winter bootcamp: rider edition

This post may be a little silly to write.... maybe a bit like tempting fate... Bc let's be real, my riding schedule is at the mercy of Charlie and his habitual little dings and dents. The whole reason this is an issue in the first place is kinda Charlie's fault anyway, tbh.

today's photo collection's theme? the many outfits of charlie haha

But let's back up a second, and talk about winter boot camp. It's that time of year when winter really seems to settle in and get comfortable. Even tho we're on the other side of the winter solstice, it'll still be months before there's any real daylight for riding after working hours. And until then, the ground is likely to swing between muddy bog-like conditions and frozen solid.

like his current standard jump school outfit: jump saddle + dressage bridle

So for the foreseeable future, most of our rides take place by necessity at nighttime - either in the darkly lit outdoor arenas if the footing allows, or in the small dusty indoor. I'm grateful for both the lights and the indoor, don't get me wrong, but it creates limits on what can be accomplished during the rides.

Plus it's maddeningly repetitive. Overtime, the whole experience begins to look sorta like Sisyphus and his rock....

gosh it's hard to get all of him in a single frame tho lol

Many riders use this off season to focus on ironing out whatever training kinks were uncovered in the past months. For instance, you've already read posts like this one that go through a quantitative assessment of our season's dressage tests to identify weak spots. Those issues (transitions! bigger trot!) provide the perfect fodder for low key winter schooling.

here he's dressed for hacking on a cold ass mother fucking windy day: jump saddle + hackamore + quarter sheet. fun fact: the quarter sheet makes it seem like you're wearing a cape when you go galloping across the wide open fields

Likewise, I also got a couple ideas from the show jumping clinic with Phillip Dutton for our jumping. Specifically: carrying a bigger stride (not dissimilar from needing a bigger trot in our dressage too) and maintaining that stride length while bending left.

sometimes a pony's just gotta go a-wanderin tho

There's something else tho that I'm starting to think is maybe more important. Like, yea obviously I always want to be working on Charlie's training. But I already know from experience with him that.... he retains things pretty darn well. And that even lengthy breaks from serious training (like when he rehabbed from surgery last year) don't seem to interfere with his training progress.

hai goat! hai sheep!

Rather, the thing that's likelier to slow us down is my own weakness or ineffectiveness. Bc you see, every time Charlie gets a week off here or there, uh, so do I.

And nobody has ever EVER confused me with some svelte athletic TB that can put on fitness at the drop of a hat. Ha. Haha. Hahahahaha. Ahem. Cough cough.

typical dressage skool outfit: dressage bridle + saddle + fuzzy ps of sweden boots

So lately (I say "Lately" bc I'm just pretending the hoof-babadook and recent ouchie eye never happened, even tho there went another clump of days spent out of the tack...) I'm trying to focus on a few simple and key objectives.

Number 1? Go ride the f'in horse. Even if it's dark, cold, wet out, or I just plain old don't feel like picking at the scabs of any of our recent training issues. Just go do it. I almost never regret it after it's done... but damn sometimes getting out the door is such a challenge!

"reading the news"

And when I do ride? I'm kinda riding Charlie a little bit like a school pony. Like there are a couple basic things that I must always be disciplined about in Charlieland (for instance, he's not allowed to ever ever ever suck behind my leg).

But for the most part, I kinda just aim to put him in a gear and let him hum right on along, rather than trying to ride him in a specific way or carriage. I just ask for walk, trot, or canter, and leave it at that. This is aided by using all manner of ground poles and turns and figures etc to keep him interested.

proud pony after slayin the trot pole dragon haha, wearing the reflective + LED light up Illumiseen breastplate that i'm obsessed with

Meanwhile, all the focus is on me. If I'm in the dressage saddle, I'm thinking about:

- Are my legs long? Loose or pinching or clinging?
- Am I sitting evenly in the saddle?
- Is my core engaged, with belt buckle lifted, or am I holding that tension in my back instead?
- Is my chest open, with arms hanging loosely down from my shoulders? Can I feel that openness where my clavicles meet, or am I rounded across my back?
- Are my shoulders relatively even or am I collapsing to the inside?

ahem, tryna steal someone else's can of peanuts....

And ya know, that's kinda just.... it haha. Over and over and over again for the entire ride. Looking to see if anything changes when we ride a circle vs go straight. Or when we transition, up or down. Like for instance I tend to tip forward and drop the front of my pelvis in a downward transition. Maybe before I drill Chuck on his shittastic downward transitions, I should... ya know.... fix myself haha.

Oooh and I also dropped my stirrups a hole for shits and giggles, and am starting to work more on sitting trot. Because I hate myself, apparently. Wow. Yea it's real real real bad. But I guess we gotta start somewhere?

more jump tack indoor shenanigans, but this time with the hackamore again to ensure i don't get baited into picking at anything

If I'm in my jump saddle a lot of the above holds true, obvi, tho the focus changes a little bit. My jump saddle tips my pelvis more forward (which is part of why I can't fucking sit the canter in that saddle to save my life) so some of my own bio-mechanical things are harder to work on.

Conversely tho, that saddle lends itself perfectly to more rider fitness work like double posting (yup, it's official, I actually *do* hate myself apparently) and two point, forever and ever amen.

And again, Charlie is mostly left to his own devices during all of this. Usually with the aid of ground poles, cavalleti, and small jumps set hither and thither (generally diagonals and bending lines are the most versatile) to give him something to aim for.

thoroughbred ears pricked so hard tho. hint: this ride was replete with much galloping lol

To be perfectly honest? It's actually been pretty fun! Focusing on just my own self has in a weird way taken off a lot of pressure. Like when I'm sitting at home finishing up work and it's already dark and I know there's gonna be a lot of traffic and do I really feel like driving for 50 minutes just to ride around 20m circles in the dark fussing with my horse about shortening and lengthening his stride while staying round and in front of my leg and blah blah blah blah. Like, this time of year the answer to those questions is very often No!

But change it around to : Eh, I'm gonna go out there and let my horse w-t-c hisself around the ring, doin his own little version of conditioning work, while I just try to be stronger as a rider? Sure, why not, right? Sounds kinda refreshing, honestly!

fly mask tho bc poor watery eye lol

It's definitely helping, too. I finally got Charlie out hacking post-eye injury yesterday, and homeboy was hot to trot omg. There are a couple places we usually "gallop" -- often meaning a sedate canter, sometimes more of a hand gallop. Yesterday tho? Yea. Charlie was flat out like he's never been before. And when we suddenly flushed a giant mother fucking vulture that I thought for sure was gonna try to take my head off, and Charlie went skittering sideways across the field at a gallop?? Boom, I totally didn't fall all the way off. Yessssssss haha.

So I'll try to keep it up. This time of year is so crappy, so hard to stay motivated. It's dark and it's cold and there's not a whole lot of exciting stuff on the calendar keeping us going. So I'll take what I can get haha. Anyone else trying to zero in on the rider fitness exercises this winter?