Wednesday, April 18, 2012

Working thru my frustration

First off, thank you to those who commented on my last post and offered wonderful advice.  I appreciate all my followers and never dreamed when I started this blog all the help I would receive.  I read other blogs more than I post because I always take something away from all of you.  And comments are always welcome!

So, since last week, I have still been struggling.  I spoke with my daughter and her advice was to go back to halts and walks - the place I could get and keep contact.  I spent last Thursday's ride time just working on that - in the indoor (blah!), just the Diva and I.  And to says she was pissed would be an understatement.  There were some pretty loud kicks to the wall where I remained calm and just kept at it. 

Riva got Friday and Saturday off - we all went to Equine Affair in Ohio - will post about that later.  But much fun and shopping was the result :)

Sunday, Lex came and rode Riva for me.  She wanted to get a ride in before the show in Edinburgh this Saturday.  Shewanted to work on canter circles, since she will be riding Riva in Training Level Test 1 on Saturday.  Lex figured out she can get a decent transition to canter and canter stride by riding in a half seat.  Contact at canter will have to come later.  Lex had me get on for a short ride and she helped me with contact at walk and trot, and it went fairly well.  I understand what Lex is telling me, and I know the feeling I am try to achieve.  I kinda figured out that when I get that feeling, I try to keep it by holding...and it does not work.  Why does this have to be so hard? 

On to Monday...where I once again had a mini break down.  I was riding inside since we had a lot of rain over the weekend and our outdoor arenas were saturated.  We warmed up great - nice swinging free walk and stretchy trot.  All goes well until I start to work with contact - hit a brick wall once again.

My trainer asked me how it went as I was getting ready to leave and I went in to my frustrations a bit.  Glad I did, because she is an awesome listener and seemed to get what I was not saying also.  Because what she said after I blabbed on and on was 'I think you are ready to work on canter in a lesson'.  What???  I thought what it that going to accomplish!  But when I thought about it later, I think she is suggesting what some of my commenters said to try...do something different, something fun, etc.  And that does make sense to me.

Lesson and Equine Affair to quickly follow!

2 comments:

Jessica said...

I know for me when something gets frusterating i need to take a week off of that and work at something different something fun that the horse i am riding enjoys so we can go back to the hard stuff later on with a clear fresh mind so it is much easier to be patient :)
It will come with time dont worry <3

Achieve1dream said...

I'm glad you talked to your trainer about it because she can explain things to you better than we can with written words.

When you said you get the right feeling and try to hold it that makes it sound like you're freezing up. Sort of like when things are perfect you want to freeze them so they last forever, but as you know with horses you can't do that. So something that may help (just making an off the wall suggestion, you don't have to try it lol) is focus on your breathing for a whole ride and not so much on what she's doing. Or focus on getting energy into her stride (totally ignoring contact, since contact comes from behind anyway) or on keeping her very straight or practice different patterns. It sounds like you're focusing in way too much on contact instead of looking at the big picture, so focusing on something entirely different (like the canter as your trainer suggested) might be what it takes to help you relax. Especially focus on your breathing since you're feeling stressed and frustrated. Hang in there girl, this is just a normal training roadblock. :D