Horse Camp, report

Horse camp was wonderful, from the food to the facilities to the camaraderie to the instruction to the riding. If I had a complaint it would only be that it wasn't intensive enough, and that is simply because I am capable of more intensity than most of the world. Other people were already overwhelmed while I was still at "bring it on!" And I would gladly "camp" for nine months, or a weekend every month, or all I possibly could.

We started with a wine and cheese party and introduction to what would be happening. The text was The Simplicity of Dressage which has beautiful photos and some interesting text that I've skimmed but not actually read yet. Andre also provided a notebook with more articles, and he lectured and I took copious notes. We rode twice a day but for only 45 minutes each time, in groups of four (or sometimes five). When we weren't on or tacking or cooling out, we were observing. And the auditors obviously observed all the time. Anyone watching at any time heard a lot more from Andre than anyone on a horse did. We started each day with breakfast and a lecture, then a ride, then lunch and a lecture, then a ride, then supper then more lecture which was usually mostly observing and commenting on videos which this year were mostly from WEG.

So that's the overview. Blow by blow? I don't have much from the first night except riding group assignments. I'm pretty impatient with slow lectures and won't write what I don't find useful so it is hard telling what else went on then. Friday morning we started by going over the bottom three elements of the training scale. Now, an interesting thing about the training scale to me is that either it wasn't yet developed 30 years ago, or MM didn't go over it with us 30 years ago (and most of our riding education was on board horses, not in a classroom), or MM did go over it and I in my immaturity totally spaced out on it. I don't know. But perspective on and intellectual understanding of the training scale is something I've been hungry for more of. So, rhythm, relaxation and connection. I've got lots of good notes on these, things to think about and try to apply.

The second part of the morning's lecture was on position. Without hesitation Andre said that position is the most important aid. Which I agree with (even as I struggle with position) but I find in taking and observing Andre lessons, he rarely comments at all on position.

In the first lesson he asked us to develop the habit of using the long walk warming up to ride with stirrups dropped and to concentrate here on our positions (with the hope that this will carry over to other work I assume). Sit on the triangle of the pelvis, rotate legs inward, unclench buttocks, let thigh hang down with lower leg bending back from there. And then we looked at and worked on rhythm, relaxation and connection. It was in this session that I got highest praise and I record it so I will remember it: In individual canter work, Rol did her usual "exuberant" canter take-off and on second stride, when I had confirmed her going forward, I loosed my inside rein and Andre said, "That was exactly the right thing to do." (I find it interesting that I'm always more relaxed and willing to ride my own ride with Andre than with Lisa but I hope that I'm getting better even at that)

All afternoon work focused on quadrille, the "specialty" of this camp. I happen to agree with Andre that quadrille work is exceedingly valuable for horse and rider, having done a good bit of this sort of work at MM (we rode in a LOT of single file for dressage days, especially when Kay taught all the English sections which combined us all into one arena). So we had the lectures about what riders have to accomplish in quadrille work, and went over the various maneuvers. Then we went out and performed them on horseback. For the afternoon we were in different groups supposedly geographically related. This put horses of vastly different levels and qualities together, which was great! Well, you might really want to avoid that in a quadrille but if you really want to learn to ride it, dealing with all the difficulties magnified is a great way to learn it! I wanted to push the closeness and the speed but this was the part of the experience where I was more intense than another group member and it was waaay less than pleasant for me, so much so that I will avoid more group work unless I'm sure each member has the same commitment to it.

Saturday morning's lecture continued our training scale discussions -- impulsion, straightness, and collection, obviously more advanced and building upon the previous elements. Also, no matter the level, one does begin to introduce these things -- the idea of collection, correction of the crookedness that is (because we are all crooked horse and rider alike) -- and so we went out and began playing with these ideas with the horses.

In the afternoon we went over a few more quadrille figures, and received our assignment to create a quadrille to ride on Sunday morning. The rest of the lecture was taken up with discussion of warming up, particularly at shows, and how to do it effectively. I think that the focus on effectiveness is one of the things I like a lot about riding -- correct is always effective, incorrect is always less effective: It isn't right or wrong in the traditional sense. It reminds me of Jamie's saying -- choose your method, choose your results.

Sunday we performed our quadrilles -- and they all came off! It was great. There will be video somewhere, eventually. After the three teams performed their quadrilles, all twelve horses got into the dressage arena and did figures as they were called. It was something! Totally awesome.

The setting for this camp is a humongous girls camp, and we stay in the nurses quarters. With heat, kitchen and unlimited hot water, it is in no way roughing it. It is, however, camp-like. The beds are a fairly thin and narrow mattress on a board. I am not a naturally very social person although I do know how to pretend to be one but certain behaviors did try my patience. Can you imagine what it would have been like without the hot water?

Breakfast and lunch were provided. We went out to dinner en mass at night (except the first night when we had wine and cheese and actually quite the spread of hor'dourves courtesy of Mrs. Andre). There was plenty of coffee and tea. Everyone got up in the mornings and went to the barn by about 7 and fed, watered, cleaned stalls, did some initial grooming, etc. I thought that was a wonderful experience -- real horsemen always want to care for their horses, not have someone else do it, and that was truly the case here. It was also fun to see how quickly people learned how to work with each other, sharing tools and tasks. After dinner, everyone stopped at the barn for the final check of the night.

At night, after dinner, we came back to the lodge and mostly watched videos. Most striking to me was the fact that Totilas, in winning at WEG, outshone his competitors because of his relaxation (on the bottom of the pyramid) despite some shortcomings (his extensions particularly).

I have thought about listing the things that I learned. One would definitely be that I'd rather ride in a $3K saddle than a $900 saddle. The saddle doesn't make the rider but I was not comfortable. One is that I felt at camp that it was easy to be my real self, the one that isn't subservient and is just as competent as anyone else, one that isn't so aware of hierarchy and (my own lower) social status: I love riding horses! And I would have gotten on any horse there and given it a go. I was surprised at the range of riding ability/experience and at the range of horses (from plain to fancy) at such an expensive clinic. But it absolutely makes sense in that dressage is the basis, what all else is (or should be) built upon, and dressage can improve every horse and every rider.

And did I forget to mention the voodoo dolls?

Oh, yeah, the t-shirt! I'm so happy to have the t-shirt!

Horse Camp

How cool is that? And bigger than I can even fathom. Three and a half days, with a horse and eleven other horse/rider combos, doing thinking living and breathing pretty much nothing but dressage and horsemanship.

And to have that given to me, out of the blue.

I am overwhelmed, I am speechless, I am grateful. It brings tears to my eyes and butterflies to my stomach.

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.

glory days

If I were to tell a tale, well, there were lots of glory days. Lots and lots of glory days, some a moment long, some a bit longer, all glowing glowing, all still with some warmth.

We’d been at MM for nine months and it was the day of the Showmaster Championships, a horse show for the equivalent of “seniors”, those of us who’d be graduating with the Horsemaster diploma. The last four weeks or so the constant weekly changing of horses had stopped and everyone had chosen their “graduation horse” that they would ride for the Showmaster and for graduation which was a riding ceremony. We’d picked an underclassman to be our “groom” for the day. We’d picked our classes, I think we got our choice of any six.

Of all the English majors, Holly, Benson and I were the best. I was the third best, no doubt about that. Which of them was first would have been a toss up: Holly was an effective rider who always, always looked beautiful on a horse; Benson was the strongest damn rider I’ve ever seen still to this day. Me, I had a certain feel, I could sink down into a horse and ask them to do something and not get in their way and they usually would but I rarely looked that good doing it. I’d gotten a few blues through the year of weekly shows but not that many. I don’t know that anyone ever beat the three of us out for a blue ever -- it was always one of us.

So there we were on Showmaster day. We’d picked our classes, not all the same ones. Benson, I remember, picked a dressage class not because he particularly wanted to but because neither Holly nor I was entering it and it was an almost sure blue for him in that case. I don’t really have any idea what I picked except for that last class of the day: Choose Your Line.

Choose Your Line is jumping so prettiness doesn’t count, only cleanness. And fastness. I was on a cute little grade paint hunter type who would, it turned out, do anything at all I asked of him. Holly was on a bigger, rangier, more correct and astoundingly beautiful warmblood type. Benson had picked a little Quarter Horse that could. At this point in the day I had no blues but hadn’t finished out of the ribbons either. Holly had probably racked up a whole passel of blues, and Benson was second in point standings.

The course was posted and set. There were three obstacles arranged like \__/ except with a little less acute angulations, there was a combination down the fence line, and I think only one other obstacle. The combination could only be jumped in one direction, away from the in-gate. I don’t really remember about the others. I remember that I took that \__/ thing first, and went over first the left side of it, two bending strides to the right side of it, then a tight turn around to go over the middle, then the other obstacle, then the combination line, then tight turn back to the start/finish line. The line I picked was obviously the shortest. Holly’s horse was too big to have done it. Not a single person in the class picked the same line as any other person. When I watched the first two go, I knew if I could get around, I’d have it.

And we got around. I remember warming up, getting Lucky a little excited so he’d be wondering what was going on, moving faster than usual, away from my leg and forward. I remember going over that first jump, right over the start line, and holding my breath to see if I could make that second one. We did. If we can just do the rest clean I thought and then I don’t remember any more until after the final jump when I suddenly wondered where the finish line had gone and only then remember to turn. I still had the best time, by far. And we were clean.

I was hardly out of the arena when Benson shouted at me, “CG, that means you are Reserve Champion!” It hadn’t even occurred to me to calculate that. I wasn’t used to being in the running. But sure enough, I was Reserve Showmaster Champion.

So far this year (exactly 30 years since then!) has been exceedingly cold, too cold to ride, the arena frozen. But I have thought some about what glory I want from riding this year. And it is more a picture than I can put into words. There have been times when I wondered if perhaps I’d fooled myself, if I really never had been all that good to begin with. But then I remember the day with Noad, and the day of the Showmasters, and a few others; and then Holly wrote me not too long ago and said she’d found this horse that, when she rode him, she felt like she used to feel on a horse; like she was really good. She added that we really had been good back in the day, she and I.

What I want is not glory. It is not even anybody else noticing necessarily. What I want to do this year riding is to sink back into horses again, to that quietness. The riders I most admire, you never see them do anything. They’ll have perfect position, their horses will dance, but you won’t see much of anything. I want to achieve that stillness, that quietness. I want to sit inside the horse and for the horse to want to do what I want her to do, for nothing to exist for the horse or for me except for each the other and the dance.

I don't ask for much . . .

Manifesto

I suppose you’d have to know my Uncle Noad. But then I suppose you’d have to know me too. And I suppose you’d also have to know my grandfather and my father since they were the ones who brought us together and nourished me and horses in so many ways.

Now, as a kid I wasn’t all that observant -- I didn’t make all that many connections or notice what all was going on. I mean, I noticed “the Sixties” and thought about the philosophical implications of various things but I didn’t notice that Lynn was Ruby’s daughter. As an adult I’ve heard tell that my Uncle Noad had, let us say, a volatile family life. I had no clue. What I knew about Noad was that he was my grandfather’s brother who everyone knew was especially good with horses and he loved me and I loved him.

I suppose you’d have to also know those mountains, know that you drive up Tom’s Creek from Coeburn, along the ridges and finally by Ervington High School to Nora. I once brought a flatland beau to Nora and he thought that was the top of the mountain. It is not. To go to Noad’s, you turned left at Nora and then right up the mountain and I always got the names of the various hollers mixed up, tomahawk or buffalo or something; I could always recognize it. You drove up that road until the pavement stopped. When one of his son’s had wanted to build a house, Noad had given him 1 acre of his land -- the furthest from his house, closest to the road acre. This always tickled me. (This might explain why I have 2000 feet of nearly impassible road to get to my house now.) Past his son’s house and the pavement was Noad’s land. You were at his house when you came to the end of the road.

Just before his house and above the road on the left side was a barn. On this day, this is where my father, his father, Noad and I met. It would have been sometime in 1980 or 1981 I think. I had grown up riding gated horses but by this time it had been years and years since I’d been on one. I’d taken to forward seat riding, hunters and jumpers and cross country, and also dressage, and had really never thought about saddle seat although heck, we never road in those flat saddles anyway but in western saddles. We never let the hooves overgrow for exaggerated action either. So on this day Noad brought his two saddle horses into this barn and he and I tacked them up in their western saddles. I was always up to ride anything, any style, anytime, and I that is still very much the way I am. We mounted and Noad led the way.

I don’t remember that I particularly knew that we were going to go riding, just that I’d been invited to go see Noad. I didn’t know where we’d go. I just went along. When we first picked up a slow rack I realized just how long it had been since I’d done this and it took me awhile to adjust -- to sit back, to let the motion flow through me. I’m sure we talked about stuff but at the same time I doubt we talked about anything; for Noad and for me, being together and being on the horses was enough, was everything we wanted and so we could easily just be. Eventually my body remembered how to sit into the horse and let it move on.

We reached the end of the trail and turned around. When we got back to the flattest, smoothest part of the trail, Noad started letting his horse out. Since he was nearing 80 years old at that time and I was about 20, he’d taken the horse with more training and I was on the slightly greener horse. I asked my horse to step out and he did. Noad and I were both grinning big time as we let them rack on, racing but not too seriously. When the trail narrowed again, we pulled them up and laughed out loud at how much fun that was to do and the horses blew and chomped and tossed their heads showing their high spirits too.

When we got back to the barn, there was my dad and my Dad-da (pronounced dadaw) waiting for us and matching our grins. We dismounted and led them back into the barns and Noad said to his brother, “You put that girl on your worst horse and she’ll still out ride you.” And my Dad-da’s blue eyes twinkled and my father’s hazel eyes did too and Noad and I untacked our horses in all our bow-legged glory.

It was perhaps my proudest moment ever.

It is what I want now.

Now, again. To relax into what I know and do best. To have opportunities appear from what appears to me to be out of the blue and to embrace them.

I will not be discouraged by the damning of faint praise (“you did well on the straight parts of the test”). I will not be discouraged by snipes (“no one is going to pay you to ride her”). I will not be discouraged by snide remarks (“I don’t know if she held her pinkie out right or not but she’s not committing suicide so she must have done ok”). I will simply not be discouraged.

I am so glad to be back at a barn, back with horses. I still cannot believe I did without them for twenty years. But yes, I want more. I want my life back, my whole life, without giving up the life I have now.

There. I’ve said it.