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We Are Flying Solo

October 29, 2009

Funding!

We needed a dressage Obi-Wan to help us channel the force.

We were completeing HT's without getting eliminated. We were staying in the dressage arena, doing the test in order, and not getting any jumping penalties. But we were coming in anywhere from second to last (I WON'T be last, dammit!) to a record high of fourth or fifth. I stomped my little (big) feet and said, "I wanna do better!" But it wasn't going to happen without some serious dressage improvement.

I could do an ACCURATE test all day long and that was enough to get about half the points we needed. But apparently, greedy greedy judges actually want to see roundness, bending, softness, and impulsion. Sheesh, so demanding!

Further lessons were in order. I had already found my Obi-Wan in the form of our dressage trainer, P. She was great -- but for some reason she wanted to get paid for her time, sigh. As luck would have it though, I wrote a little essay and Solo and I were awarded an educational scholarship from the Area II (our geographical region) USEA Adult Riders group, of which we are proud members.

PhotobucketIT WAS ON! I promptly handed over our check to P, who generously agreed to give us a seven lesson package in exchange. So we settled in to get serious about this flexibility business.

Yeah............teaching a horse dressage requires massive amounts of patience, lots of fiddling, the ability to force one's body to both relax and be strong at the same time, and did I mention patience (which I can be notoriously short on)? I began to see that there were a lot of holes to fill in, strength to build for both of us, and tricks to learn.

Our first test of our new learning adventure came quickly -- a little local schooling CT. We ended up in third or fourth BUT much more importantly, my horse was beginning to look a little more like a dressage horse and less like a 2x4 with a giraffe neck and a clenched jaw.

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Both of us were bowing our heads in relief...
PhotobucketAlong with this came more adjustability and roundness over fences as well.


I still looked like a hunter rider perched in a dressage saddle, but one or two steps at a time, Solo was starting to reach for the bit and work over his back, rather than clomp around on his forehand leaning through corners.

The focus of our work sessions changed too. I began to focus on new things:
  • walk/trot transitions with no bit-snatching
  • staying round through both up and downward transitions
  • letting my legs wrap loosely around the horse
  • no pinching at the knee (still failing daily at this one)
  • leg-yields three steps at a time into and out of circles at walk and trot
  • shoulder fore coming out of corners to strengthen my horse.
Most of all, we had a new rule: DO EVERYTHING RIGHT EVERY TIME. In other words, P commanded me to be insistent about my requests. If asking for a downward transition, Solo was required to stay on the bridle and moving forward without snatching or throwing his head up or me falling on his forehand. If he (or I) attempted to do so, I was to immediately push him forward back into the trot and not allow completion of the transition until it was done correctly. If it took 10 tries to get it right, than it took 10 tries. The focus and thought that went into our rides suddenly went up by several orders of magnitude. Solo had to learn that doing it right was the ONLY option he had or else I was going to just annoy the shit out of him until he gave in.

This was going to take a lot of deep breaths.

But it was working.

5 comments:

  1. I love the picture of you guys bowing together. Solo looks so dutiful in dressage pictures. "Okay mom, I'll do it so I can run around the countryside jumping obstacles!"

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  2. Haha, Jen, I think you summed up his thoughts perfectly!

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  3. I, too, am a member of Perching Riders Annonymous. I am hoping that it will not take me decades to figure out how to sit on a horse properly (although...two decades down already!).

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  4. I suggested to P that perhaps it would be more helpful to just cut my legs off at the hip...

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  5. you guys look beautiful! what a lovely expression he has! he was definitely having fun =)

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