Lesson neep & various
Aug. 24th, 2006 12:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancinghorseThe sense of being on a hamster wheel continues--work is getting done but I keep wanting to run away. And no, I'm not at Worldcon. Don't want to be at Worldcon. I would love to see everybody, but that level of pressure cooker...uh. No.
Storms (some severe) are circling around at the moment; we'll see if one hits here. We haven't had rain this week; I've had to water the trees for the first time in weeks. Other parts of town however have been walloped, and it may be our turn today. Or soon. Monsoons continue apace. We're getting toward the end of the season; usually they start moving out around Labor Day and are gone by mid-September. This year, who knows? We've had going on three solid months of rain interspersed with brief bursts of intense heat. We are all more than ready for the October cooldown.
Publishing is in the same condition. Everything has been in the doldrums; once Worldcon and Labor Day are past, things will wake up.
In the meantime, Pooka lesson today, and it was good. Subtle, but good. He cracked us up in the warmup: he was blowing me off on the longe, and I wasn't being very good about not getting blown off. Teacher stepped in. OH SHIT! said Pooka. He snapped to and then some. Warmed up nicely. Heaved a huge sigh of relief when I got on him instead of Teacher.
His back was quite relaxed; I think he's feeling notably better now we're working on his neck. At first in the halt I played with Torture Lady's "move the neck with your seatbones" exercise--just sit there and slide a seatbone and watch the neck bend. Then I slid my tailbone and his back came up and his neck stretched out and down. Teacher was pleased.
Then on to walk, keeping the neck horizontal and/or below the withers--for now, this is what he needs in order to strengthen his back; also, just for him, I have to keep a close eye on what his ears and head are doing. He gave me his back and had quite a nice forward walk, and his ears were staying mostly level. Homework is to do lots of wiggly bits (lots) and stay in walk until he can maintain that long, low frame through all changes of bend and direction. It's not as dull as it sounds--he has a very big, bouncy walk and it's a fair challenge to keep the withers up and the back in gear without having him go llama. He'll be ready for trot when he has this down absolutely solid. For now, on the longe, he contracts his neck in trot; he doesn't believe he can relax that much. My job is show him he can.
When his neck is contracted, the S-curve appears. Long, relaxed neck isn't curvy. It's easiest then to straighten out the jaw and ears. It's a lot of work--he was sweating quite a bit, though he's by no means out of condition and we were "only" working in walk. But it was pretty serious work.
Must be careful when doing this to not collapse left side.
After the lesson, I noted to Teacher that I was playing with half pass on Capria last night, mostly to see how it works, and it's a seatbone thing, yep. Also, with sense of "Up" in hands. (Up with Pook is also a very good thing.) Kind of think the seatbone over. Teacher said practice off the horse: get upper body in position and "half pass" everywhere. This is very funny and one wants coconuts. And Grail Quest suits.
My own quest to stop over-riding and start using truly effective (i.e. extremely subtle) aids continues. Also to stop riding crooked and collapsing the left hip and stiffening the elbows and clamping with the hands and...
Storms (some severe) are circling around at the moment; we'll see if one hits here. We haven't had rain this week; I've had to water the trees for the first time in weeks. Other parts of town however have been walloped, and it may be our turn today. Or soon. Monsoons continue apace. We're getting toward the end of the season; usually they start moving out around Labor Day and are gone by mid-September. This year, who knows? We've had going on three solid months of rain interspersed with brief bursts of intense heat. We are all more than ready for the October cooldown.
Publishing is in the same condition. Everything has been in the doldrums; once Worldcon and Labor Day are past, things will wake up.
In the meantime, Pooka lesson today, and it was good. Subtle, but good. He cracked us up in the warmup: he was blowing me off on the longe, and I wasn't being very good about not getting blown off. Teacher stepped in. OH SHIT! said Pooka. He snapped to and then some. Warmed up nicely. Heaved a huge sigh of relief when I got on him instead of Teacher.
His back was quite relaxed; I think he's feeling notably better now we're working on his neck. At first in the halt I played with Torture Lady's "move the neck with your seatbones" exercise--just sit there and slide a seatbone and watch the neck bend. Then I slid my tailbone and his back came up and his neck stretched out and down. Teacher was pleased.
Then on to walk, keeping the neck horizontal and/or below the withers--for now, this is what he needs in order to strengthen his back; also, just for him, I have to keep a close eye on what his ears and head are doing. He gave me his back and had quite a nice forward walk, and his ears were staying mostly level. Homework is to do lots of wiggly bits (lots) and stay in walk until he can maintain that long, low frame through all changes of bend and direction. It's not as dull as it sounds--he has a very big, bouncy walk and it's a fair challenge to keep the withers up and the back in gear without having him go llama. He'll be ready for trot when he has this down absolutely solid. For now, on the longe, he contracts his neck in trot; he doesn't believe he can relax that much. My job is show him he can.
When his neck is contracted, the S-curve appears. Long, relaxed neck isn't curvy. It's easiest then to straighten out the jaw and ears. It's a lot of work--he was sweating quite a bit, though he's by no means out of condition and we were "only" working in walk. But it was pretty serious work.
Must be careful when doing this to not collapse left side.
After the lesson, I noted to Teacher that I was playing with half pass on Capria last night, mostly to see how it works, and it's a seatbone thing, yep. Also, with sense of "Up" in hands. (Up with Pook is also a very good thing.) Kind of think the seatbone over. Teacher said practice off the horse: get upper body in position and "half pass" everywhere. This is very funny and one wants coconuts. And Grail Quest suits.
My own quest to stop over-riding and start using truly effective (i.e. extremely subtle) aids continues. Also to stop riding crooked and collapsing the left hip and stiffening the elbows and clamping with the hands and...
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no subject
Date: 2006-08-24 08:58 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-24 09:59 pm (UTC)We got soem last night (my obedience class actually got rained out!) but the drought continnues.
On the good side? It's making horse shopping fun. LOTS of stuff at low prices because people can't afford to feed them. My $2000 budget may actually buy me something with SOME training in dressage, rather than just a seasoned trail horse!
Hopefully going to look at a cute Percheron mare next week.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-24 10:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-24 10:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-25 12:24 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-08-25 05:10 pm (UTC)Your paying attention to these things (and doing them) is what makes you a GOOD RIDER.
no subject
Date: 2006-08-25 08:05 pm (UTC)Liz Bennefeld
no subject
Date: 2006-08-28 04:38 pm (UTC)Would have loved to meet you there, though. :) Dealer's room seemed to have a decent selection of your books, btw. Including some old bookclub omnibus editions that I never thought I'd see, with what I would term somewhat unfortunate covers.