Learning to Ride

Tenth Private Lesson

Yesterday was a little nuts after the lesson itself so this is the first chance I've had to sit down and think well enough to write about it.

I got there maybe twenty minutes early because I was chomping at the bit (HA!) to start.  Catherine was doing some chores around the facility but we got Cypress out of his pen and she suggested that I let him free graze on the grass in the area and he'd be my friend forever.  The dude went to town on that grass, kept swinging his butt around and got close a few times to pinning me against a fence.  Not that I was in any actual danger but I kept moving around to the other side of him and then he'd mysteriously swing around again.

Didn't put a bridle on him at all this lesson, we did a lot of ground work first with applying pressure through movement and gesture and body language to get him to move in a particular direction then swing his butt around and face me when and only when I signaled to him that's what I wanted.  The part I had some trouble with was, and this sounds weird to me saying but makes complete sense in my body as I do it, pushing him with my shoulder in the exact right way to keep him going rather than getting him to swing around.

That took me a couple tries to get right, but when it worked it was great.  There was no physical contact, of course, but by placing my shoulder at the correct angle to him and moving it at the right speed it was a clear signal that he needed to continue in that direction.  Then shifted my stance and point the shoulder towards his haunches instead and he knew that meant move the butt around and face me.

Similar to the last lesson there was a lot of work in not letting him get away with stuff, and I think that's not only paying off but I'm starting to really understand well how it works.  He has a tendency, particularly with Catherine but also with me, to get right into your personal space and even nuzzle against you.  So if he's too close or starts moving in we made sure I shook the the harness rope to get him to back off to the correct distance.  Every time.

He loves to test his limits, I don't know if it is particularly with me or if he's like this for every student.  However I've noticed a big difference in him since we've started laying down the law and not letting him get away with things he knows he's not really supposed to do.

To end the lesson I got in the saddle (after he moved when I first tried to get on I really made that a huge pain for him to have done, big noise, big movements, chased him around in a circle) but we hadn't put a bridle on him, Catherine taught me how to ride and signal with the harness only.  It was pretty difficult, I had some success but it felt like there were times where he just wasn't listening to what my body was telling him and I wasn't quick enough moving the rope from one side of his head to the other.

I think she was really curious on what kind of trouble I was having so she got on after I was done and tried to do the same thing and had the same problems, and again was very complimentary and happy with how well I did under those circumstances.

A fascinating lesson.

Oh that reminds me, the new facility is Woodinville Stables.

Ninth Private Lesson

What a wonderful ride today.  I can't say enough, I felt so good, so at ease, everything was so much easier.  Even when Cypress was being a butt I never felt like I was wrestling him, just correcting and directing and making him listen.  Catherine was once again very complimentary about how it went and how I was learning and riding.  It felt very good.

Heck, on the drive out there I was smiling big and thinking "I get to ride!"

We started the lesson on a good note, Catherine wanted me to make it a huge pain for Cypress to misbehave from the beginning, so just getting the mounting block up to him was a big production.  He likes to scurry his butt around as soon as you step on the block, so when he did that this time I made him walk all the way around it, stop, then try again.  Just to make it more work for him to disobey than do what he knows he should.

He got the hint quickly.

If there were two themes for the lesson, it was that and saddle position.  Make it harder for him to do the wrong thing than the right, and try to stay in the right position in the saddle with my weight balanced correctly.  I seem to lean to the left too much, if a foot is going to come out of the stirrup it is always the right one.

Nothing new really technique-wise, just more practice at what we've been working on and trying to get it all working smoothly together, and it was very close this time.  Almost moved on to canter today but not quite, that may happen on Friday.

I'm liking the new facility, both in terms of location and what they have.  The last one we were at had a very long and narrow arena, this one is closer to square which I think makes it a lot easier to practice and is a lot more forgiving on mistakes and strangeness of behavior on the horse's part.

I'm really looking forward to Friday.  Oh and I haven't told Catherine about this blog yet, I'm going to email her in a minute to let her know.  Hope she likes it!

Eighth Private Lesson

Today's lesson was interesting.

This morning well beforehand Catherine sent me an email to say "I can't remember if I told you I moved the horses again..." and gave me the address for a new facility.  It has been a couple weeks, but still I thought that was a bit sudden.  I had a few things I needed to tell her about, so fair's fair.

The new place is out in Woodinville, just off Highway 522.  It is about 10 minutes closer than the one outside of Duvall, nicer in almost every way, Catherine said it was helping her regain some students who had balked at going so far, and was less expensive.  Plus now she's working with other instructors in an environment she likes.  Things have gone from unhappy for her to good and I'm really glad, she deserves it.

It will take a while to get used to the new place, the horses don't have the room they did at the previous and are apparently not too happy about that, but Cypress is with his bossy girlfriend and seems quite content with that.

Probably mostly the change of venue and the newness of everything, but he was particularly bad today.  On the plus side I was a lot better about getting control and not letting him get away with it. A lot of work on subtle control, particularly since I had my kidney stone ultrasound surgery on Tuesday we spent most of the lesson working on improving my position in the saddle and using the reins only for correcting him rather than signaling him (mostly).  Got up to a trot briefly but he got big ideas in his head immediately and it took some work to get him back under control.

Catherine was extremely complimentary on how I did.  After I thought about it I could see what she meant, but while I was in the middle of it I was too busy trying to deal with his buttheadedness to notice that I was having a lot easier time with that, and he was responding very well to most of what I was doing.

She mentioned two things we're going to do soon, one is working on using the reins one handed, and the other was canter.  I'm really looking forward to it, going to have to schedule the next lessons for soon, I don't want to wait another couple weeks again.

Seventh Private Lesson

This one was meant to be a semi-private, but skye wasn't feeling up to riding and I was (it nearly seemed like it might go the other way since I've have a cold recently), so I headed out.

I got there about 10 minutes early and found and said hello to Cypress.  He was acting a little strange, I gave him his cookie and he started investigating me for further treats (that's not the strange part), then he was bucking his head around and withdrawing from my scratches, it was a sign of what was to come.

Met the owner of the property, he seemed quite nice and helpful, pointed me to enough grooming gear that I took Cypress out of his stall, into the cross-tie, and started working on him until Catherine showed up.  Cypress was shaking his head around and moving side to side a lot, had to look out for his hooves more than usual.  Catherine thought he might be excited because other horses were getting their hay, I'm not sure.

I took him out to the arena and tried to get on him with the mounting stool, but the butthead really enjoys swinging his backside around just as you place the stool in the right spot.  Once Catherine joined me we got that out of the way and started working on the western trot again.  He was being thick but I got him to do mostly what I asked, keeping the right pace for the trot was very difficult though.  The other big thing I worked on was not letting him slow down to a walk at the turns, which he tends to do.

I started working on taking the reins in one hand, grabbing the end of one with my now free hand and whacking at his flank with it to get him moving.  Much easier to do than carrying a crop, and I have a feeling I'll get a lot of practice with Cypress with that maneuver.  Butthead.

Near the end of the lesson we worked on... I'm going to screw up the term for this I know it... giving with the leg?  No that's not it.  Anyway it is basically moving forward and getting the horse to move sideways by crossing his rear foot.  There's pressure on both sides at the same time to keep moving forward while going sideways, and very fidgety.  Too much and the horse, too little and nothing happens.

Catherine got on him to demonstrate since the first time I tried it I didn't provide any pressure on the side he was moving to, so he just turned.  Naturally.  She made the analogy of moving a pingpong ball by applying pressure on both sides but a little bit more on one, and that clicked for me.

I got onto him without the stool for the first time then, and despite it being a little difficult due to the lack of flexibility in my legs it was still easier than getting him lined up for the stool, so I may just stop using it from now on.

Once I was on him I gave it another try and it went great.  Catherine seemed very pleased and maybe a little surprised that I got it working that well on my first attempt.  When we tried the other direction it didn't quite go so smoothly but it was still pretty good.  It is tricky for sure but Cypress made me look good.

Lesson Nine

Wow what a wonderful lesson!

We went to the new facility for the first time today, it is out a little past Duvall, WA on the Duvall-Monroe Road.  It is very different, tucked up against the hill in a beautiful valley, with the 150 acres of land hugging that hill and extending a little out into the valley itself.

I graduated to using a western bridle this lesson, and wow what a difference.  Cypress was the easiest he's ever been for me, very responsive not just from the reins but also less pressure and to shifts in weight.  In fact a few times when I was trying to get into a better position in the saddle he said "Oh!  You want to GOOOOO"

I gave him one of your cookies at the beginning of the lesson and he loved it.  He kept searching me for more, and when I held out the same hand I fed him with earlier so he could sniff it and see there was no cookie, he started eating my hand.  It was a little surreal to have a horse munching on my hand, it didn't hurt, he didn't apply real pressure, but I felt his teeth.  I was very amused.

Lots of work on steering and western trot, which I got into very well today and it was great.  Also worked on turning on the rear hooves.  That was harder, I had some success but it will take more work.  Turning on the fore went okay.  Also worked on sharpening turns by leaning back and to the opposite side of the turn, which went well.

I gave him another cookie at the end, and told him they were from you.

Postponing Lesson Nine

I'm so glad I got all the extra lessons in before my visit which coincided with Catherine moving from one facility to another.  I sent her email last night asking if she was going to be ready for us on Friday (had a feeling she might not), and sure enough she has one horse who won't get on the trailer, the tack is a mess, and she'd like to give the horses a chance to get used to the new environment before putting them back to work with lessons.

So we'll wait for her to be ready and then I'll figure out how many private lessons I want between the semi-privates with skye.

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.