Let me begin with my usual intro: oops, I've been a bit lax about updating!
After the saddle bit the dust, my coach let me start using hers. It's a nice, quite substantial dressage saddle. It's comfortable and puts me in a good position. My leg is further back on her barrel, and back underneath me in proper vertical alignment. Finally, woohoo!
Now, the negatives of that are that, between the different stirrup/leg placement and a different slope and shape to the seat... my body is back to having more tension while the lengthening/shortening of different muscles adjusts to support me at the new angle. Aaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh. Just when I'd stopped bouncing so much at sitting trot and especially at canter!
In the long run, though, this will be much better for me. I'll be stronger, more flexible, and have better leg placement.
My coach shot a short video of my sitting trot last week that was... BAD. You can see in it that my lower back is too arched and too stiff, and that I'm bouncing all over. In it, I'm not directing the bounce productively, so I'm just slamming around stiffly. The unfortunate thing is that it didn't even feel that bad! I didn't expect what I was doing would look so rough. You can even hear me at the beginning of the video saying "Other than my hands wanting to come up, this feels pretty good!" or something like that. Wellllllllll... no.
The good news is that I've continued to work on my sitting trot, and today I was really in the tack much better, and feeling much more flexible. For whatever reason M was being very pokey while I was doing my sitting trot. I SWEAR I was not gripping and not slamming her in the back. I think maybe she was reacting to the bungee reins*? She went better at rising trot, but still wasn't particularly forward in trot at all.
Her canter is much better lately! Hooray! It's really nice to ride her and not get the feeling that she HATES cantering! She was giving me the "fuck you" trot and not wanting to transition up the first couple of times I asked for it, and I had to use the stick, but once she got going she was happy to BE going, and only broke on me once when she got a bit excited going to the left and got out of balance. No funny stuff otherwise though, as far as overcollecting, feeling REALLY weird on the left, etc. She tripped up a bit with her back legs just once but she recovered fine and -- this is great -- I didn't panic!!
I do have more bounce back in my canter for about 90% of my rides right now, and that's mainly the saddle readjustment issue (plus just my underlying tension, which I was getting better at dealing with before the switch). But I'm cantering much more confidently even if it IS awkward for the time being.
About a week ago I was feeling a bit tense/bummed out that maybe I've hit my plateau as far as my riding skills go. That no matter what I'm going to have a certain amount of tension and bounce and awkwardness because riding just IS kind of scary and no amount of doing it is going to fix that. But this week I'm feeling better about things. I think I DO still have a lot of room to improve and that I have it in me to get there if I just keep things up. I can't get over how much better everything got over this winter!
*I've been using elastic reins that pass over the poll, through the bit, and attach to the girth buckles on either side, for most of my rides in the last couple of weeks. M has a habit of tugging and/or leaning on the reins, and of also wanting to stay long and shuffle along that way instead of coming up round and soft. So, they help, while still letting her use herself as needed -- and even have a massive fit of coughing at the canter, apparently!
Tuesday, March 27, 2018
Friday, March 9, 2018
Saddle goes POP!
In my last lesson, my coach was saying she'd like to replace the saddle I've been using this season. These were apparently magic words, because, the very next ride, in about the last ten minutes of the ride I noticed this weird, occasional popping feeling under my right hip, coming from somewhere inside the saddle. The horse didn't seem to react to it at all, and it wasn't a BIG pop, but it was there.
The next ride, it was more frequent. Drat. Especially going to the right. Again, though, the horse didn't seem to notice it and it wasn't BIG.
I didn't, however, rule it out as somehow coming from the right stirrup, so today I lunged and then did a quick ride. Well, the popping was more frequent and I could feel it in BOTH sides, and it seemed to now be happening further back in the seat. And the horse DID notice it today, as her ears were flicking back when it was happening. Not in an "OW!" way. More in a "What IS that?!" way. But it's obviously getting worse quickly.
So, alas, I think that saddle is toast.
As far as the riding itself goes... I felt pretty sticky today. She WAS a bit pokey, I think because I lunged first, but also, because I was pretty sticky that had the side effect, I think, of her seeming to go more slowly. Her initial canters were nice and soft and slow and round. I did, however, get a few "fuck you" trots when I tried to pick up the canter, especially to the right. Once the saddle situation is sorted out, I'll be more confidently able to get after her for that. As it was this ride and the previous one, I was feeling nervous about the popping potentially spooking her so I was kind of lax.
My previous ride, I did manage a lead change each way across the diagonal, without breaking and without completely cutting off the corner. She did come onto her forehand kind of dive into them, but that might be unavoidable at this point in her age/soundness.
Over all, things have been feeling good, with a few exceptions. Perhaps because of the busted saddle problem, I've noticed that the saddle has been shifting left, and an unfortunate side effect of that is that my right side, which is prone to shorten up on me, shortens up even MORE because my weight wants to sink to the left.
Major improvements lately, though: my canter is so much better. I'm moving my back properly now. I'm actually surprised by how high up my back the motion has to start; it's actually right at the base of the rib cage. My sitting trot is steadily improving. My hands are more still, generally, though they could stand to come down a bit more. I'm able to isolate parts of my body better and better.
When I feel like I'm not improving as much as I'd like, I just have to look back to how difficult certain things were a year or a year and a half ago. Sitting the trot without stirrups is now relatively easy, and rising trot without stirrups isn't too bad either -- just a bit tiring and hard on my "bits" because of friction. But I do feel pretty solid at both. Not like I'm constantly losing and correcting my balance, or like I might slide off the horse at any time, like before. I haven't been doing canter without stirrups but mainly because the canter has been pretty not-perfect lately, and that's a lot to do with the horse's limited capabilities at this point, so it is what it is. All in all, this winter has done a LOTTTT for my riding, and I'm very grateful for how it's all been going!!
The next ride, it was more frequent. Drat. Especially going to the right. Again, though, the horse didn't seem to notice it and it wasn't BIG.
I didn't, however, rule it out as somehow coming from the right stirrup, so today I lunged and then did a quick ride. Well, the popping was more frequent and I could feel it in BOTH sides, and it seemed to now be happening further back in the seat. And the horse DID notice it today, as her ears were flicking back when it was happening. Not in an "OW!" way. More in a "What IS that?!" way. But it's obviously getting worse quickly.
So, alas, I think that saddle is toast.
As far as the riding itself goes... I felt pretty sticky today. She WAS a bit pokey, I think because I lunged first, but also, because I was pretty sticky that had the side effect, I think, of her seeming to go more slowly. Her initial canters were nice and soft and slow and round. I did, however, get a few "fuck you" trots when I tried to pick up the canter, especially to the right. Once the saddle situation is sorted out, I'll be more confidently able to get after her for that. As it was this ride and the previous one, I was feeling nervous about the popping potentially spooking her so I was kind of lax.
My previous ride, I did manage a lead change each way across the diagonal, without breaking and without completely cutting off the corner. She did come onto her forehand kind of dive into them, but that might be unavoidable at this point in her age/soundness.
Over all, things have been feeling good, with a few exceptions. Perhaps because of the busted saddle problem, I've noticed that the saddle has been shifting left, and an unfortunate side effect of that is that my right side, which is prone to shorten up on me, shortens up even MORE because my weight wants to sink to the left.
Major improvements lately, though: my canter is so much better. I'm moving my back properly now. I'm actually surprised by how high up my back the motion has to start; it's actually right at the base of the rib cage. My sitting trot is steadily improving. My hands are more still, generally, though they could stand to come down a bit more. I'm able to isolate parts of my body better and better.
When I feel like I'm not improving as much as I'd like, I just have to look back to how difficult certain things were a year or a year and a half ago. Sitting the trot without stirrups is now relatively easy, and rising trot without stirrups isn't too bad either -- just a bit tiring and hard on my "bits" because of friction. But I do feel pretty solid at both. Not like I'm constantly losing and correcting my balance, or like I might slide off the horse at any time, like before. I haven't been doing canter without stirrups but mainly because the canter has been pretty not-perfect lately, and that's a lot to do with the horse's limited capabilities at this point, so it is what it is. All in all, this winter has done a LOTTTT for my riding, and I'm very grateful for how it's all been going!!
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