Bel Joeor

Eventing Nation linked to Phoebe Buckley's video blogs, and I've been watching a few of them on my snow day. I was incredibly struck by the first video here, about getting on a cold-backed horse. Two things: first, I love watching really competent people handle the tools of their trade. That never gets old for me. Professional musicians handling their instruments, carpenters slinging hammers, and in this case, Phoebe handling her tack. It's that self-assured way that experts handle tools, like they know them inside and out instinctively.

I also really, really love her clear respect and love for her horse. She talks the viewer through every step she takes, and she notices all these little things, not every single one of which I picked up on. It's that same instinctive awareness of everything around her.

In my own riding, Tris and I have been doing well. I'm entering my second straight week of no weekday riding because of the #@$#@ weather, but mostly taking it in stride and enjoying the time I spend with him. Last weekend we went for a trail ride in the huge drifts on Saturday - in spots, nearly up to his chest - and he was just thrilled. That's something I really need to remember: the clear pride and joy he takes in mastering natural objects. I see the same thing in him after he's climbed up a tricky, rocky bit of hill. I'll never forget the trail we were out on when we came across a sheer rock face that I would've thought about climbing on my own two feet. I asked him to go around, he said no, and charged up with not a single slip. When we got to the top he paused, sighed in a very contented way, then turned and kept going on the trail. He LOVES those kinds of problems. When I think about how solving dressage problems in the ring is nearly the polar opposite of that - it reminds me to be better about presenting the puzzles to him.

Jump clinic on Sunday, in which we needed to work on a few things. As always, I need to get better about keeping my weight in my feet and balanced, but I think I'm progressing well on that. We're also really starting to figure out the pieces of getting the canter we want. It's not a fancy canter and won't be for a long time, but at least taking it apart, looking at it, and beginning to understand what we need more of, is a progression. It's a cycle, too: you always want the right canter, and once you get there...the right canter changes, because you're aiming higher (figuratively and literally!).

What we weren't clicking on was in keeping up impulsion and rhythm, especially through the gymnastic line. Bless my wonderful horse, because even when I can't help him keep the motor - or do something that kills it entirely - he still heaves himself over the jump as long as he's presented to it. He jumped the last oxer from a near-standstill at least once or twice. When he runs out, it is always entirely my fault. He is honest nearly to a fault. But I need to be better about keeping weight down through my leg, which will let me keep my leg on, which will let me really remind him that we need to keep that canter we're getting better at *through* the jumps, not just on the 20m circle in front of them.

The second piece that I don't entirely know how to fix yet is that I need to make things slow down. I was talking to Hannahabout this. Right now, jumps come up fast and I react, instead of thinking things through as I ought to. Every time I jump, it's incrementally better than it might be otherwise, but I am at the point where I really need to make it slow down even more. I need to be more aware of each second, each stride, and what I'm doing in those seconds. It's a problem throughout my riding, no doubt, but when jumps are coming up fast and furious in a course, I find it especially difficult to hold everything together and really, really focus and slow it all down in my head. Because if I could do that, instead of reacting down the gymnastic (Tris lands from the first jump, leaps over the pole, my leg slips, I forget to bring it back and put it on for the second, so now he's lost a bit of impulsion, and the landing is a bit harder this time, and my reins have slipped, and he feels me tuning out and gets a case of the don'wannas, and there's still another jump, and by this point he just heaves himself over it, and now I'm entirely out of my stirrups and down on his neck or way in the back seat), I could plan it out and make minute adjustments in the second they need to happen.

I suspect the ultimate cure is nothing more fancy than "do it 10,000 more times" but I'm going to start experimenting in riding on the flat with slowing everything down and breaking it apart into smaller groupings. We'll see how that pans out. I might also pull T. aside and talk to him about it a bit. I'm sure he'll have some good ideas.