dream, show, ride

The alarm woke me up Monday morning, early, for work. It woke me up in the midst of a dream.

I was trotting up to a judge. It was actually up an incline in the dream. And looking back, from the waking state, I know what I was doing was piaffing and passaging but as far as I was concerned in the dream, it was just trotting. I noticed, in the dream, that it wasn't really going anywhere (piaffe) and when I thought forward, it went forward, and I could control how far by just thinking about it. And partway there I thought, oh, this is a lot of suspension and at that exact moment I knew the judge wrote on the test, "nice suspension" and I thought, oh, I have to think the right things! What I should think at the end of each movement is, "EIGHT!" Anyway, the alarm rang but the dream stayed.

At the barn, the boss and I both rode early. During the free walk warm up we were talking and I told her about the dream. She said, "Did the judge tell you you were over-achieving for training level?" I thought that was funny. My friend Dianne, she knows.

I had talked to her about whether to do T3 or T4. So, what I'm thinking now is that I'd really like to do both of them. I wonder if I can talk her into that. Last night I would wake up in the middle of one of those tests or the other. We're doing a lesson Saturday so I suppose we'll decide then. She'll pretend it is my decision. But what is she willing to do? What am I willing to ask for?

Another thing that is going on is that she's going to an A show in September when I will be otherwise engaged. She'll be showing one of her training horses. I want her to take Rolinette to show her too! I want her to know how far Rol has come, I want Rol to do great in a big, real show, and I think it would be totally cool for her to do well with someone else on her (and particularly her "mom"). And yes, I think it would speak well for my "training" of her. I mean, is there anything I would like more than the opportunity to do more of what I've been able to do with her? I'll let that go now.

So the rides were thus: Sunday we walked hills, did some lateral work in the back arena, did some hills, did some trot work in one of the fields. That was the first time to do trot work on uneven ground. Then I went to the front, sand, softer arena to do some canter transitions. Monday was an arena ride, did the usual all around. She's too often bucking into canter which I think is me not being subtle enough. More seat, more inside leg, don't take that outside leg back hardly at all -- that's what I'm thinking I need to do. Or something in that direction anyway. I also desperately need to SIT BACK. Oh, the photos from the last show! Of course, I did shorten those stirrups and that would encourage a little more forwardness in the upper body and that's certainly what the photos look like. Ugh. Anyway, I also went into the dressage arena and practiced the figure eight trot circles and the canter pattern from T3 and the loop de loop from T4.

Did not ride Tuesday.