Super
I apologize in advance… this is an insanely long entry that will likely confuse 99% of the people who read it because it’s all about riding!
I had a riding lesson yesterday that I had been looking forward to for a long time. Thanks to some bad weather on the weekends, and then my back going out, I hadn’t ridden in over a month. I had missed it tremendously and was ready to get back up there. I was somewhat dreading it as well; lengthy absences from riding make it a bit more painful when you start up again… and I’m not a big fan of my body hurting.
It was chilly out yesterday, but it was sunny and not windy at all. I got to the barn and we got Missy ready. We’re excited because my instructor is planning to buy Missy, and it will be a great thing when she does. Elizabeth is an amazing rider, and Missy always looks stupendous when she’s in the saddle.
When we first started we just trotted around the whole big pasture. Usually this is cause for great excitement. Missy loves to long trot in the pasture. I was surprised when she was a little bit slow-pokey. On the flip side, I was glad she wasn’t tearing my arms out of the socket trying to get the bit so she could fly around the field!
Elizabeth said after that we were going to work on getting Missy to drop her head. This is something we work hard on with Missy. She was trained to carry her head incredibly high and has many years of that bad training ingrained in her brain. It’s hard work to get her to do it, and in the months since I began riding I have not been able to consistently get her to work that way for me. I have been able to get her to give that to me for some steps, and for partial circles in the ring. I have not been able to get her to give me that beautiful head down, on the bit, forward and light motion for the whole side of the field at all. I certainly have never gotten her to do it at the canter. It is difficult because it requires so much of my body to get her to do it. It requires me to have my inside arm keeping constant tension and pulling back elastially on the rein through my elbow and my outside arm to be spread a little wider than usual, also keeping steady pressure. My hands must be up and forward to allow her to drop her head and reach for the bit. My hands also sometimes have to see-saw a little to get her to give to what I’m asking. My arms cannot be tense through this whole thing… they must give and take with her. My shoulders have to remain back and relaxed. My whole upper body must remain relaxed actually… tension in that part of my body makes Missy more tense, and causes her not to flex and bend. While my upper body is doing all of this, my lower body is busy too! I usually start working with her on this at the sitting trot. This is because my seat is driving her forward. This is done by keeping my stomach and lower back relaxed and deep into the saddle, moving with her and pushing forward. My knees remained closed on the saddle, and my outside leg maintains contact to keep her moving forward. Meanwhile, my inside leg is bumping her to get her to bed and not get overbent. My inside seat bone drops a little bit to get my leg longer on that side, so she knows I want her bending around that leg. All of these parts must do exactly the right thing, with the right force, at the same time… and I must correct things as I feel changes in her, or she will not maintain the bending and the forward motion. If she starts to slow down and get heavy beneath me, I have to ask for more with my legs an my seat. If she drops her head and is moving well, I have to give more with my hands so she can drop her head down into the bit. It is absolutely exhausting, and I had never really gotten it in all my previous lessons. I’d felt inklings of it, but I always lost it nearly as soon as I got it. FRUSTRATING.
Yesterday I got it. We started working around the field and she was still being a little slow, and she was fighting a little with dropping her head. We trotted 3/4 around the big field, and then turned and changed the rein and went back. I had some good moments, but no consistency. We made it back around the ring and turned again. Elizabeth called out, “Sit even deeper than that!” I tucked my seat under me just a little more and adjusted my hands and arms slightly… and it was like a switch flipped. It was instantaneous, and as soon as I felt the change in Missy I stored in my head exactly what my body felt like. She dropped her head and I gave with my hands. She began moving forward, not increasing her speed but moving out and stretching into the trot. She was light and effortless and moving so beautifully. Elizabeth was like, “THAT’S IT!!!!!” We went down the long side, and down around the end came around and went up the other side of the field and she kept it! I kept having to adjust little things here and there, but she kept it. She would start to bring her head up and I would work my rein a little more, or I would touch her with my inside leg… and she’d drop right back down. Elizabeth told me to let her walk after we’d reached the other side and we were both so excited that I’d gotten her to do it.
We walked for a few minutes and then started up again. I was a little nervous that I would lose that momentum with the break, but Missy came right back to work when I asked her to. We went down the side and up around the other, with her bent and moving forward. Elizabeth called out, “Keep pushing and see how long you can go. Post to get her moving more forward!” Posting is when you rise and fall at the same time as the horse’s outside leg. Typically when I start to post when we are working her head down, I lose everything. It’s just too much to ask my body to do at the same time, because on top of all those other things I have to do I also have to use my thighs to propel me out of the saddle every other beat. It is a whole lot to think about and coordinate my body to do all at the same time. I started to post and for a minute we lost it, but then I got it back. For some reason it finally all made sense to me… and I understood the importance of my inside leg when we were doing this. Elizabeth kept yelling across the field how great we looked and to keep it up. It was such an amazing time.
We took another break after several trips around the field. Elizabeth and I couldn’t stop talking about how great Missy was being. After the break Elizabeth said, “OK, now I want you to canter her down this long side and I want you to keep her head down where we’ve had it.” I replied with, “I will certainly try.” Missy is a very hard horse to canter on. She gets incredibly heavy and you feel almost like you need to carry her around the field by constantly keeping your legs on her. This is exhausting for you, and it makes her just race around the ring. You also have to move with her completely, letting your arms follow the motion of her head, and letting your seat rock with her fluidly. You can’t shift in the saddle or tighten your reins much because that will either make her break to a trot or race forward. She’s challenging. I have never gotten her to canter with her head down, moving forward and light. Not once. I was a bit skeptical about my ability to continue to get her to give me what I asked. I signaled for the canter and she picked it up easily. She had her head high and at first I was hesitant to ask firmly for her to drop her head. Elizabeth called out, “Don’t be afraid to ask her strongly! She’ll give it to you.” So I relaxed my shoulders, spread my hands, and began keeping strong and steady pressure with my inside rein. I tapped with my inside leg and… she dropped her head. The change in her canter was monumental. I didn’t have to work so hard to move with her because it was so light and so nice. I didn’t have to touch her with my outside leg one more time as we cantered around the whole field. I tapped occasionally with my inside leg to keep her forward, but that was it. It was an incredibly awesome moment for me, because I have been working so hard to feel that from her.
Having a lesson like that is important to me on so many levels. Getting back into riding after a long hiatus was hard. It would’ve been hard no matter what, but I had a lot of extra weight that I never had when I rode before. It made it difficult to get my body to do what I wanted it to do, so I have struggled with things that used to be so easy for me. It made me feel like I wasn’t a good rider, and made me wonder if I should be riding. It’s silly, but I want to be good at riding, and when I don’t do well I really have a hard time with it. It’s not that I haven’t had great lessons before, but I had seen the way Missy has gone for Elizabeth and I so wanted to get the same thing out of her. It was so amazing to feel the way she is when she is forward and bent and light.
I hurt today. Everywhere. It’s a good hurt though, because I know that I rode that horse well and correctly. This pain tells me that I asked for everything the exact right way, and that I need to do it just that way next time.
I can’t wait until my next lesson.
