a busy week

As I hinted at last week, we had a lot going on with lessons recently — everything kinda all jumbled and stacked last-minute on top of each other in a not-entirely-ideal schedule.

“you know we have a really nice outdoor ring at home, right??” — doozy, on the trailer for the third time this week

Idk why it always seems to be like “feast or famine” with trying to get lessons set up, but that just seems to be the way of things. 

it was worth it tho!! and look at all these cute little wooden cutout animals!!

Regardless, we actually FINALLY made it out to see Woodge last week as the perfect little cake topper on our triple stack of jump lessons with 5* eventers.

legit so sad this sassy little fox kit pic is blurry bc it’s SO CUTE

And somewhat hilariously, Woodge basically picked up exactly where Dom left off, after Dom had picked up right where Matt left off. Bc real talk, it’s not like isn’t super obvious what I need to be working on. There’s PLENTY of low hanging fruit, right?

anyway! let’s check in with pivo to see how thing are looking after three big clinics in a row!!

But ya know. This whole riding thing is hard. It’s not that I don’t sit up tall and straight bc it’s never occurred to me before, or nobody’s told me. It’s just that. Ya know. In the grand scheme of things, riding is hard. A lot happens every moment, it’s a contact sport. And I’m only human!

HOLY SHIT I LEARNED TO SIT UP

Anyway, naturally there’s no media from our lesson with Woodge either. But have no fear, I have pivo footage from another flat ride at home this weekend!! And Doozy is looking like a whole ass brick house these days, so we get lots of pictures!!!

hahaha just kidding. but seriously tho, have we considered that perhaps i just post the trot ugly?

Doozy is so mercurial, tho, I swear. She really is a different animal every day. For as apeshit explosive she was at the clinic with Dom (bc #dogs), she was a perfectly prim princess at Woodge’s. And then back to sizzling like a steak on the barbecue for the pictured pivo ride — with occasional pops, snaps and CRACKLES!

she looks peaceful and serene, no? ….looks can be deceiving!

Woodge spent a lot of time focusing on my upper body and arm posture too, much like Dom did. Tho she was more focused on bringing my shoulders more back + together, whereas Dom really didn’t like how much I twist and lean from side to side. 

walking out like a slinky glossy panther tho <3

As we all know, tho, I can only really think about one thing at a time. One of the yoga teachers did a series of flows this summer that worked through the chakra systems one at a time, and I found the 3rd chakra sequence particularly helpful. Third chakra being in that solar plexus space above the belly button inside the low ribs, for those less familiar. 

for real tho, this canter literally came out of NOWHERE

Historically my posture has always been really collapsed in that zone, so it’s been really helpful to fixate on that for a little while. But it’s just one piece of the puzzle, right? Seems like the next big focal area is the space between my shoulder blades, as my habit seems to be to really roll my shoulders forward, drawing the blades apart.

why thank you ma’am, all i wanted was a trot transition but apparently there’s a whole new low gear in there!

All these things take time, tho, and it can be hard to stay focused on the posture stuff when Doozy feels like she’s ready to launch into outer space. C’est la vie tho, right? I didn’t set out to buy a horse as challenging for me as this one, but she’s the one that I have now and ain’t nobody beating down the door to take her off my hands* LOL!

(*No, she is not** for sale. I honestly love the shit out of this silly chaotic enigmatic critter)

(**Buttttttttttt if you wanna make an offer…… haha)

“AHHHHHHHH” — doozy, just cuz

Like I said, tho, Doozy was a princess for the ride with Woodge so we got to basically go through all the movements in a more tactical thorough way than we had with either Dom or Matt. Like riding the right side of the horse — that was actually available to me during this lesson so we got to work on calibrating it a little more.

“false alarm…. maybe.” — doozy, legit strutting while also considering ALL her options

Or trying to keep my aids — and especially legs — ON the horse all the time, and especially on the landing side of a jump. Bc hell yes, we got to do a little more course work with Woodge too!! And Doozy was great! 

it might not look like much, but if you make it this far in the video (hint, it’s at the end) you’ll hear from my tone of voice that this right lead canter caught me totally off guard with how held together she felt

And go figure, keeping my aids on kept everything better!! Woodge had said literally the same thing as Dom, about how you “have to ride the horse you have under you right now.” Which is obvi a challenge for a horse as changeable as Doozy. 

basically just enjoyed it for like three quarters of a circle before transitioning down and praising the crap out of her

But it turns out, everything is easier when your leg is on. So no matter what mood Doozy is in, things go better when I have my leg on. Obvi that’s a “duh” statement. But eh, nothing about any of this is exactly ground breaking, amirite?

not gonna lie tho, there’s a huge disconnect in my mind between how much effort is pictured in this moment, just how hard it feels, vs what it can actually look like

And it’s a lesson I seem to need to learn and relearn again and again and again. I have this weird hang up in my brain that equates “good + effective” with “soft + effortless.” Tho as Dan famously quipped to me (a whole ass decade ago, but who’s counting!), “the best riders are soft AND effective, but you have to be effective first.”

clips from the pivo ride if you’re into that sort of thing

And for Doozy right now, at least for me and my skill set and ability, “effective” can often feel like a whole-of-body contact. Like the opposite of effortless.

waiting patiently for her cookie <3

And it usually takes a fairly blunt reminder (like Doozy exploding) to get me to plug in and get connected to the required degree.

and the happiest clam out strolling with friends

That’s another reason why the pivo is so helpful for me right now. Bc again, in my brain, when it feels like I’m working SO HARD and everything is SO HARD and EFFORTFUL, I can feel frustrated and like it’s “wrong” or “not working” or “not getting better.” 

not a bad balance

And obvi I’m not trying to say that the opposite is true — that these are all perfect pictures or that the video is flawless or whatever. It obviously isn’t. But I do see moments that give me more confidence about which approaches seem to work better for Doozy. And moments that help me understand that just bc it doesn’t feel effortless doesn’t mean it’s not effective. 

The last canter in the video above was, for me, a fairly instructive moment. Again, not that it was perfect, but that Doozy understood and was trying, and also recognized that it WAS good (as evidenced by her immediate willingness to transition back down again — something that can… often be a little slow to develop for us LOL). 

And overall, a lot of good moments from the three lessons last week. Perhaps it wasn’t totally necessary or ideal to have them all stacked on top of each other like that… but maybe there were some advantages to the concentration too! Like total immersion haha. Here’s hoping the opportunities remain plentiful into the off season!