My crooked nature: an update

As riders, we expect our horses to be strong, flexible, relaxed and balanced. Why not expect the same of ourselves? I started doing yoga to improve upon my equitation, and in the process have found that I am now holding myself to the same standards to which I hold my (hypothetical) horse. After about a months time, I am starting to see several benefits from the practice.

Mental benefits:

1. A greater sense of body awareness, especially concerning my overall posture. It turns out my position flaws on horseback are also present on the ground.

2. The ability to induce a relaxed state of mind. Or more specifically in my case, the ability to effectively deal with stress-induced insomnia.

3. A sense that I can be in control of each part of my body.

Physical benefits

1. Greater muscle definition over my entire body.

2. The return of that thing I used to have in my early 20's. What's it called again? Oh right. A waist.

3. Greater flexibility in my legs, hips, and abdomen.

Is my position perfect now? Absolutely not. Is it improving more quickly than it was when I was just making corrections on horseback? Most definitely! The increased body awareness allows me to recognize when there is a problem with my position, and as I get stronger, I am more able to make the proper correction.

Because yoga is helping me so much to develop into a more effective rider, I have decided to write a series of posts addressing common position flaws, and yoga positions that can be used to correct them. Feel free to chime in with your particular position flaw.

Gus practices "sideways facing cat" as I practice "downward facing dog."

World class riders and the return to lightness

Currently, the FEI European Dressage Championships are underway. Today marked the end of the team competition, and team Great Britain walked away victoriously with their first ever gold medal. Not wanting my subscription to FEITV to go to waste, I watched as much as I could.

Dressage has changed a lot over the years, and for the past several years has been moving in a direction I found most disheartening. Along with the use of rollkur at epidemic proportions amongst top riders, the emphasis on lightness and harmony seemed to be lost. It became evident that riders were becoming much more reliant on their curb rein than on their seat. Instead of a dance between horse and rider, Grand Prix rides appeared to be more of a fight.

During the European Championships, there was no doubt, a great deal of heavy-handed riding, including Matthias Rath on the great Moorlands Totilas (pictured left), and Laura Bechtolsheimer on Minstral Horis (pictured below). In all fairness to Laura, Mistral Horis did appear hotter than normal, and seemed to be running away with her, but I have never seen her ride with light hands in competition.

I was most pleasantly surprised by the superb test put in by British rider, Carl Hester, and his horse Utopia. Utopia seems to be a fitting name for the horse since almost everything about the ride was perfect. Seeing the pair was a reminder that their are still top riders that strive for lightness and harmony, and I'm happy to say, with Carl Hester topping out the individual scores (BEATING TOTILAS!), judges are beginning to reward this type of riding again.

Addressing my crooked nature

So many of my friends reading this may be expecting me to confess my devious nature despite a somewhat innocent appearance, but I am in fact crooked in a much more literal sense. Some may even call me left leaning and be referring to something having nothing to do with politics. I am just crooked. This as you can imagine creates quite a conundrum when trying to teach a horse to be sensitive to my body weight, while giving it mixed signals with my poor position. Aside from hindering good equitation, my crookedness comes with sciatica as an irritating side effect, which I have mostly learned to ignore, but would be delighted if it would just go away.

My poor riding instructor has been addressing this issue from the beginning, and after almost a full year, I have made zero headway on the problem. He does a pretty good job hiding his frustration, but I suspect he feels similarly to how I feel after spending a whole term explaining the null hypothesis to a biology class and still not having the concept sink in. I take improving my skill as a rider very seriously, and for that reason I feel that it is time to address my crooked nature in earnest.

After seeing doctors, chiropractors and physical therapists, it has been confirmed that my crookedness is the product of uneven strength and flexibility on my left and right sides. My left side is both stronger and less flexible than my right side causing my 4 lower vertebrae to be pulled out of alignment. My left hip flexor is also incredible tight when compared to the right. Based on that diagnosis, the solution seems simple. Do strengthening and stretching exercises to even everything out.

After having no luck with chiropractic work and the physical therapists offered by the OSU student health center, I have decided to take matters into my own hands. I have taken up the ultimate form of strength and flexibility training, yoga. Yoga is great for stretching, strenghtening, improving balance, and let's not forget the intended purpose, achieving a meditative mind state.

I've been at it for almost two weeks now, so it's probably a bit early to see any physical results, but I will write in update post in a month or so to fill you in on how things are going. Until then, Namaste!

Ever After Mustang Rescue

People are often baffled when I tell them I am adopting a mustang to be my next equine partner. While mustangs do require a bit more time and patience to train than domestic breeds, their strong desire to gain approval from the alpha horse in a herd (which hopefully in a training situation is you) makes them try their little hearts out. Who doesn't love a little horse with a whole lot of try?

I acquired my love of mustangs while working for Mona Jerome at Ever After Mustang Rescue in Biddeford, ME. Ever After takes in mustangs from a number of sources. Some are adopted from BLM auctions, some are surrendered by owners who have decided they can't handle or don't want their mustang, and some are seized from situations of abuse and neglect.

In order to fund this operation, Mona hosts several money-raising events, many of which are riding clinics. I met Mona when I started attending a fantastic, week-long eventing clinic at the farm. The clinic was so fantastic, that I attended 5 years straight (once on one of Mona's mustangs). One fine spring day, I received a call from Mona, and I assumed that it was regarding the clinic dates for that year. Instead, Mona asked me if I would be interested in coming to ride and train for her. I enthusiastically accepted the offer and packed my bags for Biddeford.

After arriving at the farm, Mona took a lot of time teaching me the art of training wild horses. I learned so much while with Mona, and I will now and try to condense what I learned into a few succinct bullet points

* When training a wild horse, there is very little room for error. While domestically born horse can tolerate quite a bit of incorrect training and turn out ok, mistakes made while training a wild horse can produce dangerous outcomes. In order to avoid these dangerous outcomes, it is important to correct bad behavior as soon as it happens.

* Attempting to muscle around a horse, regardless of how big or small, is a futile endeavor. Just don't do it.

* Be aware of the horse's body language as well as your own. Initally, body language is the only way you can communicate with your wild horse.

* Demand obedience and reward profusely when it's given. You'd be surprised how much a simple pat on the neck and a "good boy" means to your horse.

While these concepts are essential to successfully training a wild horse, I have also found that applying them to the training of any horse can lead to a deeper connection and better partnership between horse and rider. I am very grateful for all that Mona taught me, and I look forward to applying my knowledge to a mustang of my own. Please take the time to visit the Ever After Mustang Rescue website and see all the good work she is doing.

and some more life changes

I received a phone call over the weekend stating that due to some unforeseen circumstances, my working student position would not be happening. With only a looming thesis deadline and the promise of unemployment to look forward to, it was hard to find much to be happy about.

On Monday, all of that changed when I learned my grant had been extended to keep me on through December. While it's still not enough to finish a PhD, I will be able to get a publication out of this beast of a project I've been working on, and will get 4 more months of pay and benefits out of it. There is also a strong possibility that I will get hired part time after I finish my project to do data analysis for other projects.

So what does this mean in terms of horses? Well, first and foremost it means the hunt for my own mustang is back on. Secondly, a part time job will allow me the freedom to do other things part time.....like train horses. This career interest makes it that much more crucial that I get my own horse on which to compete and earn a reputation. I will also be important to have a horse on which to continue my own education, because there is still so much I need to learn, especially if I plan on competing at FEI level.

So there it is folks, my life plan squeezed into an itty bitty blog entry. Look forward to lots more entries on potential prospects, trips to the holding facility, and mustang training.

Let's talk about collection

Collection is a word that is often casually flung around, and as a result, frequently misused. Many people incorrectly use it to refer to the general shortening of a horse's frame, or the slowing of a horse's tempo. True collection involves the horse accepting more weight behind, lowering the haunches, and raising the poll.

This past weekend I was reminded of what collection means on a cow horse of all places. While visiting some friends in Bend, a local, western performance horse trainer was kind enough to offer me a ride on his amazing cutting horse, Bugs. I was told to saddle Bugs with whatever tack in which I was most comfortable, so naturally I grabbed the nearest dressage saddle and snaffle bridle.

I took Bugs into the arena for a quick warm-up and found him to be wonderfully light off the leg and seat, and even lighter in the bridle. After experimenting with some spins and sliding stops, I was informed that it was time to "work the flag." Seeing as I have zero experience with cutting horses, I had no clue what "working the flag" would entail. Cutting horses are trained to separate (or cut) a cow from the rest of a herd and keep it away for a short period of time. In order to do this they need to be able to track cows with very little rider direction. Since not all farms that train cutting horses have cows handy, the horses often practice by learning to track a flag on a string. So that's what I was doing. Here's a video example of someone using a flag to train their cutting horse: Flag training.

We started our flag work very slowly (for my sake) with the flag lazily moving back and forth on the arena wall. Bugs jogged along side it, and made a simple change of direction whenever the flag did so. Soon the flag started moving faster, and we were cantering to keep up with it. When the flag would suddenly change direction, Bugs would bend his hocks and shift his weight backwards to free up his front end, and spin. Holy collection! It's not like I had never felt collection before, but when a horse goes from an open and downhill frame to such a high level of collection within a fraction of a second, you feel it. Watch the hocks and hind end on this horse as he works: Champion cutting horse.

While the front end of a dressage horse behaves very differently than that of a cutting horse, very similar action is required by the hind end, and classical dressage training revolves around the idea that everything must come from behind. For any dressage rider out there who wants a better understanding of collection, I highly recommend taking a ride on a cutting horse.

Sonic Boom

Every horse person has one extremely special horse in their life to which they will compare all other horses in their life. For me, that horse came in the form of 16.1 hand, chestnut, thoroughbred gelding, with a quirky and loveable personality, and a mane that that insisted on sticking straight up, named Sonic Boom (Boomer for short). I found Boomer at a sales farm in Southern MA, while looking for a new eventing prospect. He was extremely underweight, and covered in bedsores. Despite his ragged appearance, their was something so kind about his eye that made me instantly fall in love.

About a week later, we were back with the trailer, and Boomer was on his way to the Cutter Farm where his recovery could begin under skilled eye of the farm owner and trainer, Marina Burliss. After a month with Marina, Boomer had put on a substantial amount of weight, and in addition to the already kind nature of his eyes, a little sparkle became evident as well. We decided that Boomer was healthy enough to bring home, and he was brought the the small two stall barn in my back yard.

Initially, training Boomer was extremely difficult. His only training had been on the race track, and as the weight came back, so did the racehorse energy and spunk. He was under the impression that while he was being ridden, it was in fact play time, and let me know this by bucking, rearing, spinning, and bolting. It is fair to say that in those first few months, I spent almost as much time on the ground as I did in the saddle. My father would often ask me after my rides how my "flying lesson" was that day. On top of Boomer being difficult, I was only 14 years old, and relatively inexperienced, but I stuck with him. Eventually Boomer started to settle down, and learned how to focus on the task at hand.

It was at this time I thought it was appropriate to introduce him to jumping. Boomer took to jumping like a fish to water. Aside from the ocassional excited leap, he was calm and patient to the fences, and did not know the meaning of the word "refuse." Even if I gave him a terrible approach, he would find some way to get his body over the fence.

After years of riding my pony, Dixee, who was truly wonderful but had a tendency to be a dirty little stopper, my confidence jumping wasn't great. This didn't bother Boomer at all as he seemed to have enough courage for the both of us. Riding such an honest horse can do wonders for one's confidence, and before you knew it we were out on the x-country school jumping banks, ditches, coops, roll tops, and any other kind of jump you can think of. I soon overcame my fear of jumps larger than 2'6'', and learned to trust in my very brave horse.

While Boomer and I were very strong in both x-country and stadium jumping, dressage was a weak phase for us (ironic, I know). I use to blame it on Boomer not liking dressage, but it has become quite clear that I was just a terrible dressage rider at the time.

After three years of the most amazing equine partnership I have ever experienced, Boomer's life ended tragically at the age of 7 after a severe bout of colic. This was one of the most devastating things I have ever experienced, but now instead of being sad about what could have been if he were still alive, I am so grateful for the time I did have with him. Several years after Boomer's death, I got a tattoo in his honor. The tattoo represents the most important lesson Boomer ever taught me: ride for the love riding, the love of the horse, and love of the partnership between horse and rider.