My friend and the owner of the stable where I board Kiss, Bevin, is a great student of life. She is always learning, seeking knowledge, looking to improve. Along with her groundwork and Straightness Training lessons from our mutual trainer, Deanna, she also started taking Dressage riding lessons to work on her equitation. And, of course, she convinced me to join her when I was able to.

When I learned to ride, I was never destined for the show ring. Maybe that, in addition to different riding style preferences thirty years ago, left me with more of a functional seat and hands than anything else. I learned to be acutely tuned into the horse, but my turned-out toes and straight elbows, as well as minor imbalances probably didn’t help me be as effective of a rider as I could have been. I stayed on quite well and was extremely giving to the horse’s mouth, but that was about it.

It’s been winter, so riding hasn’t been terribly consistent, nor have lessons. I have only had a single lesson with Jamie, the trainer, other than today. Kiss struggles with balance, nervousness at times, and she needs reassurance and lots and lots of half halts.

Today, we did tons of half halting. My 40-something body did lots of half halting. Half halting is basically what it sounds like, in that you’re not stopping the horse completely, you’re really just trying to rebalance their energy from the front of their body to the back, and as a result, creating a slower tempo. If you think about when you’re off balance and you trip forward, the energy you use in catching yourself is kind of what that’s like.

Half halting properly in Dressage is really about using your body more than your reins. If you just use your reins, all that’s going to do is pull the horse’s head in. It’s not going to stop the forward momentum much. To do it properly, it’s basically using your whole body to slow things down. Basically, you’re bracing against your stirrups, stretching your body tall from top to bottom, closing your thighs in on the saddle, and bracing your core, thinking, “Slowwww!” It’s easy enough to do at the walk, but when you have a nervous, rushy dragon horse, it takes a lot of doing.

On top of the challenges of having an older body with poor equitation and a rushy horse, Kiss was also deciding at times to throw a fit by tossing her head in the air and getting light in front. My immediate instinct was to pull my hands down so as to keep her from coming up, but the right move was to keep my hands up, elbows bent and supple, which was counter-intuitive and terrifying. I won’t lie, if my horse had done this while I was alone, I would have wienered out and walked the rest of the ride and that would have been that. Jamie didn’t let me wiener out of this. There was some head tossing, fussing, dragging, but eventually we slowed our tempo, Kiss let go of the nervousness, and started to settle.

We actually ended up with a decent trot near the end!

And I will end up with a steady regimen of Ibuprofen over the next couple of days.

But we’re doing it and I’m happy I’m having little victories occurring along this journey. It’s a good life, this life.