Ahhh the most exciting phase of the day: Cross country.
If I had to pick the weakest phase of the day with the most struggle, it was here. It was a bit frustrating, especially since my other Start trials she was so lovely in this phase. I guess it was to be expected after our XC schooling. It was slightly better then our last cross country school since we didnt have any head between the knees galloping, but we did have some protesting and attempts at it. So I used the round as a schooling round and did circle her twice or brought her down to a trot.
The positives I can take out of this phase was:
We could actually warm up, where as other events we couldnt even do that with how worked up she was.
My lower leg is MUCH improved.
We didnt have any head between the knees galloping...just uphill unintentional galloping.
Better jumping form!
I am not sure if it was the right thing to do, but I wanted to teach the mare that we can jump the fun big things, but you need to half halt WHEN I say half halt. Not when you feel like it. So lets run through the wonderfully colorful of photos I have of all the good moments. Ill post some of our fails soon:
Love this photo!
I had to hold her a bit here with home and trailers straight ahead...
Tillie looks totally innocent here...but inside I can feel her coiled ready to spring
Tillie and I had one more lesson going into this weekend. I left this one feeling satisfied and still in good spirits! Which right now, feeling accomplished and good after a ride is the ultimate goal.
Luckily for me, Tillie has been on point and allowing me to concentrate more on me. She has been far surpassing my expectations and all of my trainers lately it seems!
Tillie says this is easy!
So this Friday we did a gymnastics lesson that Tillie totally ate up while we focused more on my form. I really struggle with dropping her at the last second and something with my body over the last fence that instantly makes Tillie go wild.
I still see stiffness in my shoulders and butt not back enough which indicates a weak core.
So we worked on me staying taller and hands staying off her neck to get out of that safety blanket. I am still hunching/collapsing in my core...so I having a hard time finding the balance between staying taller in my body and folding at the hip as well as not sitting too soon for landing.
I guess it doesnt look too bad...lol but I have faith we will keep improving.
Some videos from the end:
Yesterday our farm hosted a fun Combined training show and I decided afterwards to sneak in a ride. I jumped around the Novice course and was just smiling like a big kid...Miss Tillie jumped everything no questions, slices, bending lines...whatever I threw at her. She ate it up and it feel easy and fun. WOOOO!!! there was a time jumping her was slightly nightmarish...heavy on the marish. So just getting on a schooling like it was no big was refreshing and again a huge help to keeping my confidence on track.
I constantly am seeking ways to make Tillie happier and working more correctly without me getting in her way. So I am on a mission to work on my form and iron out those demons that cause the right side of my body to have a mind of its own and generally just drive me bonkers. It is so beyond frustrating to know what you need to do with your body and not be able to actually make your body do it.
So lately my confidence in my riding has become really fragile where I feel like I need instruction all the time. It has gotten to a point where I almost do not want to ride unsupervised. Even if I just have eyes on the ground to yell at me for a tense lower back, posting too far back in my saddle...etc. I can list things I do wrong all day long. More importantly, it's nice to have those eyes on the ground to point out when the wrong things get fixed...because sometimes it initially still feels soooo wrong.
So I had to put my training cap away for a ride and subject Tillie to my antics...Luckily she was tolerable of it. Shockingly so! She even seem to respond really well to some of the different things I was trying with my body.
The videos are blurry, so I realize make it a bit difficult to see the nuances of me shifting and playing with my body. But I figured I would share anyway. It was really interesting how changing some things in my form really changed the functionality of other things and Tillie's response. Well DUH right?! Who woulda thought...
I believe this was towards the end of the ride...I am working on not collapsing the right side of my body. This results in a tense (water-skiing effect) leg and tense shoulder which leads to tense hands.Which of course will create a horse that braces or simply can't give and be as fully supple as they can be.
This video I am trying to tuck my bottom under me more to eliminate the tension in my lower back since I have the tendency to sit/post with my back arched out and perched. I can see now in this I am still sitting too far back in my saddle and at the canter not giving with my hands like I should.
More canter work here...I can see now my upper body needs to still more but my hands need to give more. In the moment I was focusing more on evening out my hands and trying not to let my left hand drop.
More of the same here with the lower back as the focus and trying to use my seat to encourage the bigger step from Tillie without speed.
Again working on my lower back and sitting taller...If you listen you can hear me say how weird it feels. It seriously felt like I was bounding all over the place.
Working on not collapsing in the downward transition here and keeping Tillie connected while keeping the bigger step.
My lower back tension is creeping back in here since I am concentrating on my collapsing issue to the right. Its really challenging to think of all this at once!
Last video, still working on the collapsing right issue. Clearly I was running out of steam at this point.
I am so grateful I have friends willing to video and softly scold to remind me when things are going awry. At least this eye ulcer has given me a challenge to work on this stuff over jumping which is a whole different beast!
