Absolutely wonderful weekend
Dec. 19th, 2005 08:53 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
joflasherFirst off, Saturday's riding lesson was amazing. As in "this justifies why I pay out huge amounts of money for an fuzzy hay processor" amazing.
We worked on canter patterns, which on its own is a pretty big step. Normally we just work on cantering a 20 meter circle without falling apart. In her good direction, all Tisa needs now is a slight weight shift to the inside and the outside leg going back about an inch. The good side's transition is nice and smooth and she just steps right up into it. On the bad side, its a bit more complicated. HUGE step to the inside, inside leg on, inside hand up, outside hand supporting, outside leg way back and on and it all has to happen at a particular moment in her trot ... and me, being me, can only do about two of those thing correctly at any given time. We had a couple false starts on the back legs ... if I don't get enough weight on the inside, she picks up different leads in the different ends. And of course, Tisa's bad direction has my weak knee being the inside leg. My normal inclination is to protect that knee from any extra stress, so I actively have to think about it to get myself to step in. She knows its wrong when she gets the incorrect back lead. She stops herself and drops back into the trot to try again. She also get REALLY frustrated if she does it more than once or twice in a row. On the lunge line, she'll eventually just blast out a hell of a buck that seems to majically put her in the right lead in both ends. She decided to do that under saddle. I sat through it and managing to keep the inside leg on to hold her through the first turn. Marty was impressed. I may not be a good rider but I'm still a decent burr. Eventually, we were able to do the patterns in both directions without any major mistakes, although some of the upwards transitions were jarring. Only the one buck, though.
About halfway through the lesson, Tisa suddenly decided to round out when coming out of the canters. Its an amazing feeling to suddenly have your horse pull its back up underneath you and start pushing off with the rump. Its the horse equivalent of an overdrive system. Its a huge amount of push coming up from behind you. She can only do it a few steps at a time ... short side of the arena is about it. Still, we're getting there and we look AMAZING doing it, if I do say so myself (arena has lots of mirrors everywhere). Marty was on me pretty heavy about keeping my lower legs against her and "pulling" her up into me but I don't think my legs are quite strong enough yet. Need more stamina. I could really only do it the short sides of the arena as well.
We also worked on my hands a bit. According to Marty, Tisa is no longer a greenie and no longer needs those big "opening the door" type turn signals on the corners. So now we're working on invisible signals from the hands. I'm still allowed noticible signals on the legs for cantering but she also started yelling at me if she could see me ask for the trot.
Between the canter work and all the little things, it was just an amazing ride. Of course, later, Tisa repaid me by drooling half a gallon of water down my front. She was drinking, I was putting her blanket back on and she decided to nuzzle my chest ... with a mouth full of water...which she then let go in order to chew on my coat zipper. Utterly soaked me. At least it was relatively warm out ... only in the 20s instead of in the single digits.
We also put up a Christmas tree on Saturday. So far, we've only found three ornaments knocked off and carried around the house. The Boy says that I picked out the tree skirt that was most likely to be destroyed by the cats. Here I thought I was picking out the least gaudy of them. Its very plain, offwhite with tiny little gold threads here and there, and some rickrack stuff along the edge. The rickrack stuff has tassles every few inches, though. So far, they've only pulled off one tassle. The ferrets are UTTERLY thrilled with the tree skirt ... something to tunnel through and there's WATER hidden under there. I'm going to have to be careful, lest the thing mold due to all the dampness. Silly critters think the tree stand is a ferret sized swimming pool.
I spent most of Sunday cleaning the house, cleaning the fish tank, and wrapping presents. I need to find some nice big boxes to mail out the gifts for the horde. I've got my parent's stuff ready to go and one set of nieces/nephews. Can't get the rest sent out until I find proper boxes. Ever so slowly, we are getting ready for Christmas.
We worked on canter patterns, which on its own is a pretty big step. Normally we just work on cantering a 20 meter circle without falling apart. In her good direction, all Tisa needs now is a slight weight shift to the inside and the outside leg going back about an inch. The good side's transition is nice and smooth and she just steps right up into it. On the bad side, its a bit more complicated. HUGE step to the inside, inside leg on, inside hand up, outside hand supporting, outside leg way back and on and it all has to happen at a particular moment in her trot ... and me, being me, can only do about two of those thing correctly at any given time. We had a couple false starts on the back legs ... if I don't get enough weight on the inside, she picks up different leads in the different ends. And of course, Tisa's bad direction has my weak knee being the inside leg. My normal inclination is to protect that knee from any extra stress, so I actively have to think about it to get myself to step in. She knows its wrong when she gets the incorrect back lead. She stops herself and drops back into the trot to try again. She also get REALLY frustrated if she does it more than once or twice in a row. On the lunge line, she'll eventually just blast out a hell of a buck that seems to majically put her in the right lead in both ends. She decided to do that under saddle. I sat through it and managing to keep the inside leg on to hold her through the first turn. Marty was impressed. I may not be a good rider but I'm still a decent burr. Eventually, we were able to do the patterns in both directions without any major mistakes, although some of the upwards transitions were jarring. Only the one buck, though.
About halfway through the lesson, Tisa suddenly decided to round out when coming out of the canters. Its an amazing feeling to suddenly have your horse pull its back up underneath you and start pushing off with the rump. Its the horse equivalent of an overdrive system. Its a huge amount of push coming up from behind you. She can only do it a few steps at a time ... short side of the arena is about it. Still, we're getting there and we look AMAZING doing it, if I do say so myself (arena has lots of mirrors everywhere). Marty was on me pretty heavy about keeping my lower legs against her and "pulling" her up into me but I don't think my legs are quite strong enough yet. Need more stamina. I could really only do it the short sides of the arena as well.
We also worked on my hands a bit. According to Marty, Tisa is no longer a greenie and no longer needs those big "opening the door" type turn signals on the corners. So now we're working on invisible signals from the hands. I'm still allowed noticible signals on the legs for cantering but she also started yelling at me if she could see me ask for the trot.
Between the canter work and all the little things, it was just an amazing ride. Of course, later, Tisa repaid me by drooling half a gallon of water down my front. She was drinking, I was putting her blanket back on and she decided to nuzzle my chest ... with a mouth full of water...which she then let go in order to chew on my coat zipper. Utterly soaked me. At least it was relatively warm out ... only in the 20s instead of in the single digits.
We also put up a Christmas tree on Saturday. So far, we've only found three ornaments knocked off and carried around the house. The Boy says that I picked out the tree skirt that was most likely to be destroyed by the cats. Here I thought I was picking out the least gaudy of them. Its very plain, offwhite with tiny little gold threads here and there, and some rickrack stuff along the edge. The rickrack stuff has tassles every few inches, though. So far, they've only pulled off one tassle. The ferrets are UTTERLY thrilled with the tree skirt ... something to tunnel through and there's WATER hidden under there. I'm going to have to be careful, lest the thing mold due to all the dampness. Silly critters think the tree stand is a ferret sized swimming pool.
I spent most of Sunday cleaning the house, cleaning the fish tank, and wrapping presents. I need to find some nice big boxes to mail out the gifts for the horde. I've got my parent's stuff ready to go and one set of nieces/nephews. Can't get the rest sent out until I find proper boxes. Ever so slowly, we are getting ready for Christmas.
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Date: 2005-12-19 03:27 pm (UTC)What a fantastic description. I'm still giggling.
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Date: 2005-12-19 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-19 09:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2005-12-20 02:04 pm (UTC)