the spirit of inquiry

I looked back over the last entry and realized we are making measurable progress. Jo's working gaits are better, and they are arriving earlier in the ride. And Royal is wonderful as usual, of course.

Board has gone up, so Royal has entered the Saturday lesson program with my adult intermediate student E. - she wants to learn dressage, and he is both safe and trained. She rode him for the second time this week, and they even cantered. She's learning what to do and not do; he does it right when she does, and cheerfully lugs around on the forehand when she doesn't.

E. made an interesting comment that was reported to me: Royal doesn't complain when she makes mistakes. :) He just bops along and ignores her. Her own horse has a loooong back, less sturdy conformation, and complains a lot, sometimes violently. In his defense, I did find him to be a technical ride. When I did most things correctly, he went correctly, and then he was comfortable and happy. But he needs a quiet, correct ride to go well, and he doesn't have the balance, conformation or physical strength to be a forgiving mount. Poor kid.

Royal is not only back in work, he's teaching somebody, so I must stay on top of his program. Not that that's hard, though; anything you do with him works.

With both horses, I'm continuing the halt, flex-outside, volte-inside pattern I mentioned last time. It's working pretty well to get a good working walk, and then the first trot is a lot better than it otherwise would be. And then everything else goes well. From there on to leg yields, then this one neat pattern: Counter shoulder-in to haunches-in to shoulder-in on each long side. Then on to straight-ahead working gaits again, and pretty soon the 45 minutes is up.

In the past few weeks, I have also found - finally! - an awareness of when my right side crunches up. That right hand always comes up too high, and also comes too far inside and crosses the withers. For the past few weeks I've been able to feel it as it starts crunching up, instead of having to look - woohoo! - and can reestablish symmetry. The horses are thrilled, it makes their job a lot less hard. I get instant feedback when I put the parts back where they belong: Instantly the horse is back on the bit, and tracking much straighter. It never fails.

Ghods! It's only been seven ruddy years of stinking struggle. Seven years of running a body-awareness checklist every 30 to 60 seconds for 45 minutes on end, every damn ride, every damn day. And mostly, failing miserably at keeping the body part in the reassigned position, and having to put it back, again, 60 seconds later. Such a small thing to get hold of, such an enormous change in the horse's ease of going. Practice doesn't make perfect; perfect practice makes perfect. And all you can do is practice as perfectly as possible for as long as it takes. For some of us, it takes years.

It puts me in mind of Molly Grue's heartbroken cry in "The Last Unicorn," when Molly sees her.

"How dare you come to me now, when I am this?"

"I'm here now," the unicorn answers.

That's a little bit what it's like.

Don't think about the thousands of dollars, the thousands of hours, the thousands of other things, large and small, sacrificed for trying to learn to ride. The dozens of vacations not taken, weekends not spent cuddled up in a B&B someplace with my honey, nice clothes not bought. Don't think about how much I traded for the chance to someday know where most of my parts are and keep 'em there. And certainly don't think about how that sense is, as yet, merely newborn and weak.

Like Sgt. Silas says, "Goddammit goddammit goddammit!"

What was the topic of this entry again? Oh, yeah, "the spirit of inquiry." One thing my teachers have beaten into my head is that you have to experiment. Try an exercise, see whether is makes the horse better or worse, or has no effect. If it goes badly, analyze why. If it goes well, analyze why, too. Address any errors and try it again. Experiment, analyze, ride thoughtfully.

So in the spirit of scientific inquiry, or maybe in the spirit of "monkey with a razor," I've been fooling around now and then with half-steps. I have not developed a piaffe on either horse, true. But I also haven't harmed either horse. They're going better overall rather than worse, and we've learned some interesting things in the process.

I've learned that Royal, despite his lovely canter, is a trot horse. His answer to any difficult question is usually trot-based. Irritate, confuse or frighten him, and he does a little jiggy trot. Throw him off balance, he trots quick and stiff. Ask him for lateral work while he's stiff, he offers trot. If you do everything right, the walk diagonalizes and you get something like half-steps.

Jojo's answer to any difficult question is usually canter-based. I have a little luck diagonalizing his walk, though we have not attained actual half-steps, as long as I ask after a lot of lateral work and suppling exercises. If you ask Jo for lateral work while he's stiff, especially trot lateral work, he offers you canter instead. If you ask for half-steps when he is stiff, he offers a snorty and fierce, yet sadly feeble and lacking in elevation, terre-a-terre.

Once he offered a capriole. The only capriole I've ever sat on, and probably the only one ever perfomed at the death-defyingly low altitude of only about 6 inches off the ground. But I have a witness! It was a genuine capriole, even if it was only a sad little specimen.

Heh. I have less than no business fooling around with this stuff, man.

guess we've done some good after all

He doesn't look too bad for 21, does he?

So yeah, I didn't have much time to ride Jojo for a few weeks. And one day he came into the ring with the horrid goose rump of the elderly ex-racehorse. GAH! (See previous entry for more detailed whining.)

Yesterday was good; the basic suppling exercises worked and he was able to canter the 20-meter square quite well, and after that trot it passably. We did a lot of canter-trot transitions, and when I timed it correctly, he went into the bridle instead of going hollow, kept a good trot and then asked to stretch. The canter got a bit uphill, even, between the squares and the transitions. Not so much teeth-grinding - but the weather had cleared and the barometric pressure was back up, so it's SOP. Saturday, when it rained and he had been stalled overnight, he was grumping quite a bit, and didn't supple up enough to stop grinding until nearly the end of the lesson.

So today he got a break, we worked just at the walk, suppling and bending, getting on the aids and then suppling and bending some more. He got onto the left rein after 15 minutes of walk work - woohoo! This really is a record.

After 20 minutes of walk work, I threw in a few trot transitions, and he stayed in the bridle, on the aids, and round. Well, round for him. But after warmups, we're getting consistent working gaits, which sometimes aren't too bad. That is, real working gaits, not just working-considering-his-limitations gaits. I never thought we'd get this far.

He's still madder than a wet hen about some of the lateral work, though.

whew!

So ... I'd been meaning to post more, and had some really interesting rides. And then Roy got laid up, and I've had nothing to write. That you'd want to read, anyway.

That's him there in the pic, the little bay chowing down on the lawn; we've just started handwalking, and today we got outdoors, it was lovely. Convalescence updates, and eventually the backstory, on the navelgazing, not-a-training-journal blog at http://www.myspace.com/mare_ears .

It's been real neat riding, and taking a lesson, after not riding for two, two and a half weeks. And by neat I mean OW!

Jojo, the chestnut, lost some ground. I didn't think I was doing all that much with him; there are days when we get decent working gaits by the end of the ride, and have to be happy with it. But we've been consistent; I do three days with him, and my friend A. mostly does dressage with him on Saturdays, so that's four days a week. But after two weeks of just hacking a couple days, he came into the ring and ... my god. Hunter's bump, sunken rump, and really slow and creaky. Ooh, and acting so darned Orange. Grump grump grump. So it's back to work we go, to keep the Grim Reaper from the door a little longer.

Sunday I rode in the outdoor with the lights, and got the shadows on the barn wall. It's amazing how much I need a visual for this stuff - mirrors, shadows, anything! When we get to the decent working gaits, get a passable amount of forward and flexible, he feels pretty good, but he's not nearly as much on the bit as I think. So say the shadows, anyway. ::sigh:: But I am learning to push him a little harder, and he is learning it won't kill him. The shadows looked better when I pushed him, though he did complain. He did stretch out and feel better afterward.

We had been having very good luck with one exercise, moving half-halts into each leg, around from leg to leg. Dr. Ritter had showed me this in a lesson, half-halting into each leg as it touches down, two strides in succession, but twice and then changing proved too intense for Jo, and he goes better if I do three, sometimes - depending how stiff he is - four into each leg before switching legs. So we go outside front, outside hind, inside hind, inside front, change direction; and by the third or fourth change of direction Jo is rounder. So this will stay in our warmup for a while.

In Friday's lesson with Dr. Ritter, we learned a new one: Halt into the outside front, flex jaw to the outside, immediately volte to the inside, then go straight. Repeat with halt and flexion into outside hind. Eventually change direction and do the other side. This I tried Sunday and today with Jo, and it made an immediate improvement in his walk. The right side was more difficult; it's his stiff side and whoo, it can be like concrete.

Jo's initial trot Sunday after this exercise was the shuffly hollow old-man jog; today was better, though he still hollowed his back on the depart step. He comes back within two or three strides now, a vast improvement over the old days. I think today's initial trot was better because we kept at this exercise much longer (I didn't count the repetitions, though perhaps next time I should), and didn't trot until we got a good halt and flexion on both sides.

Dr. Ritter also gave us some interesting shoulder-in-related patterns, and gave me notes; I was kind of thinking some of them will have to wait until Roy is back in work, but perhaps Jo can try them at the walk. I'm sure he'll be thrilled. And by thrilled I mean OW!

in which I complain

Wow. It's a blog. It's supposed to be a dressage blog.

First of all, mad props to my dear friend S., who is the inspiration. I'm not copying! It's just that you had a really, really good idea - and you have a delightful way of writing - and that got me thinking.

And now on to the complaining, which is why we're here, after all. Isn't that why you're reading? "Come sit by me," as the lady said. Why, I'd be delighted, Ms. Parker.

It's hot out. It's really, really hot. And humid. Good for the skin, bad for the motivation.

This is supposed to be a dressage blog. But I can't bring myself to saddle my poor old beasts when the heat index is up around 8 bajillion. All right, 8 bajillion is an exaggeration; it's more like 2 bajillion. The Weather Channel says it's 85 out / feels like 90, but it feels worse. And they're not measuring for "running around on top of a white-sand arena."

Today's training blog entry will probably be like yesterday's would have been, had it been written. "Went to barn, gave Kitten Chow to kittens, caught elderly horse stealing Kitten Chow from kittens, put supplements in feed buckets, adjusted fly masks, considered riding, wrung out sweaty shirt and baseball hat from the Santa Fe public radio station ... reconsidered riding."

No, really. I'm strapping on the Superspecial Indestructible, And Yes They Fit Really Well, Rangers de l'Armee Francaise barn boots and trudging off now.

Well isn't this something.