Paddle to a Better Pirouette

When I met my fiance, I made no attempt at all to indoctrinate him into the world of horses. I asked him to go to at least one horse show to see what it is I do, and that was it. He thoroughly enjoyed it. Now, we are fairly compatible people in our interests, so it didn't surprise me that he "got" the gist of what it was about dressage that fascinated me. (He does now understand this is more of an obsession, but fascination was sufficient at the time) He asked to go to another show, and pretty soon he was leading horses around, cleaning stalls and brushing horses.

The front of my kayak while out on Lake Natomas

Meanwhile, I was biking out on the trails and on long road rides.  Then, he took me kayaking. I was instantly hooked. Now, this was on the equivalent of an old fat schoolmaster of sorts- read inflatable 30" wide VERY stable and slow craft.


He rides... well something along the lines of a temperamental FEI horse with a bit of a spook and buck. Its a Surfski Epic V12. It's absolutely as cool as it sounds.

17" wide 21' long, fast and wobbly!

But, he is still learning the craft like I am learning the FEI levels. I make mistakes and so does he. However, something happened in the process of paddling. I discovered once again that I have a rather interesting difficulty in turning my body left while looking straight ahead. Okay, I just have a plain old hard time turning left. At first I was paddling with my arms. This was comparable to riding with hands only. Robert showed me how to paddling from my torso. In theory it is great. In practice, I am a mess. I can hardly do it without my head also turning. Boy, oh boy there is very little independence in my body. Funny thing is, that in canter pirouettes left, I find it extremely difficult to keep my shoulders parallel to the horses. I tend to want to sit with my shoulders turned away from the direction we are going.

Last week I spent over an hour out on Folsom Lake paddling slowly and mindfully keeping my eyes focused ahead while talking my body through a rhythmic repeat of the motion. By the end of the hour of little travel I was sore. Interestingly, the next morning I felt loose as a goose. The next day I rode with my torso connected to my legs leaving my arms to do a different job. Both horses gave me significantly better pirouettes.

Robert on the other hand experienced something totally different. You see, about a month ago he said, "Can you teach me to ride?" After some discussion about what was involved we took a trip to the tack store, got him boots and helmet then introduced him to Destino. Five lessons later and he's sitting the trot riding around the ring. He learned how to use his core to pull his seat into the saddle and let the motion of the horse move his hips.  While I was learning to use my torso to paddle, he glides on over to show me how he figured a way to get "deeper" in the seat of his kayak using the same muscles he did when riding.

I shouldn't be amazed anymore, but I still am that there is a fundamental posture or body use that gives us balance and control in just about every activity. In martial arts, the basic pose is the same as the classical seat. Balance in a kayak uses the same core muscles and similar biomechanics.  We just can't escape being human and learning to balance ourselves not by forceful control with our arms, but inward focus and stability of our core.

Moral of the story- spend time off the horse, doing other activities that require balance and control to better develop those skills.  Your horse will thank you.

Dressage Clinic: Activate the Haunches

The horse's engine is in his haunches. When we activate the haunches, or get the hind legs to step more quickly the horse will lift the hind legs from the ground before the limb fully extends behind them. This keeps a bit of flexion in the hind leg joints and helps the horse to keep the hind legs up under his center of mass, or more engaged.

In dressage, where are primary aim is to achieve greater degrees of collection, this is a fundamental element that we must remember. Often dressage riders try to collect the horse by shortening the horse from the front with shorter reins and a lot of pulling. Believe me, I've tried it before and it doesn' t work! Instead, the rider should think about how quickly the hind legs cycle underneath and how far they reach under the body of the horse.

To begin to teach your horse to activate the haunches, begin with some walk to trot transitions in the dressage arena. On a 20 meter circle over X ride transitions to the walk at B and E. Allow only three strides to accomplish the transition. Focus on feeling that the horse goes forward into the restraining aids as they come down to walk. Feel that the horse stays uphill in front and "sits" down behind. When proceeding back to trot about 5 strides later, insist on a prompt reaction from the leg. If you need help in getting the horse to move off the leg better, try the dressage clinic exercise in this article. Training Your Horse to Go Forward

When you begin to feel that the horse is anticipating the transition, ride almost to the walk and then immediately depart in a prompt trot. Be careful not to allow the frame to elongate or the rhythm to change. In this way, the horse will take a couple of quicker and more elevated steps with the hind legs. Be sure to establish this control in both directions.

Once the horse is understanding this sequence to activate the haunches, use it as you go into a corner, riding almost walk or walk again if the horse begins to ignore the restraining aids, and then continue on in the activated trot. Also ride for the same feeling in shoulder-in down the rail. Later, the same exercise can be done with walk to canter transitions to activate the haunches in the canter.

Through carefully ridden transitions, the rider can train her horse daily to become more responsive to the aids. Every day we ride the horse even if it is out on the trail, is a dressage clinic or a dressage lesson. There are hundreds of opportunities to establish good basics including the ability to adjust the stride of the horse making the steps not only longer as in extensions, but shorter and quicker for collection.

Another student with a Tevis buckle

Once again, I made the trek up to Foresthill to watch the rider on this years running of the Western States 100 Mile Endurance Ride, also known as the Tevis Cup.  In my neck of the woods, endurance is huge.  Since I am willing to work with a variety of breeds and non-competitive dressage riders, many endurance riders come to me for help on their seat and suppling their horses to the aids.  We follow basic dressage principles and over time, they all get a big difference in how their horses move and carry the rider. The riders themselves also find they are more comfortable in the saddle through improved posture- not to mention more secure! 

I'm always in awe of the feat of accomplishment that it is to complete such a grueling ride AND preserve the horse. Sometimes I get the itch to try it myself although that did not happen for me this year. However, I was as thrilled as ever to watch one of my student's come up Bath Rd. to the second of two one-hour holds on course. There at mile 68 just after 8pm, he led his gray horse up to the water troughs and his crew. The horse barely in a sweat from the long climb out of the canyons had a bright happy eye. 

I didn't stay up all night, but he finished at 4:45am to earn a Tevis buckle. After a few weeks of rest we'll be back to riding school figures, leg-yields and transitions.  In the meantime, his younger horse is in the barn learning the basics of good balance, impulsion generated from the hindquarters and how to do it all with a relaxed happy demeanor. 

From my endurance friends I've learned a few things that have come in handy with my dressage horses:

* Soaked beet pulp is a wonderful thing. This water soluble fiber retains a lot of water when soaked. Mixed with a few alfalfa pellets for good taste, I feed it daily. When we travel to shows or on a long haul to southern California the horses get this mush on a rest stop and when they arrive at the show. They love this slop. I love that I can get 5quarts of water in them between two feedings of it.

* Long Slow Distance- or LSD work is the basis of all conditioning. We are always worried about impact on the dressage horses. A few long walks a week does wonders for keeping the horses fit without pounding them in the ground. Add in a few low grade slopes and its even better.

* Footing can be too soft and too cushy. These horses go on hard and I mean hard ground for sometimes thousands of miles through their careers at a big trot. 'Nuff said. A little bit of work on firm ground makes for denser bones.

* Know your horse's normal pulse and respiration for rest and work. Endurance riders can rattle off the numbers of their horses. They know what is normal for rest, light work, and heavy work. They use these numbers to guage fitness as well as when the horse is at risk of becoming fatigued- a state when soft tissue injuries are more likely to occur.

Meanwhile, Back on Earth

The rest of my horses didn't get the memo about my upgraded status to FEI rider. It seems that from Sunday to Monday they remained essentially horses. Not that I expected anything different, but horses do have a way of keeping things real.  There were water troughs to clean out because a certain Friesian cross named Breanna thought standing with her front legs in the water was good summer pasture fun.  Augie destroyed yet another fly mask leaving his eyes exposed to sun and bugs for hours at a time necessitating my tending to them with a cool rag.

Philipe and I set to work on the homework from our clinic last week with Rachel Saavedra which somehow feels a long time ago. Video review was in order to affirm my bearings. Our greatest accomplishment in the clinic with trot work was finding a much better swing through his middle. For anyone who has ridden Spanish horses knows, they can move the front and pedal fast behind, but the back can do absolutely nothing the entire time.  Steep, and I mean steep leg-yields were in order.  Now we are riding with transitions and also on a circle with transitions from collected to medium to high collection all the while focusing on what the middle is doing, that he stays in FRONT of my leg, and I continue to let him pull me through the reins. 

For a few moments during the clinic we took this into lateral work down the rail. I was to then think of sitting him down behind with my elbows. WOW! I had felt this before, but only through stumbling upon it. Her phrasing gave it a distinct repeatable command. Now, we have a trot.

In the canter it was much the same idea with some new concepts on my seat. As a former jumping rider, I like to get in that pseudo half-seat/rear end out behind me mode.  Again, Rachel gave me some great ways to think about what I was doing and help me put words to what I want to do. I've been able to repeat it. Our other task was in regards to thinking about our pirouette canter and for me the ability to get the hind legs quicker which I also need for the tempis.

The task was to learn to ride 10m circles in highly collected counter canter.  Can we say challenging? Oh, but what fun. The only way I can verbalize the feeling right now is to say I felt my horse "full" in all my aids- equally full. By that I mean taking each rein with suppleness, puffed up under my seat and surging equally off of both legs directly centered between them. I felt that for about 3 strides at a time here and there, but I have something to aim for. Stabbing in the dark is a horrible feeling.

Its a busy day with lessons tomorrow. Tevis is on Saturday. We'll be cheering on Langdon and his horse Kid. I'm sure I'll get a bit of Endurance fever again. Maybe someday....

My First Prix St. George

Michelle Dodge Photographer

Admittedly, I felt as if I signed up for this test before my horse was thoroughly confirmed in the most difficult part of the test, the tempi changes. Ernst Agust, my 12yr Hanoverian gelding has had to suffer with me learning to train and ride changes a bit differently than I ever had before. It has taken chiropractic and Pilates to work through an issue in my left sacro-iliac joint that leaves me with a left leg entirely apart from the rest of my body.  Patient and often persistent trainers have given me immeasurable help- thank you Krisi Harrison, Tracey Hill and Rachel Saavedra!! (A special thanks to Laura Beeman for letting me use her coat since mine hasn't arrived yet)

However, I was always steadfastly against using an already trained horse to earn the status of FEI rider. I am more concerned with being a trainer and a rider rather than a rider alone. It took eight years to train my own horse to the level of FEI. There were a lot of road bumps that I never expected. Every time the goal seemed to be pulled further out of reach, I had to reflect again. Why did I want this? What does it take? Am I willing to do that? How important is this to me? Am I willing to make the sacrifices? When it came down to it, I was content to never reach the goal if it meant several things:

1. My horse would be happy in his job.
2. My horse would be a partner not a tool.
3. I didn't care about the score
4. I didn't care about the placing (I'm the anti-show rider in that I never care how I place! LOL)
5. At the end of the day I got more joy out of the process than the product.

In June, I knew these pieces were there. My horse most days happily and fantastically performed all the elements of the test. The tempis were our weak link, yet he had the rhythm, and the willingness along with the generosity to give them when I got my aids correct. I sent in the entry. I was bugged that we lost our harmony in the changes the week before the ride, but I went back to what we knew on the days leading up to the test while incorporating the new instructions from our lessons in a way that works for he and I with no agenda in my head about when or if it would come together.

Other than doing justice to my horse and the support of my family who has seen me through the years of sweat, tears, early mornings, late nights, and hours upon hours at the barn, I wasn't nervous at all when I mounted my horse.  Our warm-up was simple, following my plan to work first in canter before we got too hot and sweaty then take the suppleness into a small amount of trot work just prior to going in. The trotwork is our shining star, so I do the minimum amount of it in my warm-ups.  There was some confusion when we entered the ring with a training level rider being told to enter prior to me by the ring steward who had only five minutes before told me to go in after the horse that was then exiting. It took a few minutes to sort things out, which gave Ernie a chance to dose off into a nap.  If he was one thing for the ride it was relaxed.

My biggest mistake is one I have made before. I didn't "fluff" my horse up enough. As a rider who likes to have everything feel very graceful, I tend to ride without enough power and punctuality.  Thus, my horse was late or just a tad off on the synchronicity in a few of the changes.  One would think I would have given my biggest effort to the movements that need the most support, but we had a flow I liked and kept. The rhythm of the ride never faltered.  That particular aspect felt superb.  Overall,  I was extremely happy with how we performed the test. Where we should own high scores, we did. The result was a %61.8. It is not a score to set the world on fire, however it is one of the remaining 2 scores over 60 that I need to complete my USDF Silver Medal.... another lifetime goal.  There are a few more chances to attempt to realize it this season.

Two things made me the happiest though when I finished my ride. My horse felt as proudly content as he looks in the picture below. And, I got to share the result of a lifetime of riding and eight years of training this horse with the love of my life, Robert. Now, I look forward to spending the rest of my life sharing with him the dreams and goals we hold as individuals and as a couple.

Photo: Robert Campuzano

Countdown to FEI

Unlimited confidence possessed me a month ago. I sent in an entry to ride Ernie at Prix St. George. Christensens' helped me order my shadbelly which won't arrive for another 4-6 weeks. A good friend told me I could borrow her coat in the meantime.  Tuesday and Wednesday I had lessons with Rachel Saavedra. The lessons were fabulous, but alas, as is usual adressing issues of straightness caused my normally automatic right lead change to disappear. The left is doing great.  Tempi's are a near total loss. Our pirouttes however were simply the most amazing we've ever had. Today they were like buttahh...

Like anyone facing utter failure at the attempt of realizing a life long dream, I found myself looking for reasons not to just step up to the plate and swing.  It will be over 100 degrees on Sunday. The shadbelly I'm borrowing will be worn with the sleeves tucked up- I have T-rex arms. I'd like to lose another 10lbs....don't we all.... the list of non-riding related reasons could go on. 

But, you live life once. When the work is coming together, the support is behind you, and the opportunity arises, you just have to take the chance. It might never return. Even if you fail, you can say you attempted. After all, what is failure? Failure to even try? Failure to look your weaknesses in the eye and face them? Failure to allow those who have stood behind you to enjoy the excitement along the way?

Two scores remain for me to have my USDF Silver medal... those at Prix St. George. I've never ridden FEI. It is one of my life time riding goals. Further, it is a lifetime goal to train a horse to the FEI level. I'm bound to realize two of my dreams in one day regardless of the score. Another goal could be brought nearly to completion.

At 11:11 on Sunday July 18th, I'll canter down the center line at MarVal Stables in Lodi. The tails of a friend's coat rippling down the sides of my 12yr Hanoverian who I've brought along since he was 4 from Training Level. I'll be smiling wide and my horse will have his usual pricked ears.  We'll be sweating like pigs. My mind will be on overdrive keeping track of all the details as we ride the test. My horse will be questioning flower pots and judge's booths, but I know he'll bound expressively through his lateral work. When we are done, I'm going to look back on the last 8 years, at the struggles, the joys, the sacrifices, and the gifts. Then, I'll look ahead to what will come next and know how much more prepared I'll be for all my horse has taught me on this road.

Engaged

Yes, I'm now engaged. The marriage kind. Although this is a horse blog, and we'll have some more on that in just a moment, I have to share that a couple of weeks ago my boyfriend, Robert asked me to marry him. I hardly allowed him to finish his request for the answer of yes!

The important answer to the first question you might have, yes he likes the horses. :-)

In all the excitement and thoughts of living life to its fullest, going full steam ahead towards the future, I entered Ernie to ride our first Prix St. George. The fact that we could hardly put 3 changes together today was just one of those bumps in the road. In horse training, we always have to think that there is tomorrow. Lessons of the day don't tend to bear fruit until the next day or even the next week sometimes. I told Ernie he had until July 18! All joking aside, it will be what it will be and I'm going to have fun. Friend Laura has lent me her shadbelly since the one I have ordered will not arrive for another few weeks.

I went bold with lavender, teal and metallic gold paisley vest points. As soon as it arrives, I'll be trekking down to the local bead shop to make a custom browband. A girl has to have the right look you know.

The other horses are doing well. Tenjah found a fabulous new home with a woman who rides with Centered Riding Instructor, Cindi Leisure.

Next week, Rachel Saavedra will be returning to our area for another two days of lessons. It will be great to get feedback on the work we've done since she was last here.