Maybe this is only just further proof of my inevitable descent into… madnessadulthood, but each year I find myself indulging more and more in weirdly satisfying mundane little tasks throughout my birthday month.
still grass left in some places!
Like, sure sure, I still do all the ‘regular’ normal birthday things like nice dinners with friends and family, time off from work, and special extravagances — like our recent Allison Springer clinic!! Or, slightly more extravagantly years ago when I upgraded to a Charlie-sized chariot.
hay loft denizens being #nosy about our fall shots appt
But ya know. In an ideal world we aren’t buying new horse trailers every year, amirite? Plus, as is well documented here on ye olde blogge, I have grown increasingly suspicious of putting all my hopes dreams and expectations of happiness into any one particular riding activity.
Like, the clinic was awesome, would 100% do it again — but what if it had sucked?? No no, that wouldn’t do!
inspecting the vet mobile lol
Something that’s almost guaranteed to bring me at least some modicum of fulfillment and satisfaction tho is a nice orderly row of ducks. Or, said more plainly: knocking stuff off the list, getting my shit together, imposing order on any little chaotic details in my life.
Why yes, I *am* very fun at parties, can’t you tell?? lol….
my own denizens, looking more preoccupied by that sweet sweet radiant heat
For real, tho, maybe it’s part of the shifting seasons. Some people are into “Spring cleaning” but I’m more of a “Fall into action” sort. So all manner of little outstanding tasks have been getting done lately — like Doozy’s fall shots!! Perhaps slightly later than normal bc it’s been so unseasonably mild lately, but hey, we got ’r done, and that’s what matters!
hard to tell but this one got a fat lip, probably from getting smacked right in the face by the other one lol… i love you, jojo, but you probably deserved it <3
Oooh I also tacked on a full set of spinal rads too. My vet (whom I love) is immensely practical and generally counsels against neck or spine imaging without matching compelling physical presentations — especially in TBs where it is enormously common to find spots of questionable proximity that may or MAY NOT actually be pathologically significant.
anyway, had a great hack out for my bday!!!
But eh, she knows me well enough at this point to trust that I probably wouldn’t go nuts if we saw anything sketchy. Which… Whew, we did not. Turns out Doozy doesn’t even have anything that even looks like it could be KS.
Given our issues with crookedness and saddle fit shenanigans, it definitely felt nice to cross that off the list of possible problems! Definitely a nice little bday present haha.
explored some new-to-us sections of trail too!
Anyway, let’s see: other little items recently crossed off the list…. Ooh, that headlight that’s been out for damn near a year? Finally replaced that! Got the nail that’s been riding around in one of my (nearly new, sob!) tires for a few weeks fixed while we were at it. AND, all that proved so satisfying that I sent the trailer in for service too.
Woooo hoooo — who knew vehicle maintenance could be so exciting!
am i the only one who sees getting my car washed and detailed as a special little treat??
Nor was my apartment spared from this flurry of organization and fixing up either. Not all at once, obviously, bc that’s the other cool thing about adulthood: I can celebrate the whole damn month if I want, not just a single day.
ok ok but we have actually been riding!! pictured: trotting this way
Bc guys, the satisfaction is so real lol.
also pictured: trotting that way
If only it lasted forever! Alas, tho, somehow there are still more dishes every day, the laundry doesn’t actually stay done, and now the truck wants its turn next, with a blinker bulb replacement plus new wipers still on the list, natch.
round ’n round we go! easy peasy nice ’n easy!
And so it goes LOL. And so it’s been going with the riding too. Indoor season is so blah, so repetitive, so monochromatic. It’s hard to get excited about yet another night of dusty brown circles.
“ARHGAIGHHKKRRRR!!!” — ahem, Doozy accidentally letting her inner wraith slip out a shriek
Not that Doozy doesn’t occasionally find opportunities to, er, spice it up haha. But generally, our weeknight indoor rides lately have lacked the contour and definition of a more typical outdoor daylight schooling session. Tho, again, thanks to birthday PTO + normal weekends with nice weather, we fit in some of that this weekend too <3
“da ba deeeee, da ba dooooo, just trottin around!!!! TOTALLY NORMAL, GUYS!!” — the most pleasantest princess
But still. It’s kinda getting into the time of year where some of our rides feel a bit more like going through the motions, ‘checking it off the list,’ so to speak. Ideally, tho, the object in motion stays in motion — so that when a more exciting opportunity or adventure arises — we’ll be ready!
“this biscuit is serving drama for dinner ;)”
Which, ya know. November ain’t over yet!! Perhaps there will still be more to come !
Happy Friday, y’all! It’s been a quiet week around here. Not… uh, entirely intentionally, tho. I managed to mysteriously tweak an abductor, or at least, that’s what I think it is?
have continued to ride occasionally in the little paddock, sometimes with friends!
Some years ago, pre-Charles but post-Isabel, I was trying to keep my riding momentum going thru sheer willpower alone, and fell off a *bunch* of horses along the way. One of which was former coach Dan’s 2* horse Lion, easily the most schooled horse I’ve ever jumped.
have sometimes been relegated to the big indoor, tho — also sometimes with friends!
The result was a significant strain on the adductor (I think), and it was omg so awful. Lifting the leg was a challenge, sleeping was a nightmare — as a somewhat restless sleeper, I learned through this injury that there is apparently a muscle that works to hold your limbs horizontal when you roll from side to side. And this injury made that legit excruciating.
and who can resist a bounce just sitting there like that?
What I’ve got going on right now feels like the same general area of muscling, but maybe the opposite job. Stairs are fine, standing around is fine, but every now and again — esp in a moment of rotation on the leg, or swinging the leg away from the body — oof. Nobody likes that.
had another lesson at fmf. doozy thought this pole arrangement was 100% natural and normal, good girl
Thankfully tho this go round seems to just be some sort of random tweak. Like, I don’t even really know what caused it, just that I woke up fine one day, then throughout the day became progressively more sore, and by evening all my attempts to power through it failed me and I was legit not even able to post the trot.
continuing to jump actual jumps in these lessons, hurray! for the curious — that’s trot poles to a one stride grid of X’s, i forgot to ask the distance
Which… Was a bummer. As I previously mentioned, I made a hyper-personalized version of my new exciting ‘recorded ride guide’ fixation specifically for practicing the Starter test. I call it hyper-personalized bc it’s literally based off the timing of our videos of riding this test, and the coaching I need ‘in the moment.’
I’m very excited to give this recording a trial run too, and even measured out a practice court in our small indoor, which it turns out is exactly 30x40m, perfect!!
at home, trying to match the drama of the skies
Riding to the recordings continues to go well. I remember once hearing advice on how to make a decision on whether to move on from a horse or not — they said after every ride for a month, you should mark you calendar with either a Green checkmark, or a Red X. Then, at the end of the month, review.
was another great session using our new ride guides!
And I never forgot that advice, not because I’m wondering about moving on from Doozy or whatever, but bc it was such a simplistic and honest framing. Yes or no? Good or bad? Were you happy with that, or no? And ever since, I’ve sought to find ways to ensure that we’re always having more ‘Green Checks’ than ‘Red X’s,’ if you know what I mean.
“ma’am, pls to see that sky of impending doom, tho?? let’s gtfo pls!” — doozy, 100%
These recorded ride guides are 3 for 3 on Green Checks, tho. And not bc Doozy remembered to take her princess pills, either. In fact, on our last ride (before *my* mysterious lameness), Doozy was actually a bit of a hot mess.
A new horse had arrived and the new barn mate was (extremely reasonably) rolling trunks into the barn while we walked up to the ring and Doozy legit flagged her fucking tail omfg, mare. She’s such a funny horse, she HUMS when she’s losing it, and I was like, c’mon pls just cope? Pls??
turns out the little indoor is exactly 40m in length! i had a whole plan to video our test practice, but alas, was too crippled to ride.* will try again next week! (*probably should have taken the hint when putting on boots proved too painful lol)
AND SHE TOTALLY DID!! Like, not right away, tho she clearly was trying — bless her. There were definitely a few moments in the ride when I could have gotten baited into following her down into the doom loop of chaos. But… The recording was there, with its steady unfeeling AI Brit accent with literally no intonation whatsoever, to just keep us going.
And holy shit balls — it was GREAT!! Including that new little inserted canter / trot snowman transitions exercise I wrote about last time, it was legit exactly what I wanted it to be, yay!
It was undoubtedly victory snatched from the jaws of defeat. Rather than being an ‘expensive’ or ‘costly’ sort of ride, we both walked away feeling a big deposit in the trust bank.
lol i forgot to feed the meter after getting on, sweet mare **reminded** me
Doozy is so uniquely challenging for me. I love the shit out of her — she is an extremely good girl. I’ve said from Day 1, and I’ll say it again today: She colors inside the lines.
And it’s exciting to see her schooling improve over time. I’m proud of our progress together. But, ya know. The same challenges are still there, right?
hilariously, this ring is WAY less spooky when it’s filled with literal wagons of hay. silly me, i thought the wagons would be a problem!
She’s probably the ‘slowest boil’ of all the horses I’ve ever got going before…. Tho, real talk. My last season with Charlie —where we were comfortably ensconced at a ‘cruising altitude’ with no upward pressure — was without a doubt a highlight of our time together <3
And I’m trying to keep that lesson from him — perhaps one of the most important that he ever taught me — front and center. It’s so exciting to develop new tools to help keep me and Doozy moving in the right direction. And it’s exciting to feel so excited about a ride, that I’m actually disappointed to have to wait a couple days LOL…
But ya know. C’est la vie! Tho brace yo’selves bc in a couple days time (hopefully) you should expect a post (w/video!) on actually practicing that test along to the new guide. Much excitement haha. In the meantime, TGIF, ya’ll!
Guys! OMG! A couple weeks ago I was cleaning out my car (trying to get a head start on those new year's resolutions, amirite?) and found TWO volunteer schooling passes to Loch Moy Farm!!!
setting off on our adventure! also possibly my beloved truck's last :'(
And unlike virtually every other schooling pass I've earned over the years, these hadn't actually expired yet --- in fact, I had until 12/31 to cash in. Yessss!!
two intrepid TBs ready to go!
As with all things 2020, I'm essentially basing every single decision on a gut check. And in this case, my gut said, "Hell Yes, let's use those passes!" My barn mate Amy's gut likewise agreed, so we checked the forecast, picked a date and headed out!!
my lord this google satellite map is years out of date. lower ring is double this width now, and features a water complex (circled in blue), two sets of banks going uphill to the middle arena, plus a brand new irish bank near the water, pictured below. there's also some ditches near the water, plus a ditch in the driveway path from SJ to the middle arena, marked in yellow
For those uninitiated with the amazing Loch Moy Farm facility -- this place is eventing mecca. It hosts an FEI event, multiple nationally recognized horse trials (including the area's only BN3DE), multiple more unrecognized events (through M), PLUS recognized and unrecognized dressage, hunter and jumper shows, AND a wintertime series of cross derbies.
This is all supported by some absurd amount of acreage surfaced with all-weather footing - as pictured above, and extensive cross country grounds.
warm up ground logs!!
After the final horse trial of the year (usually November), the venue pulls all the portable fences into the interconnected network of {massive} arenas and stays open for schooling all winter long.
little roll next to the ivy wall in the SJ arena!
Historically we've managed to get out at least once (but often twice) per winter, and it's just so so worth it. Jumping XC fences on flat groomed surfaces is somehow an entirely different ballgame haha.
moar little rolls! fun fact: we almost died over this one <3
Usually, we use it as an opportunity to kinda stretch and challenge ourselves a little bit -- working on navigating larger fences without the complicating factor of terrain etc. And in fact, Charlie jumped some of his first T fences in this setting.
slightly bigger little roll -- still in the SJ ring (warm up ring is that white fence uphill to the right)
This time around, tho, our goals were a little different. Obvi Charlie's had time off jumping -- and hasn't even schooled anything even approximating xc since our last hunter pace on Labor Day Weekend. And more recently, the horses have been in much lighter work following the ice / snow storm.
familiar ark, and a Punky in the distance!
Plus, let's be real here -- 2020 has been plenty challenging enough already, thankyouverymuch. It's been a stressful, trying year and I know I'm not alone in feeling seriously worn down by the constant low grade anxiety grind.
driveway ditch!
So we headed out with low expectations and an agenda revolving 100% around having FUN. Both of these horses have been to this venue multiple times, including for the arena eventing. And both have seen virtually all the fences. Charlie's jumped literally everything from N down, and most of the T jumps too for that matter.
entering the big middle arena from the driveway!!
So it honestly felt pretty perfect. We started in the upper arena that's usually set up for show jumping, and warmed up over a little circuit of logs that were essentially ground poles. Charlie was aces on the left lead, but was kinda off our rhythm on the right. Kinda getting a little too gung ho and then running a little past his distance.
down in the lowest ring -- new 3-sided bank! and water to the right
Which naturally led to him simply leaving it out over a small little roll top, and we almost died, lol whoops!
I had obsessed in the days leading up about what bridle to bring.... The loose ring snaffle we wear in lessons? The hackamore we use for hunter paces and trail riding? Or the elevator we usually use for xc?
still nearly collided with Punky repeatedly despite the enormous amount of space lol
I opted for the snaffle.... and.... this was probably a mistake haha. After nearly dying leaving a stride out over the little roll, we got back on the same page about rhythm and balance on approaching the fences.
In fact -- other than that blip, Charlie was incredible to the fences. He felt like he was in that perfect sweet spot up in front of my leg and steady in the bridle contact where we always get to a perfect distance. But..... As has been our way for a very long time, we just weren't landing in the same canter haha.
tootsie roll!! can sorta see one of the banks uphill in the background directly above that left side red jump
Actually, it was super reminiscent of our catastrophe of a horse show last August, whoops, and I may or may not have gotten run away with once or twice -- with Charlie charging clear across the entire arena before I could get him pulled up.
I'd say it's embarrassing... except, lol, it totally wasn't. Charlie was having fun, I was having fun, and nothing else matters even a little bit right now. So... whatevskis lol!
boat by the water! and gorgeous sugarloaf mountain
We mostly just looped around -- jumping mainly the N and BN options. Plus occasionally shifting down to trot some of the itsy bitsies out there too, to remind Charlie that he *can* actually be a sensible civilized creature lol.
slightly bigger boat near the water!
And for my part, I wanted to focus on two main rider aspects: 1) keeping my hands forward come hell or high water, and grabbing mane as needed (per the xc clinic with Martin Douzant last year); and 2) working on my upper body position per the resistance band lessons we've done lately.
Punky won today's blue ribbon
And that was basically it, lol. The whole "keep my hands forward" thing is such a game changer -- it makes seeing distances to the fences and holding a good balance so so SO much easier. But my pearl-clutching habit is so deeply ingrained, it honestly takes constant brain power (and handfuls of mane) to keep me honest about it.
narrow house ain't so narrow when it's blocked in like this lol
But I was really proud that we didn't have a single pearl clutching fence the entire ride -- even when we went crazy long to the tiny warm up fence lol. So ya know, that counts as progress haha.
itsy bitsy bending line! whoa, charlie!
I also felt reasonably stable and secure in my jumping position too despite not jumping much at all this fall. Obvi it's easier when the horse is getting to all the fences as nicely as Charlie was, but it was still reassuring to not feel all that rusty after all.
and finishing over this little roll table again <3
To be perfectly honest, it felt really nice to get out there with zero expectations. I'm trying to be less hard on myself, and trying to be better at enjoying this incredible horse who is so extremely capable and reliable.
And the proof is in the pudding, right? Often times, in a ride where I'm constantly pushing myself, I'll end up wanting to finish sooner. Almost like I'm worried that if I try to jump too many challenging fences or combinations, I'll somehow find a way to mess everything up. So there are all these past schooling rides where I'll look back in retrospect and wonder why I didn't jump more.
This ride, tho, was nothing like that. I felt like we got to jump a lot of stuff -- getting our money's worth but without over doing anything. Definitely a good feeling haha -- and makes for a more fun (and slightly lengthier) helmet cam video IMO.
I'm really hoping we'll get back to this venue again at least once more this winter (maybe for a derby?). It's really not all that far distance-wise (about 1.5hrs drive), but it involves going alllllll the way across the Baltimore beltway. Which.... is a fucking nightmare with a trailer (especially the inner loop, ugh).
My truck was also acting up the entire way there and back this trip -- to the point where I had a friend on standby in case we needed rescuing. I'm hoping it's a simple fix but with an older high mileage truck, the end always feels right around the corner haha.
So we'll see what happens, I guess. For now I'm just grateful to have gotten in this one last big happy bright spot to finish out the clusterfuck that was 2020 ;)
Alternate title: "Turns out, Boyd doesn't stake down all the fences at Windurra.... Whoops!"
Ahem, cough cough. Anyway.
I wrote yesterday about feeling just overwhelmingly tired with life lately, and how that manifested in a somewhat insidious feeling of the "I don't wannas" when it came to all things high pressure with horses.
assembling the crew. that dog was charlie's spirit animal
But... Then, sorta out of nowhere, a barn mate told me she had impulsively signed up for a lesson with Sally at Windurra the following day, and did I want to tag along too? And much to my surprise, my knee jerk reaction was a totally refreshing "Heck yes, let's do it!"
Which like... If you've ever gone through a phase where you only want to say "No" to anything and everything, even the things that would normally top the list of exciting happenings.... Well. It's a very good feeling when something crops up that makes you definitely want to get out there again. And not just because you feel like you should do it, but bc you actually honest to god truly want to. Does that make sense?
as evidence of my own dysfunction during this ride, try to figure out which element was intended to be next in this line.... (hint, we were a little crooked lol)
So I didn't really think too deeply about it, or worry too much about our slightly sub-optimal preparation. Realistically, I figured it probably wouldn't be a mindblowingly phenomenal ride.
But I also more or less expected that the lesson format with Sally would provide a perfect recipe for getting my and Charlie's good juju flowing again.
got better coming back the other way down the little bank
Which... was accurate. And also basically exactly what the doctor ordered. Charlie and I were.... not on the same page. Even for our earliest warm up jumps, Charlie wasn't really taking me to the fences and had a bit of a non-committal feeling about things.
Unlike past rides at Windurra where we progressed relatively quickly through the warm up to full size training level fences, this time we just worked on repeating the first few lines trying to get a rhythm together.
a couple jumps charlie did very nicely
Sally observed that Charlie really needed me to be his rock, needed me to be really strong and stable in my position. I needed WAY more leg on, firmly. But also more firm contact. No wishy washy, no just sitting there expecting him to drag me to the fences.
Maybe some days that kind of ride works well enough with Charlie, but that was definitely not the ride we were having on this day, for whatever reason. Well. Ahem, not "whatever" reason -- it's the same old story I told yesterday.
And actually the same story as unfolded after Plantation last year: If I don't do my homework in schooling rides, if I don't stay consistently clear about the rules with Charlie -- that he must always be in front of the leg and going forward -- Charlie won't exactly police his own self on the matter. And then I can't just snap my fingers and expect Charlie to suddenly understand that "this ride is different" and that he has to listen now.
this line scared the ever loving shit out of me, even tho each individual jump is small
In a way, tho, I'm honestly kinda glad that this was the horse I had in the lesson. All summer long we've been working on getting a better canter to the fences, but that became even more important in this lesson where Charlie wasn't really participating as much as normal.
And Charlie is such an honest horse -- when I got my feeling right (way more leg and WAY more contact -- but forward contact -- than I expected) Charlie more or less responded in kind. Like he did through this crazy ass line haha.
bless him, tho, charlie is SUCH an honest horse
The wide angle lens of the helmet cam really does a disservice to any sort of terrain - everything is so much more flattened. But you can kinda sorta see Sally standing next to the mound in the gif above as evidence that.... the mound was TALL. And the skinny little jump on the back side was completely invisible until you were already jumping the pipe.
I've never ever ridden anything like that before, and honestly really biffed it the first time. Charlie would have been blameless for running out, but he jumped it - good boy! And then was even better the second time (above), even tho I thought we were tempting fate by trying it again.
these banks are our bitch now haha
So yea, I don't want to give the impression that Charlie was bad, per se, during this ride, because he wasn't lol. Obviously, he is the best boy, always and forever.
But.... He just wasn't particularly keen. Didn't have his normal zip or his typical gusto. Part of me thought that maybe it was bc we stuck with the small jumps that didn't inspire him to greatness... But then again, with the way he was jumping them (or, uh, clobbering them, as the case may be) it definitely did *not* seem prudent to size up, ya know??
this giant drop still scares me but charlie was aces
Plus, Charlie was getting kinda emotional. The kind of weird stuck feeling that he gets as a ride like this progresses, where he gets really fussy about the transition into canter, or only wants to pick up the incorrect lead but then is offended when you bring him back to ask again.
That's exactly the type of progressively escalating nonsense that I need to be quicker to end, vs sorta trying to tip toe around it. Bc.... Well. If you watch the helmet cam video you'll see why LOL.
nothing about this house into water should have caused an issue for us
Anyway, the ride was mostly a bit uneven. We had a few weird instances of Charlie just sorta failing to adjust and clobbering the fences. But we also had some really good moments - notably, the keyhole line above, the ditches, and actually every single bank we did, including that giant down bank that scares the pants off me.
All that to say... The meltdown at the water definitely took me by surprise.
and yet..... issues we had. charlie rolled the mother fucker completely over. excuse me, sir, wat?
In Charlie's defense, the little house into water was positioned on somewhat uneven ground and I think the last step caught Charlie a bit off guard. But.... Well. Charlie responded by literally climbing over the fence, rolling it over in the process (thus the alternate title about Boyd apparently not staking down his jumps.....).
This was obviously... very unexpected. I tried to talk through how I rode it, to see if I made a mistake, but Sally was legit incredulous, saying, "He shouldn't have done that. What the fuck."
Her point being, this is not a new exercise for Charlie. We've practiced it, actually in way harder configurations. He's got a good eye and knows how to adjust, but just.... didn't. Which like, I can't protect him from that. That's 100% his responsibility.
and then, naturally, he wanted nothing to do with it. much application of voice cues ensued.
Things..... Devolved from there. While Sally and a lesson mate fixed the jump, I got Charlie cantering through the water on its own. Then approached the house from the opposite direction - water to land. Which.... Arguably may have been harder, but Charlie cruised over easily.
Then went to approach again and Charlie went into full blown dinosaur-stuck-in-tar-pit mode like we haven't seen in ages. In that situation, the whip doesn't work. The spurs don't work. Basically the only solution is unleashing the full force of my lungs in a primal scream growl lol. Which, go figure, got Charlie unstuck pronto haha.
He still didn't want to go near the house tho, so we kept cantering and just went directly to the rolltop in the water instead. Again, a jump that is generally understood to be substantially harder (and, uh, objectively larger) than the house. And Charlie jumped it like aces.
the whole saga is recorded in the video below... but eventually we managed to put the line together. jusssst in time for boyd to pull up in his water truck, womp.
At which point we came back to put the full line back together. It took substantially more scream growling -- and you'll note that Charlie wasn't even CLOSE to being straight upon reaching the house. But, good boy, he did in fact jump it. Then was an even better boy and covered the ground extremely nicely to jump the roll top too. Yessir. We will take it.
Holy shit tho, that was way harder than it needed to be. Christ almighty.
Oooh. Also, I didn't really notice that truck driving up until after I got over the last jump. But yea. Totes Boyd coming up to top off the water level I guess, or something. Just in time to witness me having to holler like a madwoman to get my horse over a BN house. Bc I am so gud at riding, guys. Sigh....
first jump in the water tho, and it was no issue!
So.... Yea haha. It was a little bit of a tough ride. But honestly I'm not sorry that it went the way it did. Charlie is an extremely good horse. He's generally very easy and uncomplicated, and beyond generous.
But ya know. He's a horse haha, not a machine. And the biggest uncertainty we have in pushing for bigger badder fences is whether I can pick up the slack when Charlie isn't operating at 110%. While that remains a big question mark, I feel like this lesson gave me a lot more tools and a much better feel for the type of ride I need to give.
Sally, for her part, was a little concerned since she'd never seen this side of Charlie. She's only ever really seen him on his A-Game, actually, and felt like I should do a little digging on the physical side of things to make sure he's ok.
Her recommendation was a Lyme test, which is basically always in the Top 3 boxes to check whenever a horse in this region seems a bit off kilter. I personally didn't feel that a positive result was likely, but since I pay the woman for her opinion I went ahead and did the test anyway. It was negative, as expected.
I'm also treating for ulcers. Again, I am not convinced that Charlie is actually in distress here, but it's a good box to check off. And if we see any major obvious changes during the course of treatment, that'll indicate whether we should scope too just to be sure.
To me, Charlie's behavior in this ride wasn't really beyond the pale in terms of what we've seen of his development over the last few years. But then again I've never regretted taking a few extra precautions. So we'll see.
In the meantime, it felt really valuable to be reminded of that post I wrote last year after a similar feeling from the horse at Plantation. It's funny how that works, tho, right? Like we're always going into these lessons hoping for some amazing magical experience. But actually, sometimes it's the rougher rides that give us more tools in moving forward lol. Have you ever felt that way too?
