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!

Half Pass Realizations

I had a lesson with Tracey tonight!

It was all half pass and by the end I was about to half pass the fuck out.

Tracey asked how things were going, I hadn't seen her in two weeks and my last lesson was pretty awful. I told her things were going great, and they really are. Rico has been doing well on his conditioning schedule and I've been on my own case more to WORK him instead of just bop around and push the fun buttons. I've sunk a lot of time recently into the trot lateral work, the canter half pass zig zag, and the tempi changes.

We started with the trot work. First, Tracey was unimpressed by my ability to ride a good trot. She said "at the canter, you're always making sure you've got a great canter but at the trot, you just ride whatever he gives you." This is SO true. I am obsessive about having a good canter. When I pick up a canter, that damn horse better sit down, get up into the bridle, and do his work. When I pick up a trot, I'm like "eh, good enough," and go on with it. Tracey had me working my ass off to get a good trot and let me tell you... when we started our lateral work, that horse was on FIRE! He was such a star and sooo easy to maneuver.

Once as we were done kicking my ass about the quality of the trot, I told Tracey that I was struggling a tad with the left half pass. The right is great! I feel like I have a lot of control in that direction over the steepness, the bend, the cadence, etc. The left is still like... throw yourself across the arena and hope that it resembles a half pass enough (I'm exaggerating, we've received 7s on both sides but the left is MUCH harder).

Left half pass... looks pretty but feels terrible :(

More of my acrobatics while half passing left

Canter half pass only marginally better

She had me start with riding shoulder-in down the long side and then riding a half circle onto centerline into haunches-in. The right was easy, the half circle rode seamlessly between shoulder-in and haunches-in and I had the utmost influence over his shoulders and haunches in both. The left was not so good. I couldn't control his shoulders in the haunches-in, so instead of haunches-in, we had shoulder-out.

AND THAT'S WHEN IT ALL CLICKED!

If I'm riding a half pass and don't have control over his shoulders, I won't have any control over bend, steepness, or anything important. When I feel like I don't have bend, I pull on the inside rein which further pops his shoulder out. IT ALL MAKES SENSE!

Once as I realized that, the half passes were super easy. Except that I have a listening problem and kept doing them at the wrong starting point. This continued into the canter.

We moved on to the canter half pass and Tracey got after me for letting Rico swap leads too fast. Every time I do the zig zag, I need to start with canter half pass to quarterline or centerline, then go straight a bit, THEN do the change.

Other than that though, changes were all good (only one kicking change in each direction!) and the half passes got progressively easier and easier.

We had a tiny bit of time left so we looked at the piaffe and passage. Passage looks good! Except it's a tad quick in the tempo and Tracey hinted that it was more of a glorified cadenced collected trot than a passage at this point (shhh). We think the next Alfredo clinic will be very helpful!

The piaffe looks good but only after I got told off for doing too much. Once as Rico and I had a discussion about WHO is working their ass off to support WHO and WHO needs to sit down and do his work without his dumb rider getting too involved, it was great! Rico responded to the lightest touch and WOW it felt amazing. Tracey said it would get even better since right now the amazing feeling I'm getting is from Rico knowing "that he needs to do a two beat trot-like gait on the spot" and "he needs to learn to sit and do this ~glorious hand motions~ instead."

All I know is that the piaffe is so much more fun now!

He's come a long way since our in-hand work while he was
at the beginning of his rehab in 2011!

Overall I was very pleased. I'm feeling a lot more motivated which is great since last month I kind of lost my motivation. I'm also not freaking out nearly as much about school which is also great. I'm not completely done with it, but at least today I only contemplated moving out of the country once!

Accurate

Nine Years

Nine years ago today this little weirdo walked into my life...

His sale picture

At the vet check

Teenage Megan gets a big fancy warmblood!
Rico gets a teenager!

More updates, including how my lesson with Tracey went this week (it went well!) soon.

One Tempis

First- Happy New Year! Boyfriend and I spent New Years Eve at a party, then got up this morning to have a really nice breakfast before I headed down to ride my magnificent horse.


I've been keeping a secret for the last couple weeks. A secret you've probably guessed by the title of this post. The horse now has one tempis. Three in a row (which isn't that many but they exist!).

You see, it's dangerous when I don't ride with Tracey for a couple weeks. Rico is the kind of horse you can really push and experiment with. He never loses confidence or gets frustrated or really does anything wrong at all. In fact, a lot of the time he steps up and figures out what I'm saying and POOF we have some sort of advanced movement that we really shouldn't be schooling. Like one-tempis, the last of the Grand Prix movements that Rico needs installed.

I happened upon them one day when I decided that Rico and I were done stressing about the kicking change and were just going to play with tempis for fun. I started with 4s and 3s. Yeah every now and then he'd kick out, but the changes are getting cleaner and cleaner. I decided to do some 2s and they came SO easily. First 5 of them, then 9 of them. Hmmmm.

I kind of laughed at myself as I cantered across the diagonal and started asking for the ones. I started with just two of them- can we do a change and then another change right away?

It turns out- yes we can.

Over the couple weeks I've been playing with them. Doing two changes in a row. For a few days we only had them if I started on the left lead. We'd go left-right then right-left. Then Rico figured out the other side so then we could do right-left then left-right. Yesterday I discovered that we had three of them if I started left lead. LR then RL then LR.

Today he was just skipping around, doing his three changes in a row like it was no problem.

It's going to be a while before we have 15 of them... but I'm STOKED!! Our first lesson back from our little splint incident is on Tuesday. I'm assuming we'll do a bit in the pi/pa (which is going swimmingly) and then work on something a lot more basic than one-tempis.

2013 in Review and 2014 Goals

I've been in LA visiting the boyfriend's family for the last few days so I haven't had any time to do this blog. Today we drove back to the bay area and now I'm enjoying the rest of the day relaxing on the couch and catching up on everything!

Rico was being ridden by one of the trainers at the barn, the same person who rode him while I was in Boston! I hear that he's doing fine and I may go see him tonight. Because I haven't been riding though, I have nothing to post!

The past year has been HUGE for Rico and I. Lots of things in my life changed which at first were very overwhelming! And Rico finally made his FEI debut which was probably a lot bigger of a deal for me than it was for him. I want to go through a few key moments from 2013 and then go over my 2014 goals (including some crazy reach goals that shouldn't happen). I'll try to keep it short and sweet.

Key Moments of 2013

At the beginning of 2013, I was at a loss with Rico. I had struggled through 4-1 for the first time in several years at the end of 2012 and we scored okay. It was clear as I came into spring that I needed lessons, regular lessons, with someone who could once and for all fix us.

Hands so high! Horse broken at the 3rd!

In March I had my first lesson with Tracey Lert, a trainer who had intimidated me when I was a kid watching her teach at my childhood barn. She still intimidates me, but less so now. We started working HARD on the very very basics. My first lesson was filled of walk-trot transitions. I got to canter once in each direction. My second lesson involved only a bit more canter. All of this on a 20 meter circle for weeks.

At our first lesson

Improvements :)

In April Rico had a fall and was out until almost June. In June, however, he was going strong and we showed 4-2 twice! We scored a 63 and a 65 for two blue ribbons. (PS, May 2013 I graduated from my undergraduate).

First show at 4-2!

My brother, mom, and I at graduation! 

Second show at 4-2

Throughout July I worked hard to bring him up to par for Prix St George, one of my biggest goals with him this year. But at the end of July he attached his face to his girth, tried to lay down, and ended up injuring his pelvis.

Another rehab and we were back at the end of August (when I entered graduate school). September 8th we showed Prix St George for the first time with a 65% and second in a large class.
We continued working hard and at the end of October we ended up with a 66% at Prix St George and third in a large class.

At our second PSG

In November we headed up to SVE for our first overnight show (we didn't stay overnight) and our last PSG for the year. I was RIDICULOUSLY sick (ended up being bed ridden for a week after) and Rico was a nutcase but we still made it through and ended up with third place out of seven!

The last PSG at SVE

So talented

At the end of November I rode in Rico's first Alfredo Hernandez clinic. This was another one of my big goals with Rico and we had a blast. Rico caught onto the piaffe and passage very quickly which was a shock for Tracey and I. In early December I moved Rico to Woodmyst for the winter, and he promptly injured himself. It was a splint and we're coming back from that now!


Goals for 2014

Show at Prix St George again and improve scores on the pirouettes, extensions, and tempis
- Those three movements are always a tad hit-or-miss for us so I want to get them scoring a bit more reliably.

Qualify for CDS Championships at Prix St George (maybe...)
- CDS Champs are in LA next year, not sure if I really want to spend that kind of money, especially because the open PSG tends to be exceptionally competitive. However, it's only $10 more per show to qualify so I think I might try to at least get qualified and we'll only go if we're very competitive (we won't be).

Show at Intermediare I and score in the 60s
- This level is going to be tricky for us with the full pirouettes, 2-tempis, and the zig zag. I'm hoping to rely a bit on our trot lateral work.

Ride regularly/semi-regularly with Alfredo
- Rico is really enjoying his pi/pa work and I really want to develop them further to see if he'll actually end up being able to do the Grand Prix one day. Right now it's still a pipe dream.

Establish a solid piaffe and passage including pi/pa transitions
- Hopefully with the help of the Alfredo clinics!

Ride in a clinic with someone awesome
- I have a great horse... I dunno why I don't ride in more clinics! I need to talk to Tracey to see who she would recommend first.

Fix the kicking lead change
- Boy does this stupid change irritate me! I want it gone in 2014.

Put the ones on
- I have a secret to tell tomorrow... In 2014 I want to get his one-tempis going really well, ideally we'll get 11 or 15 which are the numbers you need to show I2/GP but just having like 4-5 in a row would be really cool!

Fix my inability to use my inside leg in half passes
- This is also incredibly irritating to me


Crazy Reach Goals (that don't even make sense but I want to have them anyway)

Ride a musical freestyle (and maybe get my USDF Silver Freestyle bar)

- I've always wanted to do one! I'm not sure if this year is the time, though. I don't have access to a court regularly and I also don't know how to cut up music and glue it back together in order (clearly I don't know how to do this, I don't even know what it's called). However, whenever I listen to songs that fit Rico's bpm, I realllllllyyyy want to try!

Debut Rico at Intermediare II in the fall
- if the stars align and I sneak behind Tracey's back, I could totally score really badly at this level!

Jump semi-regularly
- This could happen if I really wanted it to. It makes me nervous to jump my horse because of his legs but he LOVES jumping. If I keep it under 18" or 2', he should be fine. But do I want to risk a possible future Grand Prix horse just because jumping him is fun? I dunno... I do have plans to immediately sign him up for an event after his last dressage show. 

An Unstoppable Passaging Asshole

For the last two days my horse has been replaced with a giant asshole. That may not be entirely politically correct, but it's certainly very accurate. 

Today makes yesterday look good, so I'll go into detail about what I had to go through this morning.

I rode him fairly hard (harder than I thought I would with him being on rehab, the damn horse) last night due to behavior problems. When I got to him this morning, I was expecting to have a really fun ride on him with him being nice and quiet. I was wrong.

I'm speculating here, but it seems that Rico finally mustered up the courage to ask his neighbor out on a date and she rejected him, leaving him to obsess over her during all moments of the day (this is my most entertaining guess as to why I had such weird behavior out of him today). I got there and he had stopped eating his breakfast to stare at her. I said hi and he visited with me for a second, then stared at her. He stared at her the whole time I tacked him up and was reluctant to leave his stall because he couldn't stare at her while walking away, not without trying though. 

"Hey friend, look over here! Look over here!"

"Oh hey mom, have you met my neighbor who I just realized
exists and am now obsessed with?"

When I got on him, he dragged me to her stall and stared at her. I tried to turn him around and he threatened to rear so I kicked him and took him away from her. Once he was convinced that I wasn't going to let him back to his stall and that we were, indeed, going to be walking away from her, he lost his ever loving mind. 

This is very weird behavior out of Rico. My horse is LAZY and doesn't give a shit about anything, including my aids at times. Other horses will gallop around and there's Rico, just staring at them. Other horses will find something VERY SCARY and there's Rico, ignoring it and instead spooking at a leaf blowing across the road. The horse is not the sort of animal that loses his mind over what other horses are doing. But it was gone this morning!

I took him away from her and we walked down the road. I've ridden the last two times in the dark so today I thought he'd be excited to go on an adventure. He pranced the whole time.

He pranced until I got him into the arena and then he smushed himself against the rail leaning over toward her (she's a good forty yards away from the arena) while I took off my jacket. 

I then proceeded to passage my asshole around the arena. There was no trot today, there was no walk today, there was only passage. And... well... a pretty damn good one. Oh and for the first time, there were passage to piaffe transitions! And piaffe to passage transitions! And they were good! And... isn't my horse supposed to be on rehab? Yeahhhh well maybe we were both stir crazy. There was no way I was getting anything else out of him so I went with it. 

We still ended pretty early and we'll see what his leg looks like tomorrow. Based on today though, I think I can accelerate his rehab a bit, lest I fall off of my unstoppable passaging asshole. 

Little Ruby loves my boots

So freaking cute