(Ruby & I at a 2-Phase competition a couple of years ago)
I haven’t written about my riding in a while, but I did want
to post an update before much more time passes. I have to say that I am having
an excellent time riding this season. I decided at the beginning of the Summer
that I wanted to add an additional lesson (a private) to my week, at least for
a few months. I think this has worked out well for me as it has allowed me to
have some great focus, has helped motivate me and I find that having that
private lesson on Thursday, after my group lesson on Wednesday, gives me the opportunity
to have some good scrutiny to work on things that maybe came up the day before,
to zero in on stuff that needs more attention, or just to build on things that
we worked on in the first lesson.
The other thing that I have made a commitment to with my
riding is jumping on my own more. I posted this a couple of months ago about how I
am regarded as a kind of a “jumping scrooge” at my barn. Well, in the interest
of trying to make jumping more “been-there-done-that” / ho-hum / no-big-deal
for myself, I have made some good steps towards banishing this image of myself
as well.
I have gotten pretty good about jumping at least one session per
week on my own and have slowly been increasing the amount of jumping that I
will make myself do. I started with jumping a couple of little fences at a time
and then calling it “done”. I now will jump pretty much anything set up in the
ring, as well as some stuff in the field (including the up & down banks). I
have also been increasing the height of the fences that I do on my own. My
attitude about jumping has improved to the point where it doesn’t faze me to
jump around combinations of 3’ (or so) fences by myself. Of course, my trainer
is also happy since, when it comes time for my jumping lessons, I’m no longer
whining or giving her a hard time about jump height. It’s a work in progress,
but the more I jump, the more I find that I want to jump! Funny how that works.
My Dressage work with Ruby continues to have its
frustrations. About a month ago, I went through a very balky spell with her.
Every flat session she would come up with a serious evasion where she would
basically refuse to go forward, sometimes even at the walk. It has been
especially frustrating because I felt (and still feel, believe it or not) that
we had been making a ton of progress in our dressage work. Ruby’s trot in
particular has seemed to turn a major
corner. Suddenly she gets the concept of what I’m asking for in the trot,
becoming forward, actually on the aids and truly round (and with a correct
bend!) When we went through this bad patch last month, it would take me almost
an entire training session to boot her forward, to take her head out of llama
status and get her out of her funk. The name of the game was transitions. Lots
of transitions (basically my go-to tool, when all else fails). Walk, halt.
Walk, trot. Trot, halt. Trot, canter. Canter, walk. Walk, canter. If you balk,
you get booted forward and we get to do more of the same, endlessly. After
going through this for forty-five minutes or so, I would usually, finally, end
up with a soft and responsive horse, approaching the trot that I had been
looking for. But, man! Was it frustrating. And exhausting. There were a few of
those sessions where I questioned whether I should be selling Ruby and looking
for another horse. There were a lot of times when I questioned whether I knew
what I was doing (well, I still question that all the time). But, I have to say
that it has gotten better. The canter still needs a lot of work and she is
still pulling some of her balky maneuvers in our canter work, but her trot work
has been lovely. She has also been offering this good trot work earlier and
earlier in our rides too. Where it used to take me a lot of warm-up, suppling,
transitions and other work to get her to a state where she started lifting her
back, softening her jaw and reaching for the contact, I am finding that lately
it has become more of a natural state with Ruby. It’s not immediate, but I am
usually not jumping through a lot of hoops to get there either.
The thing with Dressage is: This is actually very hard for
horses. There is a reason why there is a Dressage Training Scale. It’s not expected that
you will achieve these things overnight. In addition to the training of the
horse to gradually improve, there is also the gradual strength and muscling
that is built in the horse as you progress in your work. It is not meant to
happen all at once. A lot of the flat work asked of horses in Dressage training
can be equated in humans to gymnastics, yoga and strength training, with a fair
amount of endurance in there as well. It takes time to build on the work and
your progress is usually measured in tiny steps. This year I feel like we’ve
been “getting it”. And because we’ve been getting it, I’ve been asking more of
Ruby. The balking thing is, I think, her reaction to my asking more of her – it’s
hard! I just have to work through the rough patches and make her realize that defiance
makes her life much harder.
With all that said about my dressage frustrations this
Summer, even during the worst of it when I would be on the brink of giving up
with Ruby, we would then have a jumping day in there where she would be awesome! Gallopy
and loving life, even doing flying changes when I ask properly. And then there
are the days when I get great flat work. It has been so hard-earned over the
years that Ruby and I have been together that it is especially sweet when there
is fluidity and harmony. It’s like the Dressage Gods have suddenly smiled on
us. Because it hasn’t come easily, those great moments are now especially
sweet.
To sum it up, these days I am truly excited about riding
again. I was never actually “blah” about it, but I had reached a bit of a slump
where flat work was always a fight, and it was also hard to watch others who
have horses that make it easier. I dreaded jumping and just wanted to get
through it and be done. I wanted to make improvements in all aspects of my
riding and training of Ruby, but wasn’t really doing too much to get there and,
as a result, wasn’t seeing much in the way of progress either. Now I feel like
my riding world has opened up some. I look forward to even just a garden variety
schooling session because I feel that I now have more of a partnership with my
horse. Thanks to CrossFit, as well as more riding in general and some tweaking
of my eating habits, I am also much more fit now than I was a few months ago,
so this is definitely a contributing factor in my overall attitude and in my
ability to ride better.
