ride CG ride

Well now, that was different. First thing; "CG, would you get on Tully at the end of my ride so I can see how she moves?" Sure thing. Second thing; "Are you going to ride today?" She said that because I guess I haven't been on in three weeks, certainly not since "the incident", absolutely not since the "little chat". She'd asked last week if I was going to show in April and I responded with a southern non-answer that I think drives her yankee self crazy: "I'd have to get on a horse to do that, wouldn't I?" I'm relatively sure she didn't understand then (long parenthetical deleted) what that meant, but later I think she overheard me say to someone who asked why I hadn't been riding that I'd had trouble finding my motivation for the past couple of weeks which might have been a direct enough reference for her to catch it. I don't know. Anyway, she was very nice to me and asked if I would be riding and I said, if I have time, I have to get home before very late so husband can try to fix the fuel leak on the van. "I'll catch some stalls for you," she said. And she did. And I had plenty of time.

And it was all wonderful. The details are that getting to do it made me doubt myself more than I have in the last few weeks. Those words aren't quite right. I know I can really do it, I just need to feel my way and I worry, I guess, about getting thrown (or throwing myself) too far into it, over my head . . . But I also know, deep down, that I can.

Husband said that if Lisa was going to change our relationship, it would be only slowly, and that is fine with me. What I mistrust is the appearance of change without any real change. But I also mistrust too much and too abrupt of change. So I'm still in the market for a job. But Lisa is one that I'm "interviewing" by her actions. And right now the first she heard of a new job wouldn't be the two week notice.

$8/hr doesn't buy you a friend

My sleep is extremely variable in its quality. Sometimes I sleep like a log. Sometimes it eludes me. Sometimes I dream, sometimes I remember, sometimes I don't. It just varies, and yes, seasonality counts although it isn't really the seasons but the time of the year that the veil is thinner.

I remember the first time my dreams warned me of something. It was just a bad work situation, a situation that had been most excellent and that in a period of a few months had deteriorated to untenable. Ah but I'm tenacious so I was holding on, trying to make it be better. So my dreaming self took over. Every single night I was being chased and things were blowing up. Chased. Blown up. Shattered to wakefulness. Until finally I figured it out. It is work doing this to me, creating these dreams. I made an appointment with my boss. He blew me off. Three times. I turned in my two week notice and then was sick for two weeks. When I'm done, I'm done.

Sometimes being done comes slowly like that. Sometimes it comes suddenly, like it did the other day. About 9 am on March second. Done. Still, the realizations come more slowly.

So last night I had a dream, a very vivid dream, and I really hope to heck it is just a warning dream and not a prescient dream. My dad told me he had some bad news for me, that Riddle and Rood was suing me for sixty-four million dollars. Now, just so you know, my dad's been dead eleven years this year, and Riddle and Rood is the huge veterinary practice across the street from the Kentucky Horse Park. As I was absorbing that (because even in a dream I'm trying to make it make sense -- why was Riddle and Rood suing me? why 64 million? what makes them think that's even in the realm of possibility?), Daddy said he had some more bad news, that Ashley (the new very good rider at the barn who Lisa has her latest shine on) had been working for them. This somehow meant that she was behind it. Oh. Ok. Deep breath.

Then I went to Rainwater, an old friend who is a philosophy professor, and he measured me for my shoe size. Yeah, now, that's more like what a dream is supposed to be like.

I have dreams. Real dreams, and some ability to back them up. I laid them on the line. I exposed myself but if anyone at all didn't realize those dreams were there, they were willfully blind. While she's been good to me, I've been good to her, and for her, too. By my becoming entirely vulnerable, she exposed herself, and how little regard she has for me, naked. I've been paid for my time and that and a "thank you" at the end of the day ought to be enough.

It isn't.

So I'm here putting my skin back on. It fits. Skin is like that. Although it may be a bear's skin.

Whenever she's nice to me, I don't believe it anymore. "Thank you" stings. $8/hr just doesn't buy you a friend. Still, I love the barn, the horses, and, yep, the people too.

affirmation

This is kind of a place holder in that this happened today but the bulk of this story happened already and I haven't written about it yet. But here's what happened today. Heather was at the barn talking about a horse and a student, trying to fathom through what is going on with them so that she can help them. In the midst of it she said to me, "CG, you see them here, you come out and teach her and maybe you can see what is going on." Me, who was just told it would not ever be possible for me to teach, train or ride there. I did not talk to her, yet, about it but obviously she quite naturally sees me as a competent professional, a peer not an underling.

Husband said, "Write this down. Lisa is the only person who doesn't see you that way and you need to collect the evidence so that you believe yourself." Or something like that.

I gotta get back on that horse and ride.

Which, another funny thing today. I talked to Rolinette about the situation, more in depth than I had to this point. And I told her I wanted and needed to hear what she had to say. But of course, she just looks at me and listens with that soulful eye then walked over to me and put her forehead on my chest in the most amazing way. Later, after I'd taken her out of her stall to clean it (rain kept everyone inside today), taking her back to her stall she stopped, she looked in the wash rack, and she tried to go into the wash rack. That's where we'd groom and tack up if I were to do such a thing. It was her way of telling me to get back on that horse and ride.

I truly needed both those things.

or maybe not

maybe. maybe not. Maybe that's how it always is. Time for something different maybe. As much as you hate new things. Time for something different. Time for something. I am here only for as long as I'm amused and I was very not amused today.

time for me to fly

We've had a couple of rides, plus she's been ridden by another woman a couple of times -- another decent rider. As always, Rol is beautiful, willing, eager even. She did pull a couple of "what's a transition" moments, and she actually bucked into canter . . . but hey, we're not stomping into canter -- we have an actual transition and so we work from there. And she stretched better -- for a longer period of time and hopefully maybe even with her nose going forward a bit too? I know she did some nose forward on the hills and I'm hoping to take that feeling and develop it in the arena.

Goals: hmmmm.

Well, with Rol I just want to make progress. I should read the gosh darn new tests because I don't even know where we are in them. But to continue to work on the stretchy circle, changing bend smoothly, add some lengthening, confirm and make more obvious our lateral work. Improve my seat and work on sitting a bit more trot. Rhythm, Relaxation, Connection -- that bottom of the training pyramid. Impulsion, Straightness, Collection -- that too. I want clean transitions up and down. I want to play with walk-canter-walk transitions. Just consistency, solidity.

In my dream world, when we have grass I'd bring that red mare home and break her and take her back at the end of the summer and see how very far we can come in that amount of time. In my dreams, I could show her in the novice level of the fun show. In my dreams, next year my daughter could.

I would love to coach someone through this show series.

I hope take a lesson or two from Ashley. I would hope to be able to take some from Andre. I hope Lisa will teach me, well, I'd love to get a lesson a month. I'd love to work on how I'm riding, form, position. Oh heck, while I'm dreaming, I'd love to jump regularly again too. I'd like time on different horses too.

I am a cowgirl and proud of it. Pulling a shoe off in the barn isle the other day it hit me that I'm pretty value added. Be secure in that value, and always learning more.

remembrance/creation

I want to thank an old friend who remembered and who reminded me.

She said:

One of my most vivid memories from school is from a breeding class - there was a young stud colt, chestnut who we were trying to get to mount the dummy and different people kept trying to get him to do it and he wanted to but kept backing off at the last minute and we were all standing around watching and trying to figure out why he wouldn't get up on it. You watched him a while and when they gave you the chance to see if you could do any better you took off the chain shank, hooked it to the ring so as not to hit him in the nose when he went to the dummy and he was able to finish what he wanted to start but was afraid to because of the chain. You have good instincts and have the ability to watch, access and come up with something that may just work where nothing else has. Trust that. I sense that you are unsure of how much to say - and I know you have an opinion ;) - about what you see. I find that with me, I don't blow my own horn enough and worry way too much about what others think - good thing about getting older is that the holes in the filter get looser and things start coming through that wouldn't have when we were younger. Remember that colt and how you were the only one who could see the reason for his hesitation and could fix it with something so simple as to take the chain off his nose.

I remember it this way. We had partied the whole and entire night before and I was in sad shape to be handling a horse. Our plan had really been to show up to this class and hide in the back. But I was standing there in the freezing cold watching this, and I could see that chain rattle and that that was the exact second that this stud would back off. So I raised my hand. I knew I could do it better. I knew.

Now, you have to understand that what I did was "against the rules". The rule there was, if he's a stud, he has a chain on him, period. It wasn't a big deal but it was like the rule, if in a barn, have a hard hat on. There wasn't any breaking of it. I ran to hide more times for not having a hard hat on in a barn. I got caught breaking curfew one time and I think the punishment was not to ride the next day or something. No appeal, just do it. The place was run like that. I learned a lot from it but won't willingly submit myself to that sort of thing anymore. I don't much like rules, and never did. I made a career in high school breaking them and mostly not getting caught. So there I was, some form of hungover, raising my hand, and walking up to this stud and taking his chain off.

He mounted. He did his business. He dismounted. I put the chain back on. The teachers then discussed with the class what I'd done. I was cocky, no doubt.

I wished I'd asked more questions then, and listened more, and had a clue. I wish I had now a bit more of that walking up there and doing what I know to be right opportunity, but then again, I'm not in a class. When I doubt myself it isn't that I doubt my ability but I doubt ever having the opportunity again to put my ability to use.

And I have just as little clue how to get that done now as I did then it seems to me.

But I do know a few things:

• life with horses is better than life without horses
• nothing, not even horses, is more important than my family
• there will be opportunities for me to step up

I love you ms. berry of the open range. I am very glad you are here to remember with me. May we grow old, on horseback, with our families, together.

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.

epilog to prolog

Working backwards, I guess, I had a mahvelous time in the costume contest. But that was very little in the way of riding.

I was well pleased with Rolinette, my ride in the show, and the progress we've made. Our score was 63.2 and I was .8 out of first (got second -- strangely my first red ribbon in the newest collection). Got 7 in both canter circles and an 8 in one trot circle. Canter transitions up were prompt and obedient but not forward until the second stride ever. Canter transitions down tend to be a bit against the hand and we'll be working on that -- hopefully with some lesson help there. I'd determined to push the free walk, did, got a jig step -- you pays your money you takes your chances -- that's fine. I did what I wanted to do and am well pleased.

The stretchy circle is something else again. I mean, it is better than it was. But it. is. not. good. I think I will work this winter in the fields (because she seeks out the contact best there) and then try to bring that into the arena. The Friesian propensity to get behind the bit is quite difficult to know how to correct. She's got some lengthening . . . she could move up.

Before the show I rode as I said I would . . . Monday, Tuesday and Friday. Friday was very windy so we didn't even approach the judge's stand -- one doesn't want to create issues. I don't specifically remember now the others.

This is, I think, the end of documenting every ride. For now anyway.

yeah yeah yeah

I did ride another time that didn't make it on here. Am I tired of the chronicling? (that's how you spell that? really?) Maybe. I'll take it to the last horse show and then we'll see. Maybe I'm just tired as it has been -- not full, not busy, but relentless time sucks -- lately.

I did a typical arena ride, with the ladies, had fun, Rol was good. I'm just not gonna worry too much about the show -- it will be what it will be. This coming week I will try to ride Monday, Tuesday and Friday.

And evidently I rode twice since I posted here, Wednesday and Thursday. We did take Friday off. Wednesday was windy and she was strong and we tried like crazy to relax. Our stretchy circle isn't likely to be much better than last time I'm afraid. But hopefully canter will be better, and I'll be more aggressive at the free walk.

rode, finally

We didn't really, totally, take two weeks completely off. Last Tuesday I hopped on bareback and we walked (mostly, trotted enough for me to know that I can't trot bareback on that horse for long at all, and cantered enough for me to be happy but mostly walked -- there is so much you can to at a walk). She was a lot of fun bareback in that I could just almost audibly hear her thinking, "umm, hey, did you realize you forgot the saddle? Are you sure you won't fall off?" But once she got used to it (and assured herself that I wasn't going to fall off), she was fine.

Today I finally made it on again. Saddled during the sunshine, got to the trot serpentines and it rained. Not hard but it was chilly and not my saddle so we went inside where we waited the short drizzle out then finished the work out. She was great considering how long she's been off. A few almost really good upward canter transitions. One almost decent stretchy circle. She's really just a lot of fun to ride.

A bit less than two weeks to the show. T3. And costume, bareback.

after a week off

After we had a week off, we rode yesterday. She was a tiny bit hot but she's always so very willing and I do so love that. She didn't really want to do the whole shoulder fore thing but she had some nice moments. And some of the canter transitions, up, were half nice in that we had a nice and I think clean jump into it but forward took two or three strides for me to get. But she did keep the canter nicely, gave me a little lengthen and a little come back.

And the strangest thing was that I felt back enough, not tippy. Would like to keep that part.