Revelations

There are fundamental changes happening within me. Still. As my confidence slowly builds my horses change. There is virtually no spook left in Shazaam, no mischief left in Phantom (unless he sits without work too long) and Maximus still tests me every time I handle him and ride him but his tantrums under saddle are humorous: kicking out when asked to go forward. He gives up soon enough. I have him walking out and trotting out nicely and with life in his body.

I owe this to 2 people. A wonderful woman who rides 4th level dressage and has been kind enough to put me on her schoolmaster bareback and help me with some centered riding techniques. It's helped me understand the balance point of my older and very different body as well as how my body relates to the horse and how my individual muscles affect each other. This has been huge for me and I think that with this I can go on to tackle the next hurdle-whatever that may be. All I had was 4 rides with her. I pray that someday there can be more.

Then there is Jessica my regular riding instructor. She has been riding Maximus for me so that he gets the experience he needs. Of my 3 horses, he has the least amount of experience working under saddle so this time with Jessica is crucial for him. He has never been as coordinated or athletic as the mustangs are so I'm grateful that she is putting time on him. He will be SUCH a nice horse by the time he is 8 years old.

So they know. The horses know if there is one drop of fear or insecurity in you and this has no place in human/horse interactions. Of course not that we should not seek to preserve ourselves but that we should accept that there is risk but much less risk if we practice safety and feel confident.

How easy is that, right? One thing is to know it in your mind and another to know it and live it in your body. I'm getting there. Slowly but surely.

Leaps & Bounds

The day before yesterday, I rode Shazaam in the round pen like I do every Sunday while my husband rides Maximus. I have been trotting him around and feeling very balanced and confident so I asked him for a canter and...we did it!! It wasn't very pretty at first but as I forced myself to relax it got much, much better. So I decided that I needed mileage at the canter and rode again yesterday. My transitions were smooth and my butt didn't come out of the saddle even a single inch.

Shazaam may be my horsey soul mate and while I believe my little fugly pony is as perfect as they come I'd be lying if I said he didn't feel like riding a jack hammer. To me this is a plus! My lower back has to be super elastic and that actually eliminates my back pain.

I've also started riding him around the ranch which really brings his energy up. I'm starting to be comfortable with this being his "normal" state of mind and have much less trouble keeping him thinking and staying relaxed myself. I don't kid myself, he is still the kind of horse who will invent reasons to explode and bolt but I'm becoming confident in my ability to manage him and I'm sticking to my plan gradually increasing the area where I ride him. This whole journey from mind numbing fear to confident competance is now 3 1/2 years in the making.

I know the entire thing is my fault for owning a horse I couldn't even get near with a brush or he'd mentally unravel instead of a steady old trail horse but to be honest, I'm getting an invaluable education through this and I would not trade what horses have taught me for all the peaceful trail walkie rides in the world.

Alright so this is laughable...

This week I rode Danielle's horse "Busta Move" AKA Buster. He was a very good boy for me.

Today I went on a trail ride on a 2 1/2 year old mustang filly who is not exactly balanced yet and trips quite a bit. We crossed a major ROAD!!! She did green baby stuff like not know how to get off the road by going up and over a berm. I helped her along with her balance and with the berm thing.

I need to just ride my own darned horses and learn to trust them.

Woo Hoo!

Yesterday I was offered an opportunity to ride a lovely well trained 20 year old Arabian gelding. He was so balanced and easy to ride that I was cantering him around in no time at all. I don't think I was on him longer than 20 minutes total.

It was an amazing gift. My first canter in 13 years where my fear was absent. I feel that my first canter on Shazzaam is no longer a far away goal or an unrealistic dream. I CAN ride versus that wierd place where I had to actually say that "I can't ride-yet".

Today I'm filled with hope, joy, gratitude, and humility.

Why do I Procrastinate?

It's been a long time since I've blogged anything and there is probably too much to update here. I haven't stopped riding. In fact, I'm getting to the point I am confident enough to handle myself horseback under more conditions than I thought possible in so short a time. My leg is becoming solid and strong and I feel that because of this, I'm no longer operating from a position of just keeping myself alive. I still procrastinate when it comes to riding and this I simply don't understand. Every time I get on Shazaam lately, the ride ends with me feeling like I could stay on him forever and yet I still put off getting back on. The closest thing I've had to any kind of a scare was when I was riding Maximus in the arena and he decided to squirt forward. I shut him down in one stride and my butt never left the saddle. I was unsettled for a half a second but it wasn't all that scary.

In fact the more these little things happen and I stay in control and on the horse, the more my confidence grows. Or so I believe.

My biggest concern lately has been handling Maximus on the ground, not so much riding him. You see, Maximus is a bottle raised thoroughbred so he is a bold and brave horse who lacks fear. This is something of a double edged sword though. He has to be constantly reminded that I'm not a horse and not his playmate or his play toy. I've totally accepted that he cannot be allowed to sniff or put his nose on me and that he must follow all the rules for leading and longing precisely and that he has to have a job standing in the corner at feeding time until he is released with a verbal cue to eat.

When I got him last year, he had food aggression issues that I worked though. As long as I fed him and isolated him at feeding time, he showed no aggression. I got him to where I could feed him oustide an arena during lessons and as long as I stayed with him, he did not attack the horse and rider in the arena.

The most recent problem started after I moved my horses to a barn close to home. Unlike other stables here, this barn does not allow any two paddocks to share a fence. There are alleys between every pen which works great for a horse like Maximus because no other horse can put their head in his corral at feeding time. This is a self care facility and my neighbors come to feed their horses twice a day like I do. Maximus started a game with them where he would rush the fence with his ears pinned when they walked by with feed for their horses. Well, these people are newbies with 3 green mares who are always trying to kill them so guess how they thought they could get Maximus to stop making ugly faces at them? They gave him some of whatever they had when he rushed them with his ears pinned!

Less than a month later I had a bonafide monster on my hands who reared at me if I passed him without feeding him or if heaven forbid, I dare to enter his paddock without food. So I got to the bottom of what the neighbors were doing and nicely asked them to ignore my horse altogether and started my strict rules about feeding. I seriously thought about making pony BBQ... Well, not really but I was not happy about the severity of the situation or the steps I'd have to take to rectify it.

He is doing much better although he still has some ideas about trying to be dominant with me. For instance today I did a little longing with him through a ditch and when he didn't want to do as I asked (go forward) he shakes his head and shows me his hip. So we'll be working on that this week.

Funny thing though,I'm not afraid of him. Maybe should be and I'm just not smart enough to know it.

I came to a realization with my horses today: The mustangs finally trust me now that I'm much more emotionally fit with them- the calm in the storm for them so to speak. Maximus never really trusted me per se. He simply had enough self confidence coupled with no innate fear of humans that my lack of emotional fitness didn't figure into the equation for him. So I suppose the only question that remains is: can I be enough of a leader to win the respect of such a bold and fearless horse? This is a new one for me.

Starting over and over again.

So I was off of my lessons for almost 3 weeks because the arena got washed out. I did go on 2 trail rides, on Trickster, during that time. Like everything else, the more I do it, the less anxious I am about it.

Also as usual,after 3 weeks off of not working at what I'm weak on, it took all lesson for me to finally get things going well on my good side. My bad side never did come together.

So I've put off riding Shazaam long enough. Now that Maximus is on stall rest for a good long while, I'm forced to ride Shazaam.

In a way, this is a good thing because Shazaam needs consistent work with the same rider to be all that he can be. That rider may as well be me since that is ultimately my goal.

The thing about Shazaam is that he has a ton of energy or spirit (whatever you want to call it) and he spooks (um flips out) in novel situations and cannot take any kind of mental pressure or he explodes.

So if Shazaam has never seen a particular saddle on a new fence, it's a problem for him. Even if he has seen me carry that saddle everywhere- and as long as I present a familiar visual profile for him then he is fine. Why bother with such an animal? I don't have any other reason than that it will make me better with horses in general. With consistent work,experience,and age, he is settling down but it's taking years.

The thing about Shazaam is that he's the one that has hurt me in the past so when he gets his blood up, it's a challenge for me not to get my adrenaline/fear up as well. If I let it happen, his monster and mine feed off each other. This is the intangible thing in me that I have to conquer to be successful.

So here's the story that goes with this part of my journey:

The day before yesterday, I decided that he had plenty of time to settle into his new barn and to saddle him up and see just how far we got with riding. I put my saddle on the round pen fence and started free longing Shazaam and he immediately started cutting through the pen to avoid getting too close to the saddle on the fence. I thought my normal thoughts about my overly dramatic horse and put him on line and longed him between me and the saddle when someone approached me and asked me if I was going to be using the pen for a while to which I replied "yes". Then this person proceeded to make remarks about my horse "playing games" with me to which I replied "Nope. This is an honest response." Then they proceeded with "Well, I respect your opinion but". I stopped to look over and see his mare tied and setting back for all she was worth. I tuned out everything else they had to say and thought, "Dude, you should go teach your poor mare about giving to pressure" and refocused myself on Shazaam.

Then he asks if Shazaam has ever been saddled before and I answer "yes, he's been ridden quite a bit". So he asks how Shazaam would react if I walked up to him holding the saddle and I answer, well he'll move around some but he pretty much stands for saddling. So I saddle him and he doesn't even bother to take the token half sidestep away before deciding to stand. Meanwhile, the guy is telling my horse, "Good Boy!" Which, to my horse, "Good Boy!" is a secondary re-enforcer to a clicker (which is a secondary re-enforcer to a TREAT) so thank GOD, Shazaam ignored it because I don't really use clicker training to teach behaviors that have to do with riding.

So I thought, "Dear God, rip my tongue out of my head if I EVER give anyone any unsolicited advise ever again!" because I have indeed said to 2 people unsolicited advise like "Slamming the bit in your horse's face is just teaching her to throw her head" and to my best friend, "Your horse needs to gain about 150 lbs so you might actually want to feed your horse instead of letting your non-horsey boyfriend do it."

While I can't promise to hold my tongue with my best friend, I do promise to mind my own business with everybody else- even if they are in imminent danger. I can call 911after the fact. This is my first experience at a public boarding facility so I'm learning about barn life more quickly than I want to.

Back to the issue of my fear:

So I put my foot in the stirrup and stood up in it. Shazaam started hopping up in the front and I thought he might settle for a second but then started running sideways so I stepped off but held my inside rein lightly and went with him. He stopped and followed me back to the center of the pen so I stood there with him, putting weight in the stirrup with my hand, then foot, then up and down. He was fine with it so I got on and rode him at a walk doing circles and patterns and then we were done.

The victory was that he got upset but I held it together and made good decisions instead of freezing up. That opens up opportunities for more progress!

A word on animal behavior and humans relationships with animals: (even though nobody will likely read this)

Every day in my work I find "pet parents" who anthropomorphize their animals. That is: give human attributes to animals. They allow their dogs to own chairs or even whole rooms by biting the humans to establish territory. This gentleman who was so nice to offer me advise claiming that his horse and mine "play games" with us is attributing to the horse, the human attributes of being false and having the capacity for subterfuge. While I believe that horses can learn to offer specific behaviors to make people go away, they don't plot our demise over breakfast. Deal with the specific behavior offered but don't give your horse villainous attributes or you will feel negative emotions about your horse while you deal with them and likely act emotionally. Which is about as unfair to the animal as it gets.

Ok, So I'm a Control Freak.

My last lesson was awesome and so was the one the week before that. Two weeks ago I had a lesson riding bareback and at the walk. By the end of it, I felt solid and comfortable enough to trot. But! I didn't. I know enough to save that for another day and to learn to manage it a couple of strides at a time until I can feel comfortable expanding the time I can post the trot bareback.

Last week was forward seat work at the trot and over ground poles! I started out with my mind freezing up because I felt totally out of control in 2 point performing a crest release. OK I was totally not in control. Trickster in his wise way let me know that if I quit thinking and directing him that he was just going to find the rail and wait until I told him which way to go. Ok so that started my brain again. Well, I found that I started freezing up when he started rushing the poles (event horse gets happy when presented with an obstacle) and my instructor slapped me with a "why aren't you changing directions every lap?" "Uh, I did change once!" "Hey! that means my brain worked once!".

So what that really means to me is that a loss of control (or the feeling thereof) is a major trigger of fear for me. By the end of the lesson, I felt great! I felt better about allowing him to do his job and staying out of the way and that it is still a part of the dialogue between horse and rider and not a drop in communication (rendering me powerless and held hostage).

I have to say that my instructor is amazing about pushing me, but not losing her mind if I just can't do it. She softens and asks again. Likely the best way to work with a horse as well. She doesn't give up on me as long as I'm giving it all I've got too. That is saying something because I'm not the kind of student who is ever going to make her famous. I try my guts out every lesson. I want to ride well/competantly and with as little fear as necessary more than I've ever wanted anything in my life but at my age I'll never be Grand Prix material. Yet, it seems like she's as committed to my goals as I am and even if it's a fairly long road.

I know there aren't alot of instructors with the time of day for approaching middle aged (read "old") chicken pony riders but the ones that will invest their time in us are worth their weight in gold.

Here are pictures of my ponies doing silly useless things: The first is Shazaam. I know he doesn't tuck his legs enough to have any decent form jumping. This was about obedience and just a little something different to do. The second picture is Phantom bowing. The guy is my trainer, Rick Bates.