Happy.

"All I know is that I know nothing"- Socrates

Andy go to bed! I know, I really want to. I'm just a little disturbed by scampering feet on hardwood floors. We have a mice problem in our cabin. They can crawl up the brick wall by our fireplace. It's beyond disturbing. 

Everything is white and blue and gray- where have all the colors gone? More snow, more cold, more ice. More work and less sleep. I really shouldn't be enjoying it. I've started cleaning Caruso's stall before and after work. It's nice spending time with him and just talking. I'm glad we're friends. He is so funny. Always picking up the pitch fork in his mouth and always pushing the wheel barrow out the door. What am I going to do with him?

I think I've realized what I love most about this whole experience is that me and Caruso have absolutely no agendas. We have all the time in the world to learn. We don't need to worry about showing or getting high scores or all the stress that comes with it. We can work at our own pace. By no means are we taking this for granted either. We are here to learn, to work, to prove ourselves. I love it. I love it because there is no doubt in my mind that this is what I was made to do. I am going to do this. You better believe I am. It's hard because I know there is so much I have yet to discover, so much uncharted territory. There is so much uncertainty. But the certainty lies in knowing that I can someday. Someday I will. Dressage never ceases to surprise me with it's intricacies. The more and more I learn, the more and more I find there is to discover, and the more and more I fall in love with it. It's incredible. Sharing it with Caruso is all the more exhilarating. Horses have so much to teach us. They have so much wisdom and so much to say. I'm just so happy Caruso is so understanding and patient, and that he listens. 

I'm beginning to find that my greatest ally in riding is patience. Unbelievably so. If I can't do step 1 why skip to step 3? But I want to do step 3, real bad. The more and more Jochen has me work on the basics, the easier and easier the harder things get. If my horse cant bend,  why do a half pass? Bending, suppling, stretching, half halts- endlessly. Riding is all about connecting. We are by no means just sitting, lifeless, trying not to disturb our horse. We are bending, suppling, stretching, and connecting his hind legs under. Bending a horse is molding him around our legs and seat. Like a temperpedic mattress when we press our legs into him he must mold around them. By bending we become more and more connected to them until horse and rider are one. In a corner or a circle it only makes sense that we should feel our inside leg more, because they are bending around our leg. Our leg and seat is also a means of connecting the horses inside hind leg more under. "inside leg to outside rein" We must feel our outside rein so there is something to connect to. A really good exercise we've been doing is riding turn on the forehands, but less extreme, on the circle. Like leg yield or shoulder in, we must really feel their inside hind leg stepping under while also bending. Bending becomes less and less a pulling forceful motion in our hands and more and more an aid from our legs and seat and a slightly leading feeling in our hands. Suppling, to me, is the feeling that I could bend him easily to the left or right whenever I wanted to. It has the implication of a soft feeling, that results in the horse stretching over and using his back. By no mean is suppling headwagging our horses back and forth. Again, my hands do less and less and can lead and connect while still being soft. Stretching, whether in a long or short rein allows the horse to completely use its back, and has the feeling of rounding like a ball underneath and pushing up. I like to picture a horse that is flat and strung out as a horizontal oval, with his nose to far forward and his hind end too far out behind. The goal of the half halt is to bring that oval into a circle- that the neck become rounder and the hind end comes more under. Everything becomes closer together. If we ask for the half halt by strength in our hands and pulling him tight on the bit and pushing his hind end more under (like rollkur) we break the roundness in the neck almost like creating a corner somewhere.  After the bending is established, and my horse stretches by pushing up his back, my half halt has that feeling of asking him to wait so that the oval can become a circle. Sorry. I just confused everyone. I like this blog because it's really more of a way to collect my thoughts, like a training diary. I am nowhere near perfect. "All I know is that I know nothing."   

I hope the scampering goes away soon....I hope they don't learn to crawl in my bed.....that was not meant to be funny....I'm serious

Did I mention that I can't wait for spring?