yo.

Loved this field

We took a short break and then looked at the fancy trot. Holy SHIT this horse can trot. He was so amped from being told he had to go in canter that he WENT in trot. I finally got to see it in real time in the mirrors and wow this horse has some fucking presence. He bombed around the arena with me just clinging onto him. Tanya had just a few things to say, she wants me to be able to compress it a little more to shift his mass back, but without losing the energy and the fanciness. I did it once and lost the trot, then did it again and popped my leg a little bit and the horse gave me more trot than I've ever felt before, it was almost a passage, but a quick one. The air time was insane. And I obviously got no video to share! It's so infuriating that soloshot hasn't come out with their indoor tracker thing, but I'm not holding my breath.

Leaving the barn, I thought again about how well TC is doing in every gait except the canter. His trot is literally a higher quality trot than I had on Rico at Grand Prix. His piaffe is very green but it's coming on correctly with a pure rhythm. His passage is going to be too much for me to sit, I just know it. It's just the canter... We need to fix the canter for him to make it into the FEI levels. Everything else is there, if the PSG was just trot work, I'd be putting on my tails tomorrow. But the canter is going to slow us down unfortunately.

So, time to double my efforts on the canter. I don't want to bomb around in that trot too often because it's hard on his legs, so TC is getting maybe 3-5 minutes of that trot each day and that's about all the trot work I want to do with him. I need to use the rest of the time in my rides to develop the canter, but I think we can do it!

How to Manufacture a Hind Leg

When we left off, I was hyper-analyzing a situation, which, let's be real, is my near constant state, so it's nothing to write home about.

All my best friends

Kate came out to ride TC this Tuesday. She first watched me ride and asked me a lot of questions/told me what she saw:

- I started out showing her what I thought in front of my leg was. She said he looked like his back was tense and dropped. I said yes I could see that in the mirror and that it felt like I had to kind of hold him on the bit vs carry my hand, but that he felt in front of me soooo ?

- I brought him to a place where Tracey wants him but he feels behind my leg at the trot. Kate asked me to describe that and I actually couldn't describe it easily. He feels like he would stop if I took my leg off, but then when I did, he didn't stop. He feels like he would refuse to do a canter transition, but when I asked he did it. He feels like we couldn't do any lateral work from the trot, but he can.

- We went into canter and I put him in a canter where I felt like he was in front of my leg. He was mildly hollow and difficult to steer for me on the left side.

- Then I put him lower, softer, and slower at the canter and he lifted his back, but I felt like he was going to drop out from under me. He broke to trot a couple of times but nothing dramatic.

Hi, wanna see me make my neck REAL SHORT

After that, Kate got on. She rode him for a bit and I kept harassing her about what she was feeling. And then she said this:

"This is going to sound weird"
"Just tell me in whatever words make sense to you"
"I can't feel the ground, I can only feel it down to his hip but not down to his feet, there's a black hole back there"

Oh.

And she's right. When riding TC, you cannot feel his hind leg. We determined that there is some muscle not firing in his lower back that is responsible for that feeling. That muscle gets switched on in a negative way when he bolts or when I run him off his feet, so I can feel the hind legs and even if they feel like crap, I can at least feel them.

Love this place

I had brought my piaffe whip and had Kate trot around me. I tapped TC's haunches and when she could feel his hind legs, she'd pet him and I'd stop. He looked incredible. He was recruiting different muscles in his back and abdomen in those moments and you could see his hind end interact with the ground in a very different way than he normally does. More with his heel than his toe.

Kate and I switched and I got on him, handing Kate the whip. I trotted around her and aided for a shortened step while she tapped. I felt it a bit in trot, but especially coming back to walk. I felt him in front of me in the way that I had wanted. He felt like he was carrying me forward.

And it's not "in front of the leg" as much as I could feel where his haunches ended and where they were going. And THAT'S what I'm getting on my client's horse that I can't feel on TC. It has nothing to do with his level of responsiveness or being in front of the leg. It has everything to do with the way TC interacts with the ground in his hind legs.

Not for sale, if I can't afford a good hind leg, I'll make one

We brainstormed some things to implement into TC's program:

1) I am going to bring Kate out to help me on the ground once a week.
2) I am going to do piaffe work in hand once a week
3) I am going to clicker train holding his hind legs up for 30-60 seconds at a time
4) I am going to do long and low over raised trot rails
5) I am going to teach TC how to jump small cavalletis to work up to getting him comfortable with a series of small bounces

TC is also going to start adequan and I'm putting him on a muscle builder again. He's also going on some aloe pellets just in case this work stresses him out.

Tracey was concerned about putting a piaffe on him because of his mental state, but he loves me and he loves Kate, so he just thought that was a fun game. We're going to have the clicker and some cookies next time so it's even more fun for him.

I'm so grateful for friends like Kate who I can throw on my horse, tell her what I'm feeling, and ask her what she thinks of him. And now we'll see how much the piaffe training helps with all of this! Either way, it's fun to be working on something like that.

Almost Back

This weekend was a big weekend for me illness-wise. I did THINGS each day (one thing you saw yesterday!).

I rested all day Friday in preparation. Pretty much just sat on my couch all day working and then ended the day going to bed early and sleeping in on Saturday.

Me on Saturday morning

Around 10:00, I got in my car and drove the 50 minutes north (the longest I've driven since May 9th) to the Woodside Horse Park, there was an event going on and I wanted to see my event student do her show jumping round and then watch Kate's students too. In addition, Nicole was in town!

I wasn't sure how long I'd last and I wanted to longe TC afterward too. When I got out of the car, I felt pretty good, it's nice to know that driving isn't a whole ordeal. I found Nicole watching Advanced cross country and hung out with her for a while before Kate joined us.

I ended up lasting ALL DAY. I didn't leave until 5pm. I even went on Kate's BN course walk! The day's total was 12,000 steps, the most I've walked since early May. Mono can't keep me down. Well, I felt like crap on Tuesday soooo yeah.

The one picture I took at the event, look, a palomino running
around advanced!

I did get some shit from my clients who were shocked to see me after only three weeks of mono. Whatever. I felt fine, more tired than I'd normally be, but fine. I mostly felt like I'd never stepped foot inside a gym in my life, so I noticed the terrain in the course walk (hills are hard) and I did end up laying down on a jump a few times to rest while Kate was coaching.

After watching way more than I thought (everyone did amazing!) and chatting with my college student who is back for the summer (she's pulling me out of jumping-instruction retirement because she has no coach for an event in a few weeks and Nicole is putting that one on so I'd love an excuse to go visit her and Peony), I headed south.

To the softest gray nose

I had longed TC on Thursday, then gave him Friday off. On Saturday evening, he was happy to see me and glad to get out and move around.

He's looking really good even though he has also lost a lot of fitness. He was so good for me in the round pen. We worked on turns on the forehand, spiraling out to a shoulder-in type movement (he was just in the halter and longe line).

After that, I put a little pressure on him within it with the whip on top of his butt, an aid I want to use for his eventual piaffe training. I kept telling him to stay with me and when he slowed the trot but didn't break, I took the pressure off. I want him to think he can get that whip tapping to go away if he slows down so I can use it as a way to get him to tuck his little butt under him.

He's the cutest

It also has the perk of putting pressure on him and him getting that pressure to go away by slowing down versus by running out the front. I mostly care about that right now. Can I teach him that there's another way to get pressure to go away that doesn't involve him getting out over his front edge? Yes, hopefully.

He seemed to enjoy his work but I was dying by the end. Not of exhaustion, but of frustration that I can't ride him yet. I'm so excited to get back to it. I've got my trainer lined up for a lesson when I get better (she was like "listen to your doctors" and I am reluctantly doing that) and I've already planned out a last minute All Breeds push if we want to go for it. I'll see what she thinks. He's got all the movements from 2-3, it's just a matter of getting him back into fitness and polishing a few things.

Or we'll just quit dressage and trail ride for days, I don't care, I just want to ride!

This was four years ago! Look at how dark he was and how far
down my leg used to go... I thought he might end up being a
titch too small for me back then, 

It was a great day. I'm still obviously sick. Still contagious (I had to back away from everyone wanting to hug me and was really careful about staying away from people), still experiencing some symptoms, still have shit liver values (I get rechecked in another two weeks), but I'm doing way way better. This weekend was a breath of fresh air getting to spend time outside and with my friends and horse.

I still have a long way to go before I am 100% normal and able to go back to my busy life, but I'm so happy with this progress! Get in good shape, people, I shouldn't be able to do all this only half way through the shorter length of this illness, but I blame it on the insane cardiovascular fitness that my gym has dragged me kicking and screaming toward. Can't wait to get back to that, even though I hate cardio.

Adventures Await

This week I'm gearing up for some time away from TC. I basically go to this conference, come home, stay home for two nights, and then I leave again for vacation. So it's kind of a mad rush to get everything ready to leave.

Really wish it was this kind of an adventure

Tuesday morning, TC wasn't having it, which is fine. For the most part I ride two or three days in a row before a day off and Tuesday was day number four. So TC was like really. Again, he's not like that often, so I turned our ride into a tack walk with Peony and Spot, which was super fun! Peony has been working crazy hours so I haven't seen her much. It was fun to catch up and just ride our horses together!

Wednesday morning, we had to actually do real work. He felt super good. A bit quiet, but happy to get in front of my leg when asked. We mostly just hung out in those gaits for a while, riding serpentines and circles and all that.

We played a little bit with the half steps. At this point anything resembling them gets scratches. Some days he's better at it than others, and Wednesday wasn't bad at all!

Switch our expressions in this picture and that's how we both
feel about half steps

Thursday he was again feeling a bit blah like he was on Tuesday. I think that being itchy and sweaty all the time is really getting to him. I wish I could hose him off in the middle of the day on those hot days because by the time I get to him the next morning, he's all crusty and gross. Thursday morning was especially bad in the itchy department, it was HOT on Wednesday.

He's still a good egg so even though I could tell he wasn't in it, he still mostly tried. My backline was super sore from my new gym routine and that taught me a valuable lesson- I can't ride this horse well without my backline on! It's like the backline keeps his energy from oozing everywhere, so even though I felt like he was generating a lot of energy, it didn't have a lot of direction. That got both of us a little frustrated. But we still got some great work. I think he'll appreciate having a bit of a light week when I'm gone. I don't want him to lose his enthusiasm.

I think TC needs this view again too

This morning he just got a walk because I've been sleeping like crap and was really tired + had to go to work early. He'll get ridden Saturday and Sunday and then I'm off on trip number one! The first one is short so TC will just get one day off. I think he'll appreciate it. I have some queued posts so I can take a short time off of the blog too.

No More Hangovers

A few lessons ago, I wrote about how I've been having lesson hangovers ever since I started riding with my new trainer. I think it takes a little bit of time for me to adjust to a new trainer's way of doing things, so I often flail a bit in the beginning. This is why I'm pretty strict about riding solely with a new trainer for a while before I start feeling comfortable branching out. I want them to be able to put their framework up so that I can operate within it when I ride in clinics.

The days after lessons always feel like I'm making up ground. Like I got pivoted quite a lot in the lesson and now I have to go clean it up.

After this lesson though, I felt like TC and I were on the right track and I was almost able to get the same work out of him as I did in the lesson. I couldn't ride Sunday or Monday due to my saddle needing a repair, but the rest of the week, he was brilliant.

I started off by making him really march in the walk with the idea that I want to start developing the extended walk fairly soon. He came to me having, I assume, just won an award for being the World's Slowest Walker, so it's been a long long road teaching him to actually get going. He's always had a great walk, but the tempo just gets super super slow and he moseys around. Then if you ask him to add more energy, he offers trot. He's so much better now, but is still figuring it out.

The one screenshot I managed to pull from the very short and
very terrible fence video I took on Thursday. 

From there we picked up the trot and he was super game to be in front of my leg. We did a bunch of circles and serpentines, mostly to just give us time adjusting to the more energized trot. I'm a big fan of doing easy work like this to stabilize new work. Like just hanging out there for a while so that he can develop, not always pushing for bigger and more. I don't want him thinking he can never win.

On Wednesday's ride, which went similarly, I did add the shoulder-in, haunches-in, and leg yield at the trot. They weren't as good as with Tanya, but I've learned quickly that none of our work will ever be as good as it is when we're with her. But it was still miles better than a few weeks ago. He even maintained his trot in the haunches-in, where before he'd get real shuffle-y. I really want to have all lateral work confirmed in trot by the end of the year, and haunches-in is the last big push!

The trot continues to plague me with it's enormity. Every time I feel like I've got it, Tanya adds more power and I lose it again. The consequence of this is that he starts leading with his chest a bit, like in the screenshot above. I need to hold his body back and get his nose out but I just can't. I CAN'T. He is so powerful it's just enough for me to stay on him when he's in this trot. And the most frustrating is that seeing it on my crappy fence video, it's not even CLOSE to what he's capable of. Oh well, to the gym I go. And he needs to go to his pony gym too so that I don't lose his hocks so much (which is also why it's hard to sit), and that means half steps.

Previous lesson views, I really need new media

Half steps from trot seem to be harder for him than from walk, which is good to know. I think it's the aforementioned pranciness that he used to get in walk that makes him happy to do it then. But we had our third school in the half steps Tuesday and they felt really good!

We did it in both directions in trot, where I'd wait for him to lift his shoulder in it and then let him out of it. I really need to think passage transition, which is a more up and collected transition than shooting him out of it like a slingshot. I tend to want to do the latter because I get claustrophobic in collected gaits. Starting this idea early is really important for TC because I don't want to make him claustrophobic. He seems to have a lot of talent and willingness to sit, so I don't really have to worry. He has never given me the feeling of wanting to stop in the half steps!

The walk to half steps is coming along super well too, this was his second schooling of it. The first schooling we just went from not doing it, to doing it badly. This time I kept him in it until he sat back a bit more and then let him walk. It feels AMAZING. He is doing a good job staying out to the bridle in it and again, he doesn't feel like he wants to stop at all in it! That's a very new feeling for me. I guess I've only really piaffed lazy horses...?

I'm beyond stoked about the half steps on this horse. I think I'm going to try to keep them to 1-2x per week for this year while he's developing, then next year expect to be regularly schooling the piaffe. The piaffe really improves the canter, so I'm excited to see how it helps us as we stare down Second level. Just in case anyone is wondering, you don't put the passage on before the piaffe, so he will be getting passage training once as he has a piaffe on him. Probably next year, maybe starting it a bit in the fall for funzies.

What I wouldn't give to be a 15 minute drive from this place...

Back to the normal gaits- the canter was... a little out of control this week, but I'm here for that (also because it takes less muscle to ride, just more mental strength to not slow it down when it gets scary). I wanted to really make sure I got a good depth to his inside hind leg before really balancing him back, and I probably didn't balance him back enough. Wednesday I really worked on the half halt and return to the medium canter and it was feeling really good.

I still feel like we lack rideability in the canter in comparison to the trot, but I've always felt that way and the difference is becoming much smaller. I think once as we have a true collected canter, it will be much better. I just can't cheat and kill the inside hind leg to get a more rideable canter, which is kind of what I was doing and what was causing the bucking.

Speaking of, one of the amazing things that happened this week is that we had exactly ONE buck (other than him bucking when I was bareback) when I asked him to go forward in canter and he didn't. I've been working really hard to install the leg = forward button rather than leg = buck and then go forward when in trouble button. And it's totally working!

I like my current barn though, this is TC and I (and Peony and
Spot!) at it a year ago, before I realized we'd be boarding there...

Our next lesson is TOMORROW. That's craziness. I'm really excited though, and not nearly as nervous about driving over to the barn this time since I've been there before.