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Post by Maritza on Jun 4, 2017 1:20:58 GMT
My lessons are currently going amazing. My current trainer is currently focusing on getting my jump position to be automatic. But also how to ride the horse stride for stride and to adjust the stride so that I have proper impulsion (and not speed) to go over the jumps.
After my lesson this week I couldn't help but think about how Horseguy taught me how to not think while horseback riding. I step that I needed to learn. I would get to caught up in thinking that I would sabotage my own riding. Now my current trainer is teaching me how to think while riding(adjusting the stride along my ride and in between jumps is primarily what we have been working on) My last lesson she had me do a jumping lane (it had a bounce to a one stride) because the lesson horse I ride has lost weight and gotten fitter this spring/summer. As a result of him being fitter, it is a different ride than what I experienced with him during the winter. My confidence as a rider has also gone up. When I first started my lessons in Colorado I would get nervous and slightly tense whenever my trainer raised jumps a tiny bit or if she had me go over anything that wasn't a crossrail. But I have to come to trust my horse and I know that so long as I do my job in setting him up for the jump then he will go over it (also my jumping position becoming second nature again does help)
I have also finally gotten back to being able to get the horse to land on the correct lead after I jump. A skill I lost soon after HorseGuy retired because I was no longer jumping consistently.
What is everyone else working on in their riding?
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Post by horseguy on Jun 4, 2017 15:13:19 GMT
My lessons are currently going amazing. My current trainer is currently focusing on getting my jump position to be automatic. But also how to ride the horse stride for stride and to adjust the stride so that I have proper impulsion (and not speed) to go over the jumps. After my lesson this week I couldn't help but think about how Horseguy taught me how to not think while horseback riding. I step that I needed to learn. I would get to caught up in thinking that I would sabotage my own riding. Now my current trainer is teaching me how to think while riding(adjusting the stride along my ride and in between jumps is primarily what we have been working on) My last lesson she had me do a jumping lane (it had a bounce to a one stride) because the lesson horse I ride has lost weight and gotten fitter this spring/summer. As a result of him being fitter, it is a different ride than what I experienced with him during the winter. My confidence as a rider has also gone up. When I first started my lessons in Colorado I would get nervous and slightly tense whenever my trainer raised jumps a tiny bit or if she had me go over anything that wasn't a crossrail. But I have to come to trust my horse and I know that so long as I do my job in setting him up for the jump then he will go over it (also my jumping position becoming second nature again does help) I have also finally gotten back to being able to get the horse to land on the correct lead after I jump. A skill I lost soon after HorseGuy retired because I was no longer jumping consistently. What is everyone else working on in their riding?
Maritza, I am happy you are where you are in your riding. You raise a very interesting point about thinking when you are riding. In the beginning, few riders are capable of, or have sufficient understanding of unity with their horse to think effectively about their riding in terms of what is actually happening and how they can effect what will happen with their horse. Mr. Gratwick, my teacher, defined four levels of rider, beginner (passenger), intermediate (can direct a horse), master (can get everything out of a horse God put into him) and expert (can get more out of a horse than is in him). It isn't until a rider begins to enter mastery that they can start to think in a useful and effective way when riding. Before this point their thinking is mostly reactive or they are fantasizing in their thinking when riding, both are pretty much useless.
Now you can think, not so much about you the person riding but about "you" the unified being of horse and rider. Before this point, all instruction has to be focused on achieving unity, which is primarily physical, or as you say "automatic". Example: jumping lanes or grids. We start students on grid lines very early in order to build unity and we tell them to leave the horse alone in the grid, no interference. This has many benefits. It supports the "Let the horse move you" principle. It builds trust between horse and rider, a key element of unity, and it provides repetition, which helps the riders stop thinking in useless ways.
But eventually the day comes when a rider enters mastery and is permitted to have an effect on the horse in a grid line. This means the rider can consciously interfere with the horse's choices, natural rhythm, corrections, whatever in the jumping lane. It is this permission to interfere that teaches the rider that mastery is the level where their conscious interference can produce benefit to the unified horse & rider, or it can cause problems, even the destruction of unity itself. This is the great responsibility of mastery.
You made it to this point, congratulations.
Regarding what I am working on in my riding is not leaping off my horse to strangle the barn owner.  |
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Post by Jlynn on Jun 6, 2017 14:42:48 GMT
I am working on my body. Over the past few years I have become lazy - riding only on and off and didn't ride at all over the winter. Now, I started to ride regularly again and I find I am stiff. Not just a little stiff afterward, but can't properly sit on the horse stiff. My quads are too tight to allow my leg to drop.... I could go on but basically my horses can't move because I can't move - so I am doing a lot of off horse stretching in addition to just riding down the road at a walk to limber up my back and hips. Getting old sucks!
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Post by grayhorse on Jun 7, 2017 4:30:49 GMT
Maritza, so happy to hear things are going well for you!! JLynn, nice to hear from you as well and Im glad you are riding, keep sharing. HG, don't kill anyone LOL. Me, I'm still working on my jumping confidence. The lesson horse(s) I've been riding have been great I am back up to jumping 2'6" including oxers and up to 2'9" verticals which is a big deal for my damaged jumping psyche/confidence (riding a trustworthy trained mount has made a world of difference for me in such a short time).....UNTIL that is, last week my jump trainer changed his summer work hours and now I am not sure if my lessons will continue regularly or not....such a bummer I felt a weekly lesson was really helping me make progress. On the flat, I have not been able to coerce my dressage trainer to come out give me a lesson in over 2 months on my own horse (my mustang AKA The Little Monster) ...I am the only client she will still give lessons to and that is starting to become less and less (her life focus is elsewhere now). So even at home my "eyes on the ground" which have always helped me learn and grow and keep me in check as a rider are well...not around lately. So, my future is a little uncertain as far as lessons and training go. It leaves me sort of wondering ok Carrie what are you doing with your self and your horse? For the first time ever I am unsure...I'm not showing, not doing drill team, not working on my skills via lessons...soooo what am I doing with my horse  ? That is the question I am having right now. I also got news last week that the barn I board at is up for sale. Been there 5 years now and love it. Anyone got $4.8 million bucks I could borrow? Carrie |
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Post by Laura on Jun 12, 2017 18:01:08 GMT
That's great to hear Maritza. I am currently working on enhancing my eye and getting a horse to jump square rather than striding over a jump. Consequently, I've also begun jumping a good bit higher than I am used to, but "big" doesn't look as big as it used to, and I'm really enjoying jumping higher. I am finding that I can start to feel where the horse's feet are and when they move and jump well. After riding today, I was even able to adjust and lengthen the horse's stride into the jump without the horse getting strung out and striding over. This was something I hadn't really gotten the hang of yet. It's a wonderful feeling to accomplish a riding goal, weather its a milestone you've been stuck on for months or a small improvement between two lessons. I am excited to progress in my jumping and riding skills.
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Post by horseguy on Jun 13, 2017 15:08:11 GMT
Carrie, I understand. I am older and do not ride as much as I once did, several horses every day. I think it requires some acceptance and some pushing yourself.
What Laura and Maritza describe in a structured path to effective horsemanship. The steps on this path are not obscure, they were established at Fort Riley a hundred years ago. Morris and other commercial interests diverted riders off this path with short cuts and low standards toward their personal goal of making money. Our last hope is maybe the US Equestrian Federation. David O'Connor as the first president did nothing to get American riding and horsemanship back on that path. The current President on the USEF is a Hunter/Jumper. I am not hopeful, but perhaps if we slip further down the international rankings the problems will be recognized.
If not, riders who have found high traditional standards will be the last hope. My only advice is try not to get frustrated. I have failed at this.
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? That is the question I am having right now. 