building an off ramp

It’s been a bit of a journey with Doozy, not gonna lie. The combination of her sensitivity and my general rustiness has meant for slow going. It’s been more than just ‘slow’ tho — it’s also frequently been really hard. 

Challenging for me in ways I didn’t really anticipate and that at times often made it impossible to just bliss out and enjoy the ride the way I could with Charlie.

another day, another trip out for a lesson!

Doozy unapologetically demands my full attention and focus every step of the way, there’s no doubt about it. But there’s more to it, I think. Obviously she’s sensitive, but she’s also super reactive — in ways that often feel completely out of proportion to whatever I might expect. 

As a confessed over thinking rider, it never really felt like it added up — that 2 + 2 wasn’t coming out to 4, instead we’d get something crazier like the square root of pi. 

we also jumped at home, including our favorite footwork exercise

Over time, I think I’ve started absorbing some of Doozy’s reactivity too. Which, ya know, makes sense… if your formula spits out nonsense answers no matter what the input, eventually maybe it’s natural to just sorta ‘wait and see’ what output you get before deciding what to do next, right? 

But the result of this, I think, is a situation where our performances aren’t exactly predictable — and in fact perhaps aren’t even reproducible. In other words, when things are ‘good,’ it’s sorta like, “Holy shit wow omg it’s happening this is good - wait don’t change anything - don’t fuck it up!”

And on the flip side, we get scenarios like at Waredaca earlier this year where we slowly descend into the chaotic doom loop of inescapability — and I have zero tools to break the cycle.

and a nice inviting two stride

I don’t really mean to keep banging on about these silly recorded ride guides, but it’s almost unreal how consistent our rides have been since we started using them. And in fact, in our lesson with Woodge yesterday, even she noticed the difference. Suddenly we have a half halt! And where did that lovely balanced 15m canter circle come from???

Not that everything is perfect — it obviously is not. And I still almost literally ate shit just trotting around bc Doozy went “AHH GHOSTS” at nothing, tho thankfully realized she was about to lose me and was like, “wait no aren’t you coming with me??” and paused long enough for me to get my shit together lol…

And obvi other stuff is imperfect too. I’m still crooked, still have timing issues, still make bigger moves at the jumps than I should bc ya know. #AdultAmmy right??

ground pole options, plus single jumps across the center

And Doozy still has all her things too. The aforementioned ghosts, natch, but also still her patented little mini bolts or, the flip side of the same coin, her crooked behind-the-leg “hiss! am snek!” fuss moves.

Something about riding to the recordings is changing the game tho. It creates a proactive “not taking the bait” vibe that separates my aids from Doozy’s reactivity. In other words, instead of chasing her around with all my aids as she pretzels and contorts around a constantly shifting center of gravity, instead I can just focus on that anonymous unfeeling british bot voice casually reminding me to “breathe” and “sit long into your inside leg.”  

bonus goblin pic <3

It feels like that breakthrough we had about ‘riding the footprints’ earlier this summer, where suddenly Doozy ‘accepts the leg’ bc it means something, not just bc I wore her down about it. 

It’s like since my posture is more stable (not perfect, but more… you know how it is), my aids are more continuous and consistent, and she’s not baiting me into changing the subject on inside bend or whatever by ping-ponging off in some other direction… Suddenly my posture and aids and proactive direction actually … mean something more to Doozy. 

The pattern is becoming more predictable to her, there’s less noise in the system, and — gooo figure — she’s responding in kind.

and of course, the Original. in a bag bc #cat

For the first time, it feels like we’re getting more consistency and predictability in her responses to aids — from beginning to end in a ride. That, as Janet Foy would say, for each aid, there is one consistent answer that we all agree on. And it’s super exciting! 

Realistically I don’t think this necessarily ‘cracks the code’ on relaxation for Doozy. That… might be a lifelong journey, if we’re being honest. But maybe we can start channeling that tension, and help Doozy continue to operate ‘within the parameters’ even when she’s kinda losing it. Like maybe there’s an off ramp from the doom loop after all lol. 

Eventually I’d like to, ya know, bypass all that entirely lol. But it feels like we’re making small steps of progress, so I’ll take it! And naturally we’ll probably get an opportunity to see if any of this progress proves durable ‘out in public’ at our next show… wish us luck!