Sweat is pouring down my face.
It's approximately 95% humidity, 85 degrees of drip-inducing goodness out.
I am torturing Solo with some dressage schooling, his absolute favourite. If horses are capable of sarcastic glares, I think I got one when I got on.
One of David O's favourite exercises totorment warm us up with is flexing the poll while cantering on a circle. Sounds easy, doesn't it? Ha. It's not.
I am determined to conquer this exercise. Solo's interpretation of this little gymnastic endeavor is to either fall on his inside shoulder while lifting his head around the turn, or pop his outside shoulder out and ignore the outside rein. If you do get close to convincing him to bend, he feels it is impossible to do so while maintaining forward motion.
We've had a little success on a previous ride under jumping tack. Which means I had spurs and the elevator bit so it was easier to use a light aid that Solo could not simply brace himself against and ignore. Today, though, I was in dressage gear, so we had the plastic boucher and no spur.
The canter transitions were going well and the rhythm was cadenced and Solo's back was soft. We began our circle in good balance and I closed it down to 15 m while asking him to flex.
The sweat burned my eyes and my completely non-breathable polo shirt from work that I had been too hurried to change out of clung to my back.
Hot, sweaty Solo said, "No. Flexing is hard" and tipped onto his forehand and leaned.
It happened. I was tired and my patience buckled. I made that fatal riding flaw, goaded by the ugly monsters of heat and fatigue: I got mad.
"Good god, horse, it's not that hard, just BEND!!" I tried to insist with gritted teeth and an outpouring of frustration to the hand on the rein and the heel in his side.
Solo, however, is unfailingly honest in his assessment of my riding finesse on a given day. And he got mad right back, as they unfailingly (and rightfully) do when we try to force our hand too fast. And flung his head up in the air in protest and skittered off to the side.
Immediately I knew that I had pushed too hard and with too little patience. I went back to a walk, letting Solo stretch and myself try and breathe and forget about the swampy air wrapped around my brain.
When I attained some semblance of calm and thought through what went wrong, I picked up a soft contact and asked for our cadenced canter back.
Solo was wary, one ear cocked back, warning me that I better be good up there, he wasn't going to take any crap. I asked him to come into the outside rein a little and asked for a single circle, just 20 m this time, one challenge at a time. As he bent around my leg, I sat up and asked for only a step or two of poll flexion to the inside. I did not force him to hold it very long as he is not there yet. He gave me my steps, I rode him out of the circle and let him continue straight and then we quit.
This is a lesson I must learn over and over and over. A lesson that I know, but that is so hard to stay true to when things get gritty. The moments when I lose it are rare indeed, but serve as an important reminder that impatience has no place in riding and training. If we find ourselves angry or frustrated, we MUST stop, breathe, and jump start our brains because that's where the solution is. Not in force, not in brawn.
We are making progress. We'll get there. As P says, one step at a time. If you get three good steps going one way, and three good steps going the other way, well, then that's six good steps. Maybe next time you'll get eight, then next time eleven and soon, you'll have a whole circle...
It's approximately 95% humidity, 85 degrees of drip-inducing goodness out.
I am torturing Solo with some dressage schooling, his absolute favourite. If horses are capable of sarcastic glares, I think I got one when I got on.
One of David O's favourite exercises to
I am determined to conquer this exercise. Solo's interpretation of this little gymnastic endeavor is to either fall on his inside shoulder while lifting his head around the turn, or pop his outside shoulder out and ignore the outside rein. If you do get close to convincing him to bend, he feels it is impossible to do so while maintaining forward motion.
We've had a little success on a previous ride under jumping tack. Which means I had spurs and the elevator bit so it was easier to use a light aid that Solo could not simply brace himself against and ignore. Today, though, I was in dressage gear, so we had the plastic boucher and no spur.
The canter transitions were going well and the rhythm was cadenced and Solo's back was soft. We began our circle in good balance and I closed it down to 15 m while asking him to flex.
The sweat burned my eyes and my completely non-breathable polo shirt from work that I had been too hurried to change out of clung to my back.
Hot, sweaty Solo said, "No. Flexing is hard" and tipped onto his forehand and leaned.
It happened. I was tired and my patience buckled. I made that fatal riding flaw, goaded by the ugly monsters of heat and fatigue: I got mad.
"Good god, horse, it's not that hard, just BEND!!" I tried to insist with gritted teeth and an outpouring of frustration to the hand on the rein and the heel in his side.
Solo, however, is unfailingly honest in his assessment of my riding finesse on a given day. And he got mad right back, as they unfailingly (and rightfully) do when we try to force our hand too fast. And flung his head up in the air in protest and skittered off to the side.
Immediately I knew that I had pushed too hard and with too little patience. I went back to a walk, letting Solo stretch and myself try and breathe and forget about the swampy air wrapped around my brain.
When I attained some semblance of calm and thought through what went wrong, I picked up a soft contact and asked for our cadenced canter back.
Solo was wary, one ear cocked back, warning me that I better be good up there, he wasn't going to take any crap. I asked him to come into the outside rein a little and asked for a single circle, just 20 m this time, one challenge at a time. As he bent around my leg, I sat up and asked for only a step or two of poll flexion to the inside. I did not force him to hold it very long as he is not there yet. He gave me my steps, I rode him out of the circle and let him continue straight and then we quit.
This is a lesson I must learn over and over and over. A lesson that I know, but that is so hard to stay true to when things get gritty. The moments when I lose it are rare indeed, but serve as an important reminder that impatience has no place in riding and training. If we find ourselves angry or frustrated, we MUST stop, breathe, and jump start our brains because that's where the solution is. Not in force, not in brawn.
We are making progress. We'll get there. As P says, one step at a time. If you get three good steps going one way, and three good steps going the other way, well, then that's six good steps. Maybe next time you'll get eight, then next time eleven and soon, you'll have a whole circle...