what's the big difference? xc edition

Charlie and I went xc schooling again this weekend, quite unexpectedly actually. And it was good. I'll write more below.

Isabel!!!!! from last year's epic blogger cross country meet up with Allison and Niamh

But there continues to be fairly major problems with my ride. And I think I've finally pinpointed the exact sources. Or, well, I think there's one central issue from which all other problems radiate.

wheeeeee Charlie!

Neither of the above pictures are really perfect, and I'm not claiming my position in the pic with Isabel is ideal - but I think this is the clearest example of what I'm trying to say. Spot the difference between the above two?

hands half way (ish) up the neck

From past cross country lessons with Dan, I've written the following about his instructions re: position:

Dan talked about the importance of having distinct riding styles between each phase - and that for xc he wanted my galloping position to include hands farther forward. As in, half way up Isabel's neck, with knuckles actually pressing into her neck. He used Andrew Nicholson as an example of a rider who really doesn't move his hands at all, and rather makes all his adjustments through his body and legs and core, etc.

And at our season opener at Loch Moy last year, I wrote TWICE about how on cross country, when I remembered to get my hands farther forward up the horse's neck, it was suddenly much easier to commit to the forward ride on the horse.

pictured: hands not where they belong.

Right now with Charlie, I'm really struggling to commit to the forward ride, to let him go. Mostly bc the faster he goes, the more obvious it is how green he is (naturally), and that's not necessarily a fantastic feeling.

pictured: such a good boy

BUT. He is a good boy. And he's doing well. He's trying hard and getting a lot of the answers right, despite his greenness. My thinking is that if I can just correct this one issue with my position, all the other pieces will feel a lot better. A stronger, more correct position will make me more effective in the saddle, which will make the actual riding easier anyway.

lol my hands are definitely in the category of "once you've seen it, you can't unsee it" .... blargh
also - spot the "fun" uphill roller coaster log line in the background!

So. That's basically the biggest takeaway from this weekend's schooling. The other big takeaway? Charlie got out there and knew exactly what was up. He was READY for it haha.

I was... less ready and taken a bit by surprise by the unexpected schooling (as evidenced by not having my helmet cam on hand!), but felt game enough. And I did in fact feel better throughout the whole ride than I had the schooling before. Small steps, y'all.

warm up logs! 

And I was ready to pick up where we left off the lesson before: with cantering in to all the fences and trying to trust the horse more. We warmed up over some little logs we finished with last week, including putting a bending 90* left turning line together.

roll top again! 

Charlie wasn't finding the greatest of spots, but we can attribute that to my aforementioned rider issues, and his greenness. The spots weren't all great, but he sure as shit didn't care. Good boy.

out with a bigger group this time, and doin good

It was pretty immediately clear tho that Trainer P was taking zero prisoners in this lesson. EVERYONE was held more accountable, and she pushed everyone to challenge themselves and ride more. Including three riders who schooled a lot of N stuff (and the occasional T element), and a fourth rider whose green bean was more of a level with Charlie (tho slightly more advanced).

same uphill log as last time

And trainer P didn't want to hear any of my nonsense. Tho she did let me start over a smaller log than she wanted, after I acknowledged it was for my own benefit and not Charlie's haha. But after that, it was full speed ahead. Skipping over the littlest stuff we had done last time, and adding in more "big" stuff (like a fun looking rail fence very early on).

in jump of the uphill log LINE!

And she made me do the uphill line of log jumps - which I jumped with Jasper on my first ever xc schooling three years ago, and then jumped a number of times with Isabel - most recently during our final BN in mid 2015 before moving up to N.

out jump. with horse's head and neck restricted by rider's hands. le sigh. 

Like. So I know this line of jumps. I know Isabel and I schooled it in 5, but aced it in 4 during competition. I also knew that Charlie was getting there in a long 5 and wasn't jumping well bc I was pulling on him. But even with two trips through, I wasn't really fixing it.

for context, a grainy clip of izzy doing 4 over the same line. compare to charlie in the below video

Because sometimes guys, it just takes me a long time to translate something I know intellectually into something I can actually physically do. (Which also explains why I repeat myself again and again - trying to commit this stuff to memory first, and hopefully muscle memory shortly thereafter!).

And the reality is that I'm simply not that same rider from 2015 any more. Which sucks but... well. Shit happens. If I play my cards right tho, Charlie will get me whipped back into shape!!

up banks = easy

Anyway, by this time in the schooling, Charlie was definitely getting really into it. I spent a lot of time cantering around before each jump and after each jump, so it was less "stop and start" and more "getting to know each other cantering over ground." But even so, Charlie would lope right on along until something resembling a jump crossed his sight line. Then it was ON.

down banks = slightly more challenging, at least for rider haha

Trainer P told me if I was too nervous, I could consider putting a pelham on him for our first full three phase HT this coming weekend.... But I think I'm going to hold off for now. If I can't stop myself from pulling on him in the snaffle.... it's probably not the right time to bit up.

Plus, again, I'm expecting that the correction in my upper body and arm positioning can fix these issues better than a bigger bit anyway. We'll see.

damn that is a long long horse tho haha

Trainer P said one thing tho that really helped me tho - she said sometimes the best thing to do with green beans is to actually be a little sloppy, a little loosey-goosey with the reins, and let them figure it out.

wheeeee flying through the water!

For whatever reason, "sloppy reins" resonated with me, and I was able to (mostly) force myself to just keep pushing my hands forward to the next little jump (not pictured, but a saw mill log in a fence line). And whadya know, Charlie held himself steady all on his own, without my constant pulling. Funny how that works lol.

fun (and shorter) video here! (sorry there's not more, I didn't bring my helmet cam and my lesson mates were often otherwise occupied jumping their own jumps lol)

Really tho, like I said last week, we just need more mileage. The horse is proving to be bold and brave, tho he definitely feels very green. So I need to continue allowing him to do his thing and gain the experience, but also fill in the gaps and be a more correct rider for when he does have a green moment or two.

so many pets. <3 him.

I'd be lying if I said I didn't feel pretty nervous going into this coming weekend. We're doing all three phases at Loch Moy in their elementary (2'3) division. I'm fully expecting the stadium jumps to be a little soft, and I've seen most of their elem xc jumps before and they're definitely on the smaller side.

The horse should be fine no matter what, I think, I just need to do my job. And remember to put my goddamn hands forward lol. The plan is to have one more jump lesson (probably in the ring) between now and the show, and depending on weather etc, I may be able to get in a jump school at home too.

me + my pony

We'll see. Mostly I'm pretty excited. And let's be real, this wouldn't be 'Fraidy Cat Eventing if I wasn't at least a little freaked out haha. But it's cool. Time keeps on chuggin' no matter what and I've just gotta keep doin what we're doin.

This xc school felt like good preparation tho. And we had another dressage lesson too that'll get it's own post probably (tho there honestly isn't a ton to say). So ya know. We're dotting all the "i"s and crossing all the "t"s. Like ya do. Maybe I'll get around to cleaning some tack too haha, or doing laundry? Eh. Devil in the details, and such.