January

My second catch-up post. Hopefully there will be another with pictures from the past two months.

I’ve been working on my own straightness, both in lessons and out. I like to twist my body to try to manipulate Robbye’s and…that’s not how riding works. I need to focus on keeping my own body perfectly aligned with hers, except when I specifically need to move my shoulders or head in order to correct her. No other times!

We did have one jump school this month. In preparation for a CT I entered (which we didn’t end up going to because of the weather), I set up a fun little “scary” course of 18″ jumps. Robbye was great and didn’t even look at any of the scary stuff. I think know that my confidence has a lot to do with her confidence…I just need to remember this at shows.

We also kicked transitions’ butts this month. Michele has been very impressed with our upward and downward transitions, including to and from the canter. Woohoo! Unfortunately, we lost the progress we had made getting Robbye round and on the bit. I stopped longeing her on the side-reins once a week, and I think that made a huge difference. I did start back up, however, and for this week’s lesson I actually spent the whole lesson with side reins on. It was amazing. I felt like we were total “big girls”. It was nice, too, because Robbye actually spent a lot of the time with slack side-reins…I think she’s starting to figure out that this is where I need her to carry her body.

Unfortunately, that awesome lesson was the beginning of another week of extreme cold. This winter has just been extreme in terms of temperatures. Fortunately, I’ve found other ways to keep myself occupied. Zeke and I went to a movie with his work on Tuesday, a professional talk (Dayton .NET Developers) on Wednesday, and a talk about sediment at the Cincinnati Terminal Museum last night. Tonight we’re going to see the Dayton Philharminc. (AND ALL THESE EVENTS WERE FREE!) I also am using a gym membership, which has been fun. I even got two free personal training sessions – I used the first on Wednesday, and specifically asked for dressage-muscles-workouts. I was please with the workout, although I wasn’t as sore as I thought I’d be! I’m looking forward to my second workout on Monday. My PT is also collecting some price information for me for Monday so…we’ll see about that. I would love to join the gym, but I just don’t want to spend the money. I don’t know.

I’m reading through Centered Riding right now. I really should take notes on this blog of specific things I need to work on. That book was written for a stressed, detail-obsessed rider like me.