Friday, October 2, 2015

The Agony and the Ecstasy of 2pointober

I finally dd t. I signed up for 2pointober, the annual two point challenge. I've wanted to each year it's been held, but always missed the boat for some reason. No longer!


I try to incorporate at least a half a lap of two point into each ride, if only to get off Tristan's back while warming up, so I am not quite as pathetic as I could be, but the difference between those short stints and a quality, sustained two point position is vast and cavernous.

So last night I set out to get my baseline, which was fraught with all sorts of problems.

First problem: I haven't ridden in my jump saddle in at least a year. Sonofabitch, ow, said my knees and my ass. Short stirrups + hard as a rock old Passier = some adjustment necessary.

I do love it, though.


Second problem: My really poor grasp of keeping my horse forward. We started no fewer than three times and he would drop to the walk, then halt, and then when I applied crop he would lurch forward into a hand gallop, flail sideways, get pissed off, flip his head around, and inevitably the weakness of my position would be revealed, ie, I would flop around like a beached fish in a way that could not conceivably be counted toward baseline.

Here, have last night's pretty sunset to distract you from my suck.

Corollary to problem #2, a result of the aforementioned lack of quality in my position: I can't keep my damn leg on in two point.

Third problem: Timing. During the above-described flopping around, I dropped my iPhone. Twice. Ugh.

After all of that, I FINALLY got a baseline.

So here is my officially declared baseline for 2pointober 2015: 47 seconds.

BRING IT ON.

4 comments:

  1. woot woot - 47 seconds!! i see you being solidly in the running for 'most improved' :) (also i probably need to get my baseline in stat too... so hard to remember! also just so hard in general lol)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Psst... be sure to post it in a comment on one of our blogs (hillary's or mine) it's the only way to be 100% sure we get it

    Also yay glad you joined in :)

    ReplyDelete
  3. Hahahaha, I feel you on the timing difficulties!

    I do all my two pointing in the field, because it's way way easier to keep my ponies going!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Timing was hard! I just started my stopwatch on my phone and then counted seconds in my head until I started two-pointing while I put my phone in my fanny pack, and then did the same thing on the way down. But there HAS to be a better way!

    ReplyDelete

Thanks for commenting! It's great to hear from you.