all roads lead to rome

Happy Friday! We finally — finally — made it out for another lesson with longtime dressage trainer C this week, much rejoicing!! 

For the last couple months we’ve kinda been focusing all our resources on lessons with the new 5* trainer. Not necessarily bc one is better than the other or whatever, but actually bc I kinda wanted to see what would happen if we hunkered down with weekly lessons in one ‘program.’ 

always with the #snacks

Verdict? It turns out, there is no silver bullet, no Disney FastPass. The process takes the time it takes, and no one single method is the only “way.” We are loving the process, tho, the lessons are energizing and productive and I look forward to where they take us.

But ya know, I’ve also always loved riding under the guidance of a variety of perspectives (provided they are complementary v confusing to the horse). So when scheduling conflicts arose this week, I leapt at the opportunity to get back on the books with dressage trainer C, who hasn’t seen Doozy since our ill-fated CT at Thornridge last spring.

farrier used a new substance under the clips this cycle — it hardens like epoxy, tho apparently isn’t sticky and doesn’t need all the same rigmarole. the idea is basically to “minimize the damage” from just being a thoroughbred existing in summertime

And it was honestly a great lesson! Nothing new, nothing “ground breaking” per se, but in a weird way, it feels like with Doozy I’m somehow hearing some of this stuff with new ears. Understanding the mechanics on maybe a deeper level.

Don’t get me wrong, we’re very VERY much still in the kiddy pool haha. But thinking back on my riding history, especially as it pertains to dressage… Well. Realistically Isabel was the first horse I ever tried to do “dressage” with, and let’s be honest here — I really got lucky with her. She was talented and game, and we could be successful even with my limited education. 

it comes in this cool little tube, applied by hand before he fully finishes the shoe with a few more hammers on the clips, clinching the nails, last few rasps etc.

Then with Charlie, obvi we had a few good years of working on continuing that education, pushing our boundaries etc. But frankly, the work never came easily to him. And in his early days I was in such a rush to get him moving up the levels that I definitely skipped a few steps. Then by the end of his riding years, after we’d been through so much together, I was decidedly disinclined to pick on him, push him, or drill him through work he didn’t love.

So, yea. Maybe it makes sense why it feels like I’m still kinda learning some of this stuff “for real” now with Doozy. My sweet young mare whose first and foremost job is to help me continue learning and expanding my education in this lifelong sport.

anyway. back to our scheduled programming: #snax at the trailer, apparently tail-less

In our lessons with Woodge this year, we’ve been laser focused on lateral balance — straightness, suppleness, bend, etc. With my understanding of the approach being to start with outside aids and control the outside shoulder while working on that inside bend. And as such, we work almost entirely on small circles.

In this lesson with trainer C, she wants the same outcome, the same lateral balance and flexibility (bc you can’t have the longitudinal balance without the lateral), but we took a bit more of an ‘inside to out’ approach in this lesson. 

mirror selfies!! this is one indoor i *never* mind

Really really focusing on making sure I could always see an inside eyelash no matter what figure we were riding or where we were on a circle or on the rail or whatever. Again — this isn’t exactly a new directive, but our results this lesson were fantastic. Crazy how continual practice actually moves the needle like that LOL!

We spent almost the entire lesson working on getting that whole-of-body inside bend in both directions, using sweeping circles to find the bend, then straightening onto a quarter line (without losing the bend) and going instantly into a leg yield to the wall. Again and again, rinse repeat.

paying the meter before getting started lol

For my part, I tried to stay very conscious of my posture: sitting tall and with weight traveling long down my inside leg like rebar for Doozy to form around, holding a steady post and hands hopefully not going too wild.

I had a recent discovery about our leg yields too, actually. I want to get super pretzel-y and feel like I’m “doing something” to create the leg yield. But strangely, with Doozy — hell, maybe with every horse and I’m only just now figuring this out lol — it turns out that our best leg yields come with almost the absence of a direct aid. Almost like a quiet opening of the door to the outside, and she goes. 

(Provided, of course, that I’ve got myself seated and balanced where I belong.) 

ooooookay so indoor screenshots from the wall-mounted helmet cam are… not persuasive haha. watch the video if you’re curious

None of this happens in a vacuum, right? Like we have spent the last 3 months working weekly with a trainer to establish clear consistent outside aids with the horse. Both Doozy and I are benefiting very much from that work — esp with consistent supervision and eyes on the ground. 

It makes sense, then, that in this lesson where we worked on refining the inside aids, we’d see the cumulative effort come together into a really nice result with the horse. 

video makes more sense than screenshots i promise

Doozy, for her part, was super for this ride. Really really trying, really staying with me. Even when we started up again after a break for our next little work session — the part recorded in the video above — I felt like our tempo started a bit fast and somewhat less consistent, but it doesn’t look that way at all in the video. 

Well, ok, you can decide for yourself LOL, but I thought she looked super workman like and way steadier than it felt.  

doozy was a very good girl tho <3 <3

That last session of work continued with the same themes — sweeping circles to the quarter line for instant leg yields to the wall, then back onto the circle. Only now we intermixed transitions into and out of canter, a couple times in each direction. 

It was kinda funny to me bc this is almost exactly how I’ve been schooling canter at home — just quick hits a few times in a ride, a circle here, then trot, a circle there, then trot again. Mostly to help Doozy stop anticipating and learn how to trot nicely even after a canter. So it was super helpful to keep this approach going in a lesson too.

lots of pets for a good effort <3

Also just a fun lesson overall, too. Let’s be real, there’s a reason why I’ve been riding with C on and off for ten years at this point (hard to believe, but that’s the truth!).

My absolute favorite era of riding was when I was consistently working with 3 distinct trainers on a routine basis each month. A lot of that was circumstantial + geographical luck (whether I realized it at the time or not), and it’s been extremely difficult to replicate the same alchemy again… But maybe with Doozy there will be a new era upon us?