Lesson Notes: Cantering…Straight?!?

February 8, 2012 AmandaLeave a comment

Last night’s lesson did not start out auspiciously: I arrived at the barn early due to perhaps the best traffic of all time, and then curled up in my car to read for a bit…and fell asleep. Out cold. I woke up to my phone dinging with a text message from Hannah about horsey pun color names, and was totally, completely disoriented. I could not have told you my name, where I was, or why. Then I checked the clock and it was 7:07, aka 7 minutes after my lesson was supposed to start.

I sprinted inside, apologized profusely to L., and somehow managed to get on horseback by 7:25. Tris came out quite well, though we did not warm up at the walk for as long as I usually like. He was a little stiff and hard through the bridle as a consequence.

In many ways, the lesson was unremarkable. L. was after me not to get sucked into leaning forward, to sit on my outside rein, and to really connect his hind legs through to the bridle.

Our big breakthrough moment, however, was in the canter. I was having serious trouble softening him, per usual, and L. shouted for me to try a little bit of a counterbending feel. And I thought, that’s a terrible idea, usually when I add in too much outside rein we run into walls, but I trusted her so I put my outside leg on, HARD, and asked for some counterbend and – WHOOSH. Tris straightened and all of a sudden I was sitting on a rocket, tapping into a whole world of power straight from his hind end. We had maybe a circle and a half like that and then I brought him back to the trot and tried to put together the assembled pieces of my brain.

L. explained that my habit of overbending in the canter to try to get some kind of suppleness was letting all the energy and push from his hind end shoot out his outside shoulder, and by straightening him up I was channeling that power more effectively. True to form, after tasting it once Tris was adamant that he wanted nothing to do with it for the next 20 minutes, but we fought through. (And unfortunately I do mean fought at times…he has been flubbing his right lead transition and it is driving. me. crazy.)

We finished with a really lovely trot, and quite a bit of walking around and cooling out, because between channeling all that new power and fighting my outside aids, he was puffing pretty good, even for only a 40 minute lesson.

Next ride, Thursday, probably a long hack, since I have expectations of getting to the barn while it’s still light out.

lesson notes

Lesson Notes: Outside Aids, Use ‘Em

February 2, 2012 AmandaLeave a comment

Because I was traveling on business, I didn’t ride at all between last week’s jump lesson and this week’s flat lesson. C. took him out a few times, which I knew meant I would get a much softer, looser horse than I usually do, but I didn’t know how our absence from each other would go.

Answer: not too bad! He came out soft, and loose, and giving, and more or less willing to step up when I asked. I was cruising around, head up in the clouds, sighing happily and comparing the horse I was sitting on to the tight little rubber band of resistance I used to have…and then T. let me know that my horse was tuning me out and trit-trotting around and could I make him do stuff already?

Oh. Right. That. Fortunately, throwing stuff into the mix worked immediately, and I could tell that it worked immediately. Leg-yields, spirals in and out, baby shoulder-in, teardrops off the wall, 10m circles off the long side, in the middle of the ring, etc. Yeah: there’s his hind end.

We did the most work on the canter, because I was trotting around and thinking with amazement, I am not entirely sure what to fix next. There wasn’t, in that moment, a whole lot to fix – things to improve, always, but at that moment in time? Nothing really broken.

So I tried some canters, and broke stuff, and then got my kick in the pants. New and emerging problem: my bad habit of collapsing my right hip and shoulder in the canter transition is interfering, badly, with our right transitions. It’s offloading him onto his right front, and hitching up my outside aids, and it means that we are getting a whole lot of mixed signals about that right lead. So I have homework: deeper in my outside leg, straighter on my inside, stop screwing my horse up. (Though the very back of my brain is a teensy bit worried – hocks? I will put it out of my mind and work on balance, first.)

Left lead strikeoffs were just fine. In the canter itself, and really throughout my riding, is my bigger homework assignment: outside aids. Nail them down. Keep them deep and supporting and get him into them. Sit down on my outside rein in the canter, really commit to it, don’t just wiggle it now and then and then clamp the aids on in a panic when he zooms to the wall.

Small secondary problem addressed as well: cantering down the long side, Tris drifts in. After one or two huge struggles to keep him straight down the line, I asked T. to watch and analyze. His answer as that Tris is offloading onto that inside shoulder to avoid striking off properly with the outside hind. Answer, as always: more inside leg to outside rein. Like, a LOT more. Way more than any other time. So I did one or two long side canters focusing hard on the balance between those aids, and presto. It was not clean and straight, but I kept him in line.

Next ride: Thursday, some ring schooling and maybe if it’s not raining and/or semi-light, a short hack.

Bonus jump clinic!

January 30, 2012 AmandaLeave a comment

One of my biggest adjustments when moving to Flatlands was not getting to jump whenever I wanted. I’ve always been at barns where there are jumps out all the time, and if you want to jump, you just go over and play. Don’t get me wrong, I understand completely why we only jump in lessons, but because of my schedule (evening lessons, often with flat-only riders) it means that I don’t jump very often unless I make a really committed effort to ride in every extra jump clinic offered.

Which is why I was utterly delighted to arrive last Tuesday night and see jumps in the indoor. It gave me enough of a shot of adrenaline to stay in my car and be responsible and work on grad school research instead of going in and puttering around the barn.

Tristan wasn’t entirely thrilled to see me; some days he just doesn’t want to play. But he warmed up quite nicely, if sticky bending left. We did lots of transitions, alternating, and focusing on our new rules about the canter transitions: no more corners, no more popping the bend to the outside and flinging through them. If I have to manhandle the bend, then that’s what I do. It’s really making a difference. So much of what I do with him is channeling: no, you can’t do that, you can only do this, and eventually he starts picking the right option. He’s not a horse who’s shown the correct way once and goes with it. He has to have every avenue of escape closed off, systematically, every time.

Anyway: line of three jumps, and two angled to the right.

____ \

____

____ /

We started figure-eighting over the angled jumps at a trot, and almost immediately found our first challenge. Tris was, per usual, seeking a long spot, which meant that I was taking my leg off too soon, not waiting as much as I should’ve, and then folding far too much in the air – riiiiight on the edge of leaning forward, but not quite. T. pointed out the revelation moment: he was suckering me into leaning forward. When he first said that, I was a little skeptical; I tend to place my leaning habit squarely on my own shoulders. But come round again, with T.’s voice telling me to sit-and-wait, sit-and-wait, leg-leg-leg, hips-to-hands…and there it was. A moment a half-stride too early when I felt Tris brace up through his back and leave his hocks out behind, and I wanted so badly to lean forward and say go, go ahead, take the jump from here. And I didn’t. It was an unbelievably frustrating feeling to fight, like resisting the temptation to scratch a particularly annoying mosquito bite, but I held back, kept my leg on, rode him up…and he went to the base of the fence.

My mind, it was blown. I said as much to T., and he laughed at me, because he’s good like that. Now that I knew what it felt like, I could catch it more and more – at least on single jumps. Coming to the gymnastic line, it all fell apart.

Tris is 15 hands, with maybe an extra half inch if his feet are long, or he stands up straight. His stride is on the short stride, and he does not always appreciate being told to lengthen it, especially in the canter – combination of laziness and lack of education. So we come to a line of three jumps, each a one-stride distance, and for now the first is a crossrail and the rest are poles…and oh my, we demolish ’em. I stick my legs out in space, plant my hands on his neck, lean for all I’m worth, and he lands in a canter and after one stride does a ridiculous trot through the canter poles. Sigh.

So our focus from then on is as it always is: leg-on, leg-on, hips-to-hands, DON’T-LEAN. T. has me canter him in to the crossrail to try and build up a head of steam, and slowly, slowly we start to get it. I keep my heel down and my lower leg more on, and Tris agrees to play ball and thinks about his footwork in the canter. The jumps go up, and I keep kicking, and again there’s that need-to-scratch feeling but I shove my heels down and keep my legs on and sit and wait…and they almost get good. They don’t get glorious, but they get more rhythmic, more balanced.

Only one minor disaster of the day, when I lose my focus and thus my channeling, and my point-and-shoot pony…goes where I point him. To the right of the third jump, after a bad approach to the first, a serious drift at the second, and a glance off the right standard of the third. I could’ve yanked him back for it, and I know him: he would’ve jumped it. But I didn’t slow everything down enough, and I didn’t want to punish him for my idiocy. I swore, loudly, the moment we landed the second jump and I knew it would happen, and then we went through again, and made that $#@$@# line straight.

All in all, it was one of those educational lessons, where you’re wrung out and tired but there was progression. One major bright spot: his canter is so much better, more adjustable, more steerable. I could sit deep and bring my hips to my hands and turn him with my outside aids and all of a sudden I had this little bouncy ball underneath me (or at least the seeds of it) and I could do what I wanted with it. T. even praised our canter, which…never happens. Guess that flatwork is paying off.

clinic notes · jumping

MLK Day Jump Clinic

January 18, 2012 Amanda6 Comments

I’m going to really try and make an effort to get more video of myself riding so that I can analyze what I’m doing right and wrong.

With that in mind, thanks to Hannah, here are two videos from a jump clinic at the barn on January 16, Martin Luther King, Jr., Day.

This first video was our first real course of the day. We’d warmed up with some trotting figure-8s over the jumps in the right-hand side of the frame as crossrails, and I was pleased with the way we held our lines and the energy we carried forward.

Here are the things I liked about this round:
– good rhythm throughout
– my lower leg was generally pretty darn good
– for Tristan, this is REALLY supple and adjustable
– the overall picture: I haven’t watched video of us jumping in a long time and I was surprised by generally how businesslike and harmonious we were

Things I didn’t like about this round:
– losing the connection on the landing side, which usually meant that our lead changes through the trot were sticky and didn’t flow
– my upper body position: I was a bit too hunched over
– for a few of the jumps, I didn’t pick my line early enough

Second video is just two jumps, but they’re the tail end of a course I’d just flubbed, and I asked to do these two jumps again. Landing off the center jump is sometimes tricky if you don’t have in your head where to go next. The first time, I didn’t until we landed, and lucky for me Tris was quick on his feet and followed me right when I realized. This second video was my requested re-do.

Things I liked:
– our turn off the center jump was much better this time around
– that last jump was actually rather nice
– my hands, actually: not the softest release ever but following

Things I didn’t like:
– we lost some steam going into that first jump coming around the turn for it, which meant that he put in the long spot and cracked the pole with a hind leg. A little more consistency of pace and a half-halt through the corner would have set us up much better.
– my upper body, again, in the flat portions.

Other things I need to keep in mind from the jump clinic:
– Landing, landing, landing! Always have something in mind, always stay focused, finish out the course with a canter circle even if it’s the last jump. It’s time for the habit of standing in the stirrups and loosening the reins immediately after the last jump to go. Stay down in my stirrups, keep him connected, and be ready.
– I mentioned my “slowing down the jumps” theory to Tom (in short: the better you get at jumping the more slowly the round goes for you which gives you more time to feel and correct each small piece) and he agreed, and added a piece. He said that rounds slow down because your flatwork keeps getting better, more organized, and more automatic, and so when you approach a jump with all of those things in line you can really work on all the small pieces of the jumping effort itself.
– Pay better attention to leads. I pulled back for a simple change a few times when I didn’t need to, just because I assumed that Tris had landed on the wrong lead and in the choppiness of my lack of connection on the landing I couldn’t tell immediately. Slow this down, pay attention for a stride, and then change the lead only if I NEED to.
– More jumping! If we’re going to get out this summer, jumping is our missing piece right now and I need to make a personal commitment to attend every jump clinic I possibly can, and seek out other opportunities as well.

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Welcome to the world, little blog!

January 17, 2012 Amanda1 Comment

I’ve finally taken the plunge to set up a separate blog devoted entirely to my horse-related pursuits.

Over the next few weeks, I will be consolidating my writing and journaling into this blog, and backdating them, so the archive will begin to grow.

Going forward, I plan to write about all of the horse activities that I engage in, which is quite a few.

I own and ride a 17 year old mustang gelding named Tristan that I adopted from a rescue in 2006. We are continually learning about each other, and training in the sport of three-day eventing.

I groom for friends who are also active competitors, and volunteer for horse shows on a regular basis.

I serve on the Area 1 Scholarship Committee, working to provide educational opportunities to eventers in New England and New York.

In the past, I have been a Pony Club Joint-DC, competed for Middlebury College’s IHSA team, and taken riding lessons in France.

I also read and watch anything and everything related to horses.

That should about sum it up. Watch this space.

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March 23, 2011 AmandaLeave a comment

Long time, no post. My usual pattern.

In quick updates:

Tris is gaining in strength and finesse almost weekly. T. is really, really pleased with him overall, which is great to hear. I was peaking nicely in my riding, but have slipped a bit – relying a bit too much on my dressage saddle to do the work, and less on my seat. Namely, I’m getting caught up in bracing a bit too much in the knee rolls. Need to keep my leg further back.

We’re working on a couple of things: introducing a half-halt from the seat in the canter is my favorite. Last night I cued for what I thought was a down transition…and he collected instead. Okay, then! It wasn’t perfect, by any means, but it was a lighter, shorter-strided canter with more suspension. And I had no idea how to stop it, because I didn’t want to ruin it, but I really had planned for a trot there instead.

Our next big project is transitions. He’s a difficult horse to keep consistent in the bridle in the first place – he’s always, always looking for his out – and triply so during transitions. He seizes on them as moments of opportunity, roots out and down, hollows, and generally comes completely disconnected in the 2-3 strides of transition, no matter how nice the gait before and after. I felt like my efforts to keep him with me were too fussy, too handsy, but T. and I talked through it last night and for now, too much may be what Tris needs to get it out of his head that he can do that. I should be careful of not relying on that, but for now, not giving him a moment’s peace through the transition might keep his mind away from being bratty.

I’m itching to get out and school in the field again, but will settle for the outdoor. We were there on Saturday a bit, and Tris pretended the (slightly deep, slightly mucky) sand was actually secretly quicksand. Why that meant he could either slog along at a dead walk OR gallop is beyond me. I talked him into a little bit of stretchy trot against his better judgment. We’ll work on that more Thursday night. He got spoiled by nice, springy footing in the indoor.

I’m continually rethinking any showing this summer. Too many variables to count – time, money, energy, his training, my confidence, my internship, on and on. I sincerely hope to get out to two, maybe three schooling events and all the cross-country schooling and trail-riding I can handle, but…I just don’t know yet.

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February 10, 2011 AmandaLeave a comment

Couple of really nice rides to talk about.

First, jump clinic on Sunday again. Two weeks in a row definitely did really good things for both of us. Apart from some difficulties in getting Tris to wake up (he even planted his feet when he saw we were going in the ring! Hannah had to smack him on the but!) I feel like there was a great deal of improvement all around. When he really gets into gear going around he’s a *fun* horse to ride over fences – he’s always great, really, but having him take me to the fences instead of booting him over them is a very different thing!

I feel like I had some personal riding success in a couple of areas. I was able to make some progress on slowing things down in my head. T. talked to another rider in my set about using the circles (this was a land and rollback jump set) that he had mapped in after every jump to get space and get a better canter. He pointed out that circles are, in their most basic form, lateral work, and that you should use that lateral work to supple the horse back up in time. So I was able to take that a little bit into my riding. I think we used the circles effectively, and that I was catching him when he wanted to quit. I was quite liberal in my use of the crop, which helped.

Only other thing was a moment when I spun Tris a little too hard toward a jump placed on the center line, and he really dug in and turned on his hocks, and T. observed that he’s a catty little thing in corners when he wants to be. Which I interpret in two ways; first, yes, he is, he’s very clever about his footwork and he’s small and compact enough to get away with it; second, I should let that be my safety net and not my default, as in, how lucky are you that your horse is so catty, otherwise you would’ve eaten that fence.

Dressage lesson on Tuesday, first one back with T. in a looooooong time and it felt a little bit like boot camp. I haven’t been riding much, so I was letting him get away with a little too much, being a little too gullible about the don’wannas, and T. snapped me out of that in the first half of the lesson. The second half went much better, and we even got some nice canters in, and then a really nice reachy trot at the end. We’re back to the “expect more of him earlier” mold, which is a sign that we’re on that climb up the plateau. At least, I think, we’ve stopped sliding down, and a lot of the work we did on the descent should start to pay off now.

I also tried a minor innovation for the dressage lesson: put my spurs back on. My leg is so much better, and combined with my wonderful new saddle, and Tris’s stickiness in the jump set, I felt like it was time. In the past I’ve avoided them because I didn’t like the way I rode while I was wearing them. They felt like an easy place to go when I was frustrated, and I could feel myself becoming a kind of rider I didn’t like. Plus, he got dull to them very quickly, and had I let it spiral further it would’ve become a nasty little arms race. So: back to spurs, and it was I think a success. I posed the question to T. at the end of the lesson and he emphatically agreed that I should stick with them.

Wednesday afternoon I managed to get there just after he had finished his massage. T. told me that massage lady said that he might be a little behind the leg because of the massage, and we both had a good laugh about that. Yeah, that’s my pony. Any excuse he can get.

And you know, he was, but not in his usual way. His usual way to be behind the leg is because he’s convinced he’ll DIE. This way was more the way I feel after a really good hot bath, or a perfect amount of sleep – lazy and comfortable in my body and kind of slinky and liquid. So in some ways stuck, but in others, wow, was he all supple and loose right out of the box. It was really great to feel. In a 25 minute ride I had him WAY more over his back and reaching for the bit and tracking up and bendy than I’d had him in his hour lesson the night before. Which no doubt was a result of that lesson too, but wow, it felt great all around. Nothing earth-shattering, just a really pleasant soft ride. Then I put him out in his paddock for about 20 minutes because he hadn’t had any turnout b/c of the massage, and he was a bit forlorn that I hadn’t left him with any hay. Poor darling. So abused.

Hack on Saturday, and then school on Sunday; probably poles with Hannah. Maybe a fun exercise, or maybe just a few raised poles to work on timing his canter and getting more jump.

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February 2, 2011 AmandaLeave a comment

Eventing Nation linked to Phoebe Buckley’s video blogs, and I’ve been watching a few of them on my snow day. I was incredibly struck by the first video here, about getting on a cold-backed horse. Two things: first, I love watching really competent people handle the tools of their trade. That never gets old for me. Professional musicians handling their instruments, carpenters slinging hammers, and in this case, Phoebe handling her tack. It’s that self-assured way that experts handle tools, like they know them inside and out instinctively.

I also really, really love her clear respect and love for her horse. She talks the viewer through every step she takes, and she notices all these little things, not every single one of which I picked up on. It’s that same instinctive awareness of everything around her.

In my own riding, Tris and I have been doing well. I’m entering my second straight week of no weekday riding because of the #@$#@ weather, but mostly taking it in stride and enjoying the time I spend with him. Last weekend we went for a trail ride in the huge drifts on Saturday – in spots, nearly up to his chest – and he was just thrilled. That’s something I really need to remember: the clear pride and joy he takes in mastering natural objects. I see the same thing in him after he’s climbed up a tricky, rocky bit of hill. I’ll never forget the trail we were out on when we came across a sheer rock face that I would’ve thought about climbing on my own two feet. I asked him to go around, he said no, and charged up with not a single slip. When we got to the top he paused, sighed in a very contented way, then turned and kept going on the trail. He LOVES those kinds of problems. When I think about how solving dressage problems in the ring is nearly the polar opposite of that – it reminds me to be better about presenting the puzzles to him.

Jump clinic on Sunday, in which we needed to work on a few things. As always, I need to get better about keeping my weight in my feet and balanced, but I think I’m progressing well on that. We’re also really starting to figure out the pieces of getting the canter we want. It’s not a fancy canter and won’t be for a long time, but at least taking it apart, looking at it, and beginning to understand what we need more of, is a progression. It’s a cycle, too: you always want the right canter, and once you get there…the right canter changes, because you’re aiming higher (figuratively and literally!).

What we weren’t clicking on was in keeping up impulsion and rhythm, especially through the gymnastic line. Bless my wonderful horse, because even when I can’t help him keep the motor – or do something that kills it entirely – he still heaves himself over the jump as long as he’s presented to it. He jumped the last oxer from a near-standstill at least once or twice. When he runs out, it is always entirely my fault. He is honest nearly to a fault. But I need to be better about keeping weight down through my leg, which will let me keep my leg on, which will let me really remind him that we need to keep that canter we’re getting better at *through* the jumps, not just on the 20m circle in front of them.

The second piece that I don’t entirely know how to fix yet is that I need to make things slow down. I was talking to Hannahabout this. Right now, jumps come up fast and I react, instead of thinking things through as I ought to. Every time I jump, it’s incrementally better than it might be otherwise, but I am at the point where I really need to make it slow down even more. I need to be more aware of each second, each stride, and what I’m doing in those seconds. It’s a problem throughout my riding, no doubt, but when jumps are coming up fast and furious in a course, I find it especially difficult to hold everything together and really, really focus and slow it all down in my head. Because if I could do that, instead of reacting down the gymnastic (Tris lands from the first jump, leaps over the pole, my leg slips, I forget to bring it back and put it on for the second, so now he’s lost a bit of impulsion, and the landing is a bit harder this time, and my reins have slipped, and he feels me tuning out and gets a case of the don’wannas, and there’s still another jump, and by this point he just heaves himself over it, and now I’m entirely out of my stirrups and down on his neck or way in the back seat), I could plan it out and make minute adjustments in the second they need to happen.

I suspect the ultimate cure is nothing more fancy than “do it 10,000 more times” but I’m going to start experimenting in riding on the flat with slowing everything down and breaking it apart into smaller groupings. We’ll see how that pans out. I might also pull T. aside and talk to him about it a bit. I’m sure he’ll have some good ideas.

lesson notes

January 12, 2011 AmandaLeave a comment

Lesson report!

I started off with an experiment: longed him for about 10 minutes, w-t-c both ways. He was a perfect gentleman about it, which was a huge relief given it’s been 18+ months since he was last longed, and I always have flashbacks to early days when I longe him. (Because you haven’t lived until your horse has reared, struck out at you, landed, bolted, and dragged you across the ring on your face as you frantically try to dig the longe line out of the skin of your hand…)

He was in fact well-behaved enough to sometimes respond to half-halts by stretching into the bit, which is an encouraging and heartening new development since the last time he was longed. Overall, I think the longing accomplished its goal: warm him up a little bit, loosen him up, etc. And he did indeed start out much MUCH more supple than on Saturday. Which is not saying a whole lot: the changing temps and cold snaps have regressed us about 6 weeks at least in that department. This too shall pass, I suppose.

In the meantime, we focused a lot a LOT on not getting into fights with him. It’s one of those lessons I need to re-learn every couple of weeks, it seems. He is a past master at tightening and turning into a brick wall and ignoring any semblance of softness I try to create with the bit. L. worked very very hard on me to keep my elbows soft, my shoulders heavy, my core engaged so that I could simply sit securely in my seat and guide him firmly but not get caught up in his drama. Every single time we started to get pissed off at each other, and flail stiffly through a turn, L. called out for me to soften my elbows, and I did, and he gave with a disgusted huff. So.

I also dropped stirrups for about the last 15 minutes and worked really, really hard on bringing him up through my seat in the sitting trot, and keeping weight through my outside seatbone and leg in the canter and transitions. HARD. But really rewarding, and I kind of love feeling my abs and core engage like that through the sitting trot. I’m even much less sore than I had imagined I would be!

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January 9, 2011 AmandaLeave a comment

Okay, new year, new habits, right?

Saturday’s ride: not so good. He came out tight and less than enthused. We had no bend to speak of and I couldn’t keep him consistently in the bridle. Winter blahs all around, and I got a little peeved at him and his impression of a brick wall. Kept him going longer than I should have – forward was for once not really an issue, but any kind of suppleness was. He was breathing pretty hard when we finished, and took quite some time to walk out. On the one hand: definitely too long. On the other hand: building wind and valuable lessons about who decides when and how we work. Still, I would’ve liked to learn those lessons in a session that was actually productive.

Today, we just went out for a hack, which turned out to be a great decision. (I’m trying hard to fix, or really upgrade, my decision making on horseback.) He was tight and sore for the first 10 minutes or so, and then started swinging and reaching. I rode in jump tack, and just kept the lightest of possible touches on his mouth, asking him to soften his jaw occasionally, bend a bit for me, move away from a leg here and there. We had a couple of very short trots on the trails asking him to stretch, which he did beautifully, and then some VERY nice circles in the back field, reaching for the bit and springing through from behind.

It figures too that after such an angsty post as my last one, today at the Flatlands party I was awarded most improved boarder. 🙂 T. said that the progress we have made as a horse/rider pair was fantastic, and that you wouldn’t recognize Tris and me now if you put us beside our work of a year ago. So that was a really nice ego boost!