Life in the Camillaverse

[dancinghorse]

Muchas gracias to all who shared the Hallelujah Chorus.

The world continues to be a strange and disoriented place.  I proved that I have an Attack Series here--I sat down last night and got an image and shortly thereafter, had six pages of the sequel to Song of Unmaking.  This never happens after I finish a book.  Still, it's good, because they want a teaser to put in at the end.  And it's going to be a Really Cool Book.  Meanwhile I can write it if I feel like it--because I am On Vacation and I can do what I like.  It's not due for over a year.

Am realizing very clearly that this series is about writing the heart--just open a vein, as they say.  My historicals are about research and thinking things through and making it all accurate.  It will be interesting to see, if and when I get back to the historicals, how writing these books affects the way I write historical fantasy.  At the moment I seriously need a break from the research-and-development mill.

Holiday hysteria has started.  I have zero ideas for gifts, and zero cash to buy them with (publishers being of the belief that authors should be paid last, least, and with great reluctance), which makes the whole exercise a bit stressful.  Going away this weekend is probably a good idea.  I can sign books, visit with lynnesite , and meet the marvelous Miss Twix.  Also, get my head back together.  Or a reasonable facsimile thereof.

Today was a very full horse day.  Lessons first.  Keed was Wonderful for Joni--round, soft, willing, and eager to try Cool Stuff, such as shoulder-in and more collected canter and stretchy-chewy work.  He has back muscles again, huzzahs!  In fact he's filling out all over.  Finally, he's hitting maturity.  He'll only be 10 in March.

It's particularly funny to see him being a Dressage Horse because he has the softest, plushiest winter coat you can imagine.  It's like watching a Steiff toy do dressage movements.  He's leggy and elegant, mind you, but that coat, oh my.

Capria was lesson pony for me.  We focused on rein aids again.  The seat is refining itself in very interesting ways--whole front is opening up, thigh aids getting more effective, overall seat much much deeper.  This doesn't mean sitting heavy at all, it means sitting securely in the horse's center of balance, which feels like sitting in the horse.  Very interesting sensation.  You can actually feel each foot moving, and tell which back muscles are tight and which are loose and supple.  It's the Spanish Riding School seat, and if I think of those riders, I can get it.  The element I'm working on is, as usual of late, the rein aids.  I tend to try to lock my hands into the withers, with straight elbows, and I lower my hands when I ask for a transition, and I tend to pull back when the horse rushes.  All intuitive for a human but Not The Point, Dear for a horse.  So, open front, relaxed elbows, and solid feel for whether she was straight or crooked, with corrections through thigh aids, abs, and lift (slight or exaggerated depending) of hand on side where she was trying to barge out.  She's very good at barging, she's had years of practice.  "Trust me when I tell you to lift the hand!" Joni was saying.  "Trust her to respond to it!  Trust yourself to do it!"

Wonderful results when I actually did stop playing old tapes and consciously do what I was told.  Soft, light, balanced, rhythmic, and not rushy.  Canter was actually pretty decent instead of being a mad scramble or a race to the finish line.  I have to trust her to collect--sit back, raise and round back, come into my aids--and stop trying to drop her on her face.  This is very important for Pooka, whose conformation is far more correct but who needs a lot more help with balance because he's still learning how. 

Of cuss when I have my hands where they belong with him, there is this huge white NECK in between them, as thick as my hand is wide, arching up like a wave.  Capria is a lady and therefore much more delicately built (not, mind, that she's exactly a sylph, in objective terms she's a Mack truck), so when I'm sitting correctly, her much slimmer neck is some distance below my hands.  So that takes adjustment.  But she has the same mind and attitude, which makes her the perfect schoolmaster for learning to ride da Pook.

He was a twit today.  Mr. Hormone was out in force.  He didn't get a ride--I ran out of steam--but he will get one tomorrow.  I will say however that he behaved pretty well with Camilla being worked on right next to his stall.  There was some excitement, but nothing more dangerous than a very happy Pooka.  Camilla ignored him.  Stupid big brother, she said.

After lessons I couldn't indulge in the usual coma, because the chiro vet was coming to work on Camilla.  That was interesting.  She had a fall, we think, and knocked her withers out of whack and twisted her pelvis.  That's what we've been seeing--a blockage in her movement right around the shoulders, and a sore spot along the right hip.  Dr. Pat worked on her with chiro and needles, and Camilla was most helpful.  She knew what the Feelgood Lady was there for.  We're hoping this did the trick.  I have to do belly lifts with her every couple of days for a couple of weeks, which will be interesting because she's ticklish and she kicks, but there we are.

She's been in a strange mood since she was worked on.  She feels a lot better, but she's odd about being touched--I think she's hypersensitized.  She didn't like being endorphined out while also being worried about what was going on.  Curse of the superintelligent horse.  She has levels of awareness that normal horses don't have, and degrees of sensitivity ditto.  Makes her extremely complicated to work with.

She was much admired.  She's grown tremendously since April when Dr. Pat saw her last.  She's taller and broader and bigger all over.  As Pat said while working on her, "This horse is 16 hands from up here!"  She's bigger than the Warmbloods Pat works on--while being about a foot shorter (she's just shy of 14.3 at this point).  She's a massive mare, a real old-style baroque warhorse, but she's also very elegant.  Interesting combination.

It was noted that she has tremendous strength in her back and enormous power in movement.  She has serious suspension and a way of going by that's a lot like the opening sequence of Star Wars.

And now she can get it back--she lost it with her back not feeling so good.

Next week, we get back to Quality Time With Camilla.  She needs a job.

 In the meantime, I feel the urge to write a bit more book, just for fun, and, like, eat dinner and all that.  And maybe glare at the Christmas list some more.

Comments

[miintikwa.livejournal.com]

I love reading your 'horsie' posts because I can SO see things as you write about them. Both because I love Lippizaners and because your writing is so visual, even when you're just chatting about your day. :)

Anyway, I'm sighing wistfully and envying you the lessons and horsie time. :)

--K

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Aw, thanks. Guess I should be writing books for a living, then? ;>

[miintikwa.livejournal.com]

LOL

;P

I'm glad you do! But I just love seeing the crossover. Seeing the simple daily events that you describe in such vivid language- and then seeing the vivid language in your books- is kinda neat. :)

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Thenkyew kindly.

I think I am incapable of varying my style. I tried...and got spotted immediately. I'm doomed.

[miintikwa.livejournal.com]

Meep! Well, um... at least it's a good style. (In my not-so-humble opinion, anyway!)

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Thenkyew kindly.

[jonquil.livejournal.com]

I have no interest at all in horses, but reading your lessons, I wish I did. It is all real and clear and vivid to me even though I'm not entirely sure which side you're supposed to mount from (left, right?)

well...

[raithen.livejournal.com]

even though I'm not entirely sure which side you're supposed to mount from (left, right?)
it depends :D. Traditionally, horses have been handled from and thus mounted from their left side. If you do not know a horse, and do not know its owner, you ALWAYS mount from the left, at first anyways, because it is probably that that is the side from which the horse has been trained to accept a rider. There is, I am sure, a good reason for this tradition, but I cannot remember what it is right now ;).

Horses are strongly unilateral in their thinking and learning -- just because they have been taught to be mounted from (or led from, or whatever from) the left most certainly does NOT mean they know how to accept a rider/leader/whatever from the right. They need to be taught how to do everything from that side all over again.

However, most sound training today teaches horses to accept mounting from both sides -- and most riders should be able to mount from both sides. Sadly, I must confess that I am MUCH more elegant mounting from the left.... But there are times -- on steep mountain trails, for example -- where mounting from the right is necessary or simply more convenient. And teaching a horse to accept mounting from the right produces a safer, more well-rounded mount.

And I agree about dancinghorse's descriptions of her lessons -- they are magical. As someone who has done many a lesson (though to a lesser level of skill) she captures the sense of focus, frustration and elation that are all part of a truly successful session.

Re: well...

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Thenkyew.

Mounting on the left comes from the old military days. Sword was on the right, so mounting left meant you didn't catch the scabbard trying to get up there.

Riding this way is magic. It's all about the horse, which is why it's so hard. It doesn't cater to human intuition at all.

I'm happy if total nonhorsepeople still find it interesting. It means I've done something right.

Curse of the super intelligent horse

[kladruber1.livejournal.com]

Its like Camilla and Alex are related. Oy.

Re: Curse of the super intelligent horse

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Well, they are.

;>

[coalboy.livejournal.com]

I'll add to the Hallelujah, having sung it for 13 years. I too enjoy your working-the-mechanics-of-riding posts, particularly as I went to a summer camp that taught riding when I was 11 (lo these many years ago.) Makes me wonder how the horses stood all the stress of new/bad riders! I've only read your historicals in the past; will try the others next year. Have you read Ellis Peters' Brother Cadfael book about the wedding gift book? I didn't realize until today that your Eagle's Daughter was the same person.

[dancinghorse.livejournal.com]

Why thank you. We love our Hallelujah Chorus, we do.

I vaguely remember that particular Cadfael. Too vaguely really--her books are set in the era of Stephen and Maud, which puts them over a hundred years after Otto III. Refresh my memory?

It's interesting but I never worked in that particular period. I've done Eleanor and Henry II and onward, and just finished a William Rufus book, but then there's this gap.