doing fun stuff (+ dumb stuff)

On this Monday morning, I solemnly swear to cheat reeeeal hard in blog posts. Meaning. I'm going to write about a lesson *I* took, but post pictures of my trainer going through the same exercises with his promising young Irish thing, instead of pictures of myself.

Mostly bc no pictures of my attempts exist, nor did I snap a single photo of Lion man this time around (he's just as handsome as last time, I promise). But I took all kinds of pics and videos of Dan's schooling session on his horse after my ride. So there.

exciting young Irish horse in action. also some jump exercises in the background

Basically tho I have a very serious problem with riding right now. I'm plain old not doing enough of it to be strong enough to do the stuff I actually want to be doing. Like jumping big jumps.

I have enough strength to get a horse going (kinda) and rev the engine a bit. But not quite enough to support it and hold it together. And, quite obviously with my recent track record, not enough strength to stick it when things get a bit dicey.

like so. was two holes lower when i jumped it, but just as wide

And Lion pretty much had my number on the flat. There was MUCH application of dressage whip happening, with very little effect (Dan encouraged me to do lots of little taps in rapid succession rather than one hard tap - tho even my little taps were still a bit too mild haha).

At one point he reminded me that we weren't at a horse show, I wasn't going to get sent back to the barn for more than 3 taps in a row. I understood what he was saying, but mostly just felt frustrated by my weakness lol. Le sigh.

this was the height i jumped. promising Irish thing is clearly unimpressed

Whatever the case, it was balls hot out so we didn't spend overmuch time on the flat anyway. First up in the jump exercises were the two verticals at the end of a long grid, seen below.

Except to start, they weren't verticals and certainly didn't have the "V" poles on them. They were actually offset half cross rails - so on the first the left side was on the ground, and on the second the right side was on the ground.

square oxer two strides to vertical one stride to vertical.
but ALSO: square oxer three strides to white corner

After turning in to canter just that section a couple times, and remembering how FUN Lion is to jump, we went through the whole 5-element grid. You can see most of the beginning of the grid below. It was two low verticals set at a one stride distance, then two strides to the low wide square oxer, then two strides to the offset half cross rails we had just jumped.

Went through a couple times getting a sense for the pace we needed (12' stride), and particular attention paid to straightness upon landing. Then the last two went up to full size verticals. Another pass then we got the "V" poles on just the last vertical (as opposed to the "V" poles on both, when Dan was schooling).

(I'm documenting this mostly bc the progression in how Dan formulates the exercises for his horses is almost as interesting to me as my own experiences through them.)

After that, Dan had me do the diagonal line exercise that you'll see in the video below: starting with the center low wide square oxer, slice it to hit the white corner (line is sorta visible in the picture with the "V" poles), turn right, come back to slice the oxer to the red and white corner above (coming toward the camera). Both done in three strides. 

The first line - oxer to white corner - came up sliiiiiiightly long for us (with Dan yelling for me to hit the gas pedal), but the oxer to the red and white corner rode a little better. 

corner as demonstrated by dan. and yea this is how it was set when we jumped it too.

I was actually legitimately surprised by how well it went. Obviously Lion is a very schooled horse - easily the most well schooled horse I've ever jumped - ever. But still. I mean, sure I kinda put him in awkwardish spots and he was very honest, but the lines still felt pretty ok.

But then we turned it around to go red and white corner back to the oxer and I biffed it and Lion side-stepped/crashed it, but then looked for all the world like he would jump the oxer anyway and.... I bailed. And finally actually injured myself in the process. (Only saying "finally" bc I've fallen off approx half a dozen times so far this year and have been more or less unscathed...).

video of dan showing how it ought to be done here

The kinda feeling where you get back on the horse... but you're still done. Dan encouraged me to go out and canter a ground pole or two but... ugh. I just didn't. Couldn't. Wouldn't. Idk. After feeling like I had run out of leg strength during the ride, then actually injured said legs into further inefficacy... I was just done.

It's demoralizing. I need to stop falling off of horses. That much is glaringly obvious. It's just hard bc I'm not riding enough, and I'm not riding at all outside of lessons. So I'm just plain not strong enough to jump 3'+ fences when things aren't 100% perfect.

my nephew likes crutches tho!

It's cool tho. I mean, it's not cool in that I have a very seriously sore adductor and am marginally crippled. But liberal application of ace bandages and some wingman support from ye olde crutches (mostly just to help get a little lift from my overly earthbound limb) has gone a long way to making me feel better.

If anything, it just increases my resolve to settle asap on the thing I'm calling my "new normal." Cross your fingers for me!