Learning to Ride

Meeting Luna and Wenona

Yesterday we met up at your new farm to hang out for a bit before visiting the aquarium with your family, and I got to meet your two new goats.  From there we went to the old place you keep your mother and daughter mares, and I finally got to meet them.

I had a blast.

We were short on time and I'm in the middle of passing a kidney stone, so there wasn't really a chance for me to ride Luna at all, but it was so great to meet them finally.  Luna had taken advantage of new holes in the fences to get into a part of the pasture she wasn't meant to be in, and you were really worried when she wasn't where she was supposed to be and we had to look around a bit to find her.

So we got Luna and Wenona up near the gate and they were joined by their friend Fire, we spent time scratching them and I got to see some of the behaviors you had told me about.  Particularly wonderful for me was to have Luna do the behavior you painted in your piece The Itch, asking me to scratch her in specific places in particular ways.

There was a level of acceptance in that gesture on her part that made me feel very good, very happy.  I'm really glad we got a chance to go there, wish I had been able to see your art studio too but that just gives us something to do some future day.

Something that struck me while I was surrounded by the three mares who were circling, jostling, and looking for treats and scratches, is how weirded out I would have been in that situation previously.  For instance Fire came around and bumped me with her flank, and I just reached out and pushed her to move her out of my way.  I didn't have to think about it, I knew how much pressure was required, it felt totally natural.

I felt at that moment like I was able to do exactly what I set out to, be comfortable and competent in your world.  It was wonderful.

On the drive from there to pick up Ana at her school you talked about herd dynamics and how Luna and Wenona had been at their previous locations and how that had changed and adjusted here.  It was fascinating and I enjoyed so much your comfort and love for the subject, and how much you enjoyed being able to share it with me.  The differences between the dominant mare and the lead mare was particularly fascinating.  Exactly what I wanted, sharing that part of your life is wonderful and all I had hoped for.

The Reveal

I just returned from spending the afternoon with you where I gave you the card and told you what we had been doing, and the fact that this blog exists, and everything.

It went wonderfully and you seemed genuinely happy and touched by it.  I smiled the entire drive back.

Absolutely perfect, I had a wonderful afternoon.

Sixth Private Lesson

A night and day difference between the last lesson and this one.

Before the lesson I wandered out behind the barn to see if I could spot Cypress in the pasture.  Took me a while since he was at the far corner, but I did recognize him.

Rooster caught my eye, I yelled to him and then tried the thing you demonstrated and explained to me during my visit in late May, where you dropped your front shoulder and looked away, inviting your elder mare to approach.

Damn if it didn't work.  He immediately came right up to me and said hi.  I was more than a little stunned.  Cypress and a friend came over soon after, I said hi to him but I think he knew a lesson was coming and was trying to wolf down as much grass as he could beforehand.

The grooming went much smoother than recently, particularly the hoof cleaning.  On his front right he tried to yank it out of my grip a few times but I didn't let him, and otherwise it went easily.

In the arena I felt more comfortable in the saddle and more in control, able to communicate better with less pressure... mostly.  Again once we got up to a trot he was more stubborn, he's perfectly happy at a walk but get him moving and he gets grumpy.

Did work on applying the right pressure to get him to stay straight, then worked on wide circles around a point.  The trot was challenging but the walk felt really good.

When he tried to get his way, cut corners, etc. I really stuck with it and made him do what he was supposed to, which no doubt made the whole lesson much easier for me.

At the end Catherine said when I got back and had my next lesson she was going to switch me to a western bridle, I'm ready for it.  What an interesting point to go out and visit and tell you about all of this.  It feels like I've attain some kind of important milestone at just the right time.

Mr. Butthead (Lesson Eight)

This evening's lesson was a weird one from the start.  Catherine was almost half an hour late because a horse sale (she was selling) went bad for her when the horse, who normally is extremely well behaved, refused to get into the buyer's trailer, bolted multiple times, etc.  That upset her entire day, and she needed to get to the feed store before it closed which made her late for our lesson.

Today was rainy, Cypress was out in the pasture but with a thing on his trunk to try to keep him dry.  Turns out it wasn't water proof so it only kind of worked.

He was fairly well behaved in cross tie during grooming, only gave me a little trouble while cleaning his hooves.  When I got on his back and walked him around he was a little skittish in one corner but I was able to communicate very well with him with a minimum of effort, so I was really hoping it was a sign that things would be good.

No.

Once I started trotting with him, he just ignored me.  I would kick his side and pull the reins all the way open and he'd still turn the other way.  A few times I got him a little more under control, but he was very willful.  At least once when I was getting after him to turn right, for instance, he would speed up and keep turning left.

Tried a few other things at a walk to see if he was listening at all, and he was just a little but would do weird things like walk around in circles no matter what I was telling him to do.

Near the end of the lesson Catherine got on him to see what was going on and he was acting very badly even for her, so she said it wasn't me, it was something about today (all her lessons have been weird) and Cypress.

I got some good stuff out of the lesson, and either way it was fun to be there and to be on horseback, but it was also pretty frustrating.

skye was on Tristan and had an easier time, the riding did not hurt her cracked rib at all and she was able to get him to do stuff pretty well.  I couldn't see whether she got him to jog correctly (too busy wrestling Cypress) but when I watched her she was doing well, particularly given how long it has been since her last lesson.

Photo Shoot Results

skye setup a private photo gallery so that Catherine could see the photos of herself and Cypress from a week ago.  She really loved them, and asked she could hire skye to take photos of her, her daughter, and her horses.  I smiled big when I read the email.  They'll talk at this evening's lesson (we're leaving in a few minutes) to see how that might work, but I'm really excited for skye that her work is being appreciated.

Birthday Fifth Private Lesson!

Happy Birthday, Karrie.  I hope you like your present (although I don't expect you to know about it for another week).

Today's ride was interesting.  Catherine is moving locations, and the landlord of the current place has laborers fixing everything up in preparation to trying to attract a new leaser.  She's not pleased that he's doing it now instead of a while ago when it might have kept her there.

Unfortunately a lot of the work going on was spooking the horses, and she had to ask different guys multiple times not to do what they were doing because the horses were getting very agitated.

When I took Cypress out to the arena I could tell he was not happy, and I was not happy about getting on him while he was not happy.  Catherine noticed how whacked out he was when he did his best to keep me from getting on, so she worked with him at for a little in the parts of the arena he was having the most issues with to get him used to it and calm him down.  When she was done he was a lot better.

So we worked on the usual stuff, I'm getting better.  I wouldn't say it is getting easier and much as I'm getting better results, and at least I'm more aware of what it is I'm working on.

Cypress spooked, first time I've had that happen while on a horse's back, and besides one of my feet coming out of the stirrup and being annoyed with myself about that, everything was fine.  Catherine was worried and asked multiple times if I was okay but I told her I don't panic easily, and I wasn't really worried about it when it happened.  More thinking about how my foot was out of the stirrup.  Good lesson for why I need to keep working on sitting properly and getting my weight balanced right.

Otherwise it went well, I had fun, and my legs aren't as shaky or sore this time, so I think between riding more often and doing yoga in addition to my normal workouts I'm getting deeper strength and endurance.

Now I think it is time to call you and sing happy birthday.  Muahaha.

Fourth Private Lesson

Today's lesson went pretty well I think.  This time Catherine got on another horse (Rooster) and was leading and demonstrating, and that helped a lot.  I think because she was closer she was also able to see better what I was doing when Cypress was misunderstanding me.

In one case it was giving him mixed signals, I'd give pressure on one side while leaning on the opposite sitting bone.  She said this was confusing him since putting the pressure on the sitting bone was telling him to move away from it, while the other leg was telling him to move towards it.  Worked on sitting more balanced in the saddle and being more specific with the pressure.

We also worked on forehoof (?) turns, which made a lot of sense to me.  I got it working for a bit, and then Cypress just decided he'd had enough of me in general and really started acted up.  A couple times I had to do the head turn "emergency stop" maneuver to get him to stop acting strange and random.  Catherine said I did the right thing, which I'm very happy about.

After that we went back to the wall walking and then trotting, turning early and then applying side pressure to get him to head to the wall.  Once that was working again at walking pace tried it at a trot, which started working right in time for the lesson time to be up.

Third Private and Photo Shoot

Today was meant to be a semi-private, but skye's cracked rib basically meant that neither she nor Catherine were comfortable with her getting on a horse, so we turned it into a photo shoot instead.

skye had the genius idea a week and a half ago to make a card for you by taking a photo of me with Cypress and turning it into a custom card with some appropriate text we've still only half written.  Instead of riding she took over 100 photos of the lesson, and we'll go through those to find something that's just right.  I've already figured out how to work the card into the gift reveal, and I'm even more excited.

The lesson went well, not quite as good as Wednesday but still good.  We worked on much the same thing, Cypress was listening to me very well at the beginning but as we got up to trot he got things into his head.  Catherine laid out some posts in the middle of the arena for me to walk and then trot him over (we'd done that once before a while back).  The walking went pretty well, but apparently he loves to trot over them so once I got him into a trot he just spun himself straight towards them and trotted over them, with me trying to get him to do it properly the entire way.

We had a couple good runs, but they were much more his idea than mine.

After my lesson she put a western bridle on him and showed us where we're eventually going, getting him up to a gallop and showing some of what he's capable of.  skye took photos of this as well, which Catherine was a little embarassed about.  She claims she's not photogenic, but I doubt it.  I saw a few of the results small in skye's viewfinder and they looked really good.

Second Private Lesson

Oh wow, that was so incredible.  Everything seemed to click, I don't think I made anything but very minor errors.  We worked on more of the subtlety and sitting the saddle, and it all came so well together.

Cypress, of course, was being a bit of a butthead to begin with.  More obstinate that I've ever seen him.  He didn't want to move, he didn't want to pick up his feet so I could clean them, and when I finally got them in my hand he tried very hard (and mostly succeeded) to yank them out of my grip.

Catherine saw this and came over and showed me what I needed to do to show him I wasn't a pushover for that sort of behavior, mostly it involves a little more patience and really just not letting go.  It worked, of course, and now I have a better understanding of the gentle but unyielding approach.

Even just getting him to start walking after we got the saddle and bridle on was a huge pain, then as we turned to go into the arena he stopped cold.  It took Catherine encourage him from behind to make him start going again.

At this point I was dreading a really torturous lesson, but I walked him around a little, then got in the saddle, and started working.  He was fighting at first, trying to come off the wall as usual, but the last lesson was still pretty fresh in my mind and Catherine was giving me reminders and help and soon it was even more effortless to get him to do what I wanted than before.

The challenge was to translate that into control during trot, but that took surprisingly little time and effort.  Once I got going it was mostly minor corrections, tweaks, and improvements on how I was doing that.  It felt very easy and natural, even though I know it is nothing of the sort.

I'm very happy right now and very glad I went with the extra lessons, they're paying off very well.

First Private Lesson

I think I wrote some posts ago about how I was getting so frustrated with missing lessons due to injuries and illness and so on, so this week  and next (and maybe the Monday before I head out to Colorado) I'm taking additional private lessons to both make up for it and feel like I'm making real progress again.

Today from 11:30am - 12:30pm I had my first private lesson, and I'm very pleased with how it went.  More work on proper riding position, which I'm struggling with because it feels unnatural and my ankles/legs are not flexible.  In particular my broken ankle and its restricted mobility make it hard to push my heels down as far as I should in the proper position.  So we worked on that and I made some good progress, actually brought the stirrups up a setting to make it a little easier.

Secondly we worked a lot on how to control Cypress, particularly when he's testing me.  I learned a lot more of the subtlety of shifting weight and using the reins less dramatically.  It really helped, by the end of the lesson I felt like I was using a whole lot less effort for a whole lot more effect.  Very exhausting lesson, but I feel like I made a big leap forward.

I told Catherine about why I was pushing for more lessons, and verified with her that it would be okay if before our next semi-private lesson with skye on Friday skye could take a photo of me with Cypress to make your birthday card with.

I don't think I've written yet on the blog that a number of weeks ago I made the decision to surprise you with this as your birthday present.  I thought about holding out until you could come visit or the perfect opportunity to surprise you came about, but not being able to share this with you is eating me up, and the timing is too perfect.  In a little over two weeks I'll be visiting Colorado and I'll tell you about the lessons and give you access to this blog and see how you like it.

I can't wait.

I've told you I have a present for you and that it is a surprise, but I'm trying hard not to give anything else away.  You're too intuitive, if I give you too much information you'll definitely guess it.

I really, really cannot wait.

Catherine's lease expires soon at the facility she's at now and she's made arrangements to move to another that's 12 minutes away from the current on starting in October.  She says the new facility is much better and much better maintained, and she seems very excited by it.  The extra drive won't be fun, but I really enjoy working with her and a better facility would also be great.  She'll be able to pay someone to care for the horses so she can concentrate on teaching.

But you should know all of this is going on by then.

Cannot wait.