I guess I’m the type of person who can burn out easily, in that, I don’t like to hammer and hammer on a project or a challenge and never see any progress. I like to see the fruits of my labor at some point. I’d say I’m above average when it comes to patience, but I’m not a saint. I get frustrated.

Age helps mellow frustration a bit. I guess you have a greater understanding of the world and all of the things that go into every challenge you face. You are able to take a step back and give space to let the problems work out or to change your perspective on them.

I like to try to approach my challenges from every angle, and admittedly often try to find some kind of deeper meaning in it all that I can apply to my life. Maybe that’s hokey or sentimental, but that’s me and I’m nearing middle age, so I doubt that’s changing any time soon. Oh, welp.

As I’ve mentioned before, dressage is hard. First of all, you have to be strong enough to get your body to do what it’s supposed to do in order to effectively communicate with the horse. That takes some doing because you are using muscles atop a horse that you probably wouldn’t use in any other circumstance for that exact length of time. Contrary to popular belief, you don’t just sit on your butt, you use your butt and lower core to stabilize yourself in the saddle. You use your whole leg to varying degrees, and you need a strong upper core and back to keep your shoulders stable. And you have to do all of this while constantly in motion and doing different things. And you’re riding a beast who has a mind of their own.

As you strengthen and condition your own body, you have to learn and understand how to communicate with the horse to achieve different results. Part of this is technical know-how and part of this is feel. Meaning, you have to be able to know what’s going on with your horse’s body and not only physically feel but also intuit the degree to which you need to communicate with said horse. And every horse moves and feels and emotes differently, even though the movements are the same, generally.

Not only do you have to condition and learn and coordinate, but so does the horse. They need to strengthen their bodies to better be able to carry a rider and themselves and also to be able to execute more and more advanced movements. Just like with people, some horses take less time to get there and some take more time, depending on how they’re built, their history, etcetera.

Riding Kiss at the trot is like riding a serpent-like dragon who is also part kangaroo. She has a very powerful trot, a bend-y body, and often a fire-breathing aspect to her when she has anxiety. I always dread the first trot ask because she throws her head WAY up and looks for somewhere to flee to because she is off balance and she does not like that feeling at all. As we move along, I get her to bend a bit and keep her from falling in to one side of the circle and she starts to relax, bit by bit.

By the end of each ride, we get slightly more relaxation. On our last ride this week, we FINALLY got some really good moments where things were starting to come together. We did figure 8s, walk-trot transitions, and some straight line work. Each go around, her urge to rush lessened and her head started to drop. She was more focused and less spooky. I finally started to feel good about how she was progressing.

As for me, my coordination is coming back, but my position still needs a lot of work. I have to work on that so I can continue to improve Kiss’s balance. In the posting or rising trot, my leg loves to swing forward. I suspect this has to do with a combination of lower core stability and my own conformation, which includes having super long femurs that cause me to need more bend in my leg than someone with shorter femurs, but if those knees creep upward, you can end up in chair seat, which you don’t want. I also have adopted this gross habit over the years of leaning forward – I think it’s an anxiety thing of wanting to stay with the movement and also worrying about my old body falling off. I never used to be super tippy, but somewhere along the way, that became a thing.

Hopefully I’ll have some time over the weekend to ride one of Bevin’s quieter mounts and practice some no stirrups riding as well as do some balance work. Now that Kiss is getting better, it’s really time for me to step up my own game! I’ll keep you all posted (ha, get it?) on my progress.