The Teacher Torture Diet
Jun. 24th, 2006 11:19 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dancinghorseAfter a fine wallow this morning, feeling fat and ugly and middle-aged and angsting over what to wear to the Dallas clinic, I had the shock of realizing that I've maybe not lost any poundage but I sure have lost some waistage and flabbage. Teacher noticed it. It's the Torture Lady program: maintaining the posture she teaches means you had better practice it a lot, off as well as on the horse, and the simple exercise of maintaining a stable midsection and a straight back with tall torso and flexible tailbone (but quiet hips), if done daily and pretty much constantly, is one hell of a midsection toner. (It also makes for very nice posture.)
So the standard schooling uniform of breeches and polo shirt will do just fine--and I've gone down a Lands' End polo-shirt size.
That was a nice discovery. Will be ongoing, too, as long as I keep up the riding, which I do intend to. After Dallas there's Torture Lady again in October, and we have our Goals for that, we do, yes, precious.
It's been a cranky week. Thursday I had an appointment in town, stopped by the post office and went to start the car...nothing. Car batteries last for 3 years here. Then come the hot weather followed by the monsoons, and pfffttt. It's been the statutory period, and sure enough. One of the postal workers kindly gave me a jump start, and I went home, cancelled the appointment, and called AAA to ask for the battery service. They ran me around the block for the next 24 hours, telling me I was Not In The Area, whereas in fact I am and have had it before. then saying they'd do it anyway, then a new supervisor would come on shift and lather-rinse-repeat. Finally on Friday after much frustration I got a non-battery truck and a jump start and snarled my way down to the garage they recommended--to be quoted a price that made me wheeze, say thank you but no thank you, and ask for another jump start to get out of there.
The garage guy was very nice, at least. I said heckwithit and headed to Sears, drove into their Battery Express bay, got quoted a price exactly half what the garage guy quoted, did a quick mall run I'd needed to do anyway, and was out of there with a new battery in time to finish Thursday's aborted errands and get home and get to work.
And in other frustrations, da Pooklet is now not coming until Tuesday. S took the truck in for maintenance on Friday and they can't get a part and it has to sit there until Monday. This has happened at least three times before, and the truck does need to be safe to haul the horses, so no great surprise, but it does up up the snarl factor. This means no help loading him, as the friend who was going to assist is only free on Sundays and the next Sunday we'll all be free at the same time is in August. But we'll get it done somehow. There is work to do and I want to get started while he's still relatively small and impressionable.
This morning, as if to compensate for all of this snarliness, there were lessons. I wanted to consult on da Pook, as we've been working pretty consistently and it was time for Teacher to weigh in on the next phase. And she certainly did. I made her get on him--TL had said we should do this for a couple of reasons, one being Teacher's superior seat and aids, but the other is, we baby the boy too much. He can suck it up and learn to work (and tolerate trainer rides) like a normal horse.
Well, as normal as a Space Alien gets.
It was A Moment. He was fine about it after I talked him into it with, "She has a much better seat than I do, you'll like it," but Teacher was big-eyed, especially as he headed over toward Pandora and starting making stallion noises. There's a distinctive electricity in him when he's distracted by a mare, and it can be a bit Interesting if you haven't been riding stallions regularly. Hit me the same way actually, back in May when I got on him for the first time in months and the first thing he did was make an uncontrollable beeline for the girls.
I said to Teacher, "He's just a horse!" and she allowed as how that's true, but, I mean, Pooooka. That boy got the mojo.
Once she got over that part, her ride was short but extremely effective. What she noticed was that while his back and body are fine, with some normal but not in any way unusual crookedness, his neck is almost scoliotic--he carries it in an S-curve. This is the result of an injury at birth (I wasn't there to assist, and we think he was born with the mare standing, landed on his head and cracked the atlas). The left side of his neck up toward the poll is hypertrophied and so is his jaw. It's half again the size of the right side. We've known that this isn't pathological--with in-hand work he can equalize it with fairly little effort (no sign of pain or resistance) and carry himself straight, and I've been doing this regularly with him. Our conclusion is that it's a muscle habit and can be broken--and he feels good when he breaks it, which helps tremendously.
From his back, Teacher could get a good view of the situation, and she experimented with ways to straighten his atlas. There is also a curve midway on the neck, to compensate, before you get the bottom of the S at his shoulders, but she didn't focus on that for now. What worked was a variation on the configuration we use for work in hand: right rein straight up on his neck at the point of the upper curve, just the weight of the rein and feel of the corner of his mouth, no pressure, and left rein at normal position but as an opening rein.
As soon as he felt this, his whole body sighed and his atlas went normal, and he was walking around with the longest neck I've ever seen on him, eyes blinking sleepily and mouth working gently. Total relaxation and comfort.
The judge at his evaluation dinged him for being short-necked, but he's not. At all. He telescopes it into his shoulders in reaction to the crooked atlas. Fix that and his ears are a good six inches farther away from his shoulders than you would think possible. My marker for straightness is that his left ear should not be higher than his right. They need to be level.
He had already been disposed toward this because of the work we've been doing with TL's in-hand exercises--in his longe before I rode him, he was visibly trying to unlock the base of his neck, and for the first time since I started him in work, I could see movement in the muscles all up and down it. Teacher added the element he was looking for (rather the way TL provided the puzzle piece we'd been missing in our training overall). The soft eye and sleepy look he had at that point was quite amazing for this hot little number.
And btw this is applicable to Camilla--she's chiropractically almost perfect but she has the same tendency to crank her neck into her shoulders. Side effect of too much perfection. She's so strong and her movement is so extreme that she sabotages herself. This is why Pook had so many foot problems, as well--too much movement, too much athleticism, not enough control to keep from dinging himself. Bell boots for turnout and Boa Boots for schooling under saddle have taken care of that. His feet are growing out very nicely.
Teacher commented that once Pooka's neck is sorted out--dressage as PT, we love it; TL calls it "riding to soundness"--the athletic ability we've seen previously will ramp up. We both had to stop at that point and get big-eyed. This is going to be one serious dressage machine.
So, an excellent diagnostic session and a big day for Teacher. She got to ride da Pooka.
So the standard schooling uniform of breeches and polo shirt will do just fine--and I've gone down a Lands' End polo-shirt size.
That was a nice discovery. Will be ongoing, too, as long as I keep up the riding, which I do intend to. After Dallas there's Torture Lady again in October, and we have our Goals for that, we do, yes, precious.
It's been a cranky week. Thursday I had an appointment in town, stopped by the post office and went to start the car...nothing. Car batteries last for 3 years here. Then come the hot weather followed by the monsoons, and pfffttt. It's been the statutory period, and sure enough. One of the postal workers kindly gave me a jump start, and I went home, cancelled the appointment, and called AAA to ask for the battery service. They ran me around the block for the next 24 hours, telling me I was Not In The Area, whereas in fact I am and have had it before. then saying they'd do it anyway, then a new supervisor would come on shift and lather-rinse-repeat. Finally on Friday after much frustration I got a non-battery truck and a jump start and snarled my way down to the garage they recommended--to be quoted a price that made me wheeze, say thank you but no thank you, and ask for another jump start to get out of there.
The garage guy was very nice, at least. I said heckwithit and headed to Sears, drove into their Battery Express bay, got quoted a price exactly half what the garage guy quoted, did a quick mall run I'd needed to do anyway, and was out of there with a new battery in time to finish Thursday's aborted errands and get home and get to work.
And in other frustrations, da Pooklet is now not coming until Tuesday. S took the truck in for maintenance on Friday and they can't get a part and it has to sit there until Monday. This has happened at least three times before, and the truck does need to be safe to haul the horses, so no great surprise, but it does up up the snarl factor. This means no help loading him, as the friend who was going to assist is only free on Sundays and the next Sunday we'll all be free at the same time is in August. But we'll get it done somehow. There is work to do and I want to get started while he's still relatively small and impressionable.
This morning, as if to compensate for all of this snarliness, there were lessons. I wanted to consult on da Pook, as we've been working pretty consistently and it was time for Teacher to weigh in on the next phase. And she certainly did. I made her get on him--TL had said we should do this for a couple of reasons, one being Teacher's superior seat and aids, but the other is, we baby the boy too much. He can suck it up and learn to work (and tolerate trainer rides) like a normal horse.
Well, as normal as a Space Alien gets.
It was A Moment. He was fine about it after I talked him into it with, "She has a much better seat than I do, you'll like it," but Teacher was big-eyed, especially as he headed over toward Pandora and starting making stallion noises. There's a distinctive electricity in him when he's distracted by a mare, and it can be a bit Interesting if you haven't been riding stallions regularly. Hit me the same way actually, back in May when I got on him for the first time in months and the first thing he did was make an uncontrollable beeline for the girls.
I said to Teacher, "He's just a horse!" and she allowed as how that's true, but, I mean, Pooooka. That boy got the mojo.
Once she got over that part, her ride was short but extremely effective. What she noticed was that while his back and body are fine, with some normal but not in any way unusual crookedness, his neck is almost scoliotic--he carries it in an S-curve. This is the result of an injury at birth (I wasn't there to assist, and we think he was born with the mare standing, landed on his head and cracked the atlas). The left side of his neck up toward the poll is hypertrophied and so is his jaw. It's half again the size of the right side. We've known that this isn't pathological--with in-hand work he can equalize it with fairly little effort (no sign of pain or resistance) and carry himself straight, and I've been doing this regularly with him. Our conclusion is that it's a muscle habit and can be broken--and he feels good when he breaks it, which helps tremendously.
From his back, Teacher could get a good view of the situation, and she experimented with ways to straighten his atlas. There is also a curve midway on the neck, to compensate, before you get the bottom of the S at his shoulders, but she didn't focus on that for now. What worked was a variation on the configuration we use for work in hand: right rein straight up on his neck at the point of the upper curve, just the weight of the rein and feel of the corner of his mouth, no pressure, and left rein at normal position but as an opening rein.
As soon as he felt this, his whole body sighed and his atlas went normal, and he was walking around with the longest neck I've ever seen on him, eyes blinking sleepily and mouth working gently. Total relaxation and comfort.
The judge at his evaluation dinged him for being short-necked, but he's not. At all. He telescopes it into his shoulders in reaction to the crooked atlas. Fix that and his ears are a good six inches farther away from his shoulders than you would think possible. My marker for straightness is that his left ear should not be higher than his right. They need to be level.
He had already been disposed toward this because of the work we've been doing with TL's in-hand exercises--in his longe before I rode him, he was visibly trying to unlock the base of his neck, and for the first time since I started him in work, I could see movement in the muscles all up and down it. Teacher added the element he was looking for (rather the way TL provided the puzzle piece we'd been missing in our training overall). The soft eye and sleepy look he had at that point was quite amazing for this hot little number.
And btw this is applicable to Camilla--she's chiropractically almost perfect but she has the same tendency to crank her neck into her shoulders. Side effect of too much perfection. She's so strong and her movement is so extreme that she sabotages herself. This is why Pook had so many foot problems, as well--too much movement, too much athleticism, not enough control to keep from dinging himself. Bell boots for turnout and Boa Boots for schooling under saddle have taken care of that. His feet are growing out very nicely.
Teacher commented that once Pooka's neck is sorted out--dressage as PT, we love it; TL calls it "riding to soundness"--the athletic ability we've seen previously will ramp up. We both had to stop at that point and get big-eyed. This is going to be one serious dressage machine.
So, an excellent diagnostic session and a big day for Teacher. She got to ride da Pooka.
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Date: 2006-06-24 09:08 pm (UTC)I made a HUGE decision this morning- I think I may be selling Lissa- guy stopped and wanted to know if I might be interested in selling her, as he's trying to find another mare to hitch with his for working and there's a dearth of haflinger mares in the county...
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Date: 2006-06-24 09:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-24 11:57 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-25 02:33 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 07:28 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2006-06-26 04:14 pm (UTC)Kudos on all fronts!