All The Kings' Horses

 I worked with Gia yesterday on her flatwork.  We did a lot of work on her impulsion before we could work on her straightness, but we also had to work on her impulsion a lot throughout the ride.  She can be deceptively "forward".  She seems "fast", especially because she is big and covering a lot of ground.  However, speed and ground cover don't always mean that the horse is actually forward, or one of the other many terms you may have heard used - "in front of the leg", "having impulsion", "having activity", etc.  A horse with impulsion is a horse with ENERGY.  That energy is created by your leg, and/or whip, spurs, etc, or the horse might have it's own natural energy.  But what is the difference between impulsion and speed?  My logical brain, likes to go to the scientific side of things to help explain.  Impulsion explained scientifically, would be called kinetic energy, and the formula for that would be: The scientific formul...

 Gia and I worked out in the field today.  It was finally dry enough that we could get out there and play a little.  We started with some stretching at the walk, and just seeing "where Gia wanted to be".  As I allowed her to get moving, I thought about my position, and then started to put her together with that.  We gradually moved into medium walk, then working trot, then over a few jumps.  She was struggling with her balance today, and did a lot of trotting over the jumps.  I was able to get some canter after the jumps, and if I stayed out of the saddle, in half seat, balanced evenly weighted in my stirrups, with my elbows in, and my spine aligned with her spine, she was able to start balancing herself really well at the canter.  But as soon as I started to keep my leg on and bring my shoulders back and my weight and seat down, it became much harder for her to keep her balance.  We were able to get it a little bit, but this is definitely so...

 I worked with Gia today on some light flatwork.  We mainly worked on stretching and thinking about "where she wanted to be".   If I am in the correct position - feet flat and weight evenly distributed across the stirrups, seat bones evenly weighted, upper body aligned with her spine, thumbs up, elbows in, shoulders behind hips, one pound of pressure in each rein - then where does the horse's body "want to be"?  If I stop trying to control her, and just follow her, and just focus on staying in my correct position, where does she go in the arena?  Does her ribcage bulge left or right?  Does her nose point left or right?  Does she stretch down low or reach up high?  Does she drift one way, or the other?  Can I follow her without tension creeping up somewhere? Then ... Can I start to affect her, but only with a light leg aid? And when I do, what other adjustments have to be made after that happens?  Did I maintain all of the above posi...

 I didn't have a chance to write three separate blogs for each day I worked with Gia this week, so I thought I would combine them all in one! We did dressage on Monday and Wednesday, and jumping on Tuesday.  The only real difference between the two is that we went over a few obstacles up to 2', since "Jumping is just Dressage with Obstacles" anyway! 😄  But let me back up a little ... While I was unable to ride, I spent a lot of time thinking about my riding.  While riding is obviously a very physical sport, it is also a very mental sport.  We often spend a lot of time on the physical, but not enough time on the mental, myself included.  But for the last 6 months, I didn't have much choice.  I thought a lot about how I could improve my own riding and position, and especially how I could work on mine and Gia's biggest issue - all the bucking.  I definitely hoped that it was stemming from her not being able to breathe as well, and that after she rec...

 Gia and I ventured out to the Carolina Horse Park this past weekend for our first horse show since our respective surgeries!  My long stretch spent out of the saddle gave me a lot of time to really think about my riding. And, when I was able to get back in the saddle, I was able to pick up pretty much where I left off without losing much, if any, ground.  I'll get more into that in my next blog, since this one is just about the show ☺.  But, suffice it to say, Gia and I felt ready and excited!  For the last few months, she had been looking longingly at the trailer leaving her behind a few times.  She would even run down the fence line, along the road, as the trailer slowly drove away without her in it.  And I was really missing showing, since I lost practically the last half of last year, including one of my favorite shows of the year. We started the day off warming up for dressage.  The ring was quite empty at first, since we were one of the fir...

 So, the last 6-7 months have been a bit crazy.  You may be wondering why I wasn't blogging, and partly that was due to my own injury, and partly that was due to Gia's surgery. Let me back up. Early in July last year, I had a "bit of a fall" off of Phillip, while schooling cross country.  I immediately knew something wasn't quite right, but luckily, it didn't hurt too bad.  When I stood up, I could feel my right arm dangling quite a bit from my shoulder socket.  When I visited my doctor a few days later, he confirmed that I definitely had injured my shoulder, but he couldn't tell me how bad it was without an MRI.  We discussed doing PT first vs an MRI first, and we both decided PT would be the route to go first.  Unfortunately, there was no improvement after two weeks, so I scheduled the MRI.  It took a few weeks to get on the schedule, and then another week to get in to see the doctor for the results, but basically, I had F'd it up real good...