dancing horses

dancing horses

Wednesday, May 8, 2019

Choosing to Stop and Smell the Roses (a sort of blog hop)

This is a loose blog hop based on Emma's post here. I'd advise you to go and read it- it's well written and spot on.
hey, got any carrots?

What I loved about this post as it kind of hit on what I've been thinking about these days. This year I'm really focusing on letting go of the 'I should's. You know what I mean:
I should ride more/longer
I should be working on our groundwork
I should be .....

It's not that I shouldn't be doing those. But I realize that as I think of the 'shoulds' it's because I don't feel like it at that moment.

Don't get me wrong, I haven't lost my desire to ride. But I'm trying to not force myself. Carmen, for one, doesn't respond well to it. Also, I am far more likely to become frustrated because I really don't want to. Which we all know, she doesn't respond to well at all.

So when I am spending more time puttering, grooming, and just frigging enjoying my horse.

I'm liking this move from the Type A person to the Type B one.

Now when I ride and work her, I enjoy it more. I'm also enjoying the grooming and just being with my two horses.

Carmen: grooming is always good

And things are feeling different with Carmen and I. She's choosing to be with me more and more when I'm out puttering.

On sunday I fell down the stairs and bruised my tail bone (it really hurts). I figured I could be okay. Turns out I was wrong. I realized as soon as I settled in the saddle that there was no way I could ride effectively.  So I spent 5 minutes walking her on a long rein and encouraging her to be brave by going toward the things she was worried about. I then hopped off and she gave me a curious look Wait, that's it? 

I took her back to the barn and untacked her. I then put on her halter and we did some walking around the house and back. I let her out into the paddock and then refilled the hay bag. Irish dove in, but Carmen kept following me around blowing in my ear. It was kind of adorable.

Today I really wanted to ride. Julia joined me too. Ed came into the barn and asked if it would be okay if he went around pounding the fence posts (a chore that has to happen every spring as they get loose with the frost coming out of the ground). My gut said 'no' but my mouth said 'sure. It will make things lively but that's okay'. 

the downside of increasing confidence- far more
likely to tear the tractor apart. 

I realized I wasn't worried at all. If we couldn't work on 'dressage' things, we could work on being okay with seeing a tractor and a man wielding a large mallet. It was an opportunity, not a barrier.

And you know what?

She was fine.

Like fine. Curious, a bit looky but nothing major. On the Carmen spook/tension scale she was 1. When she was tense I gave her rein and invited her forward. Every time she answered my ask.  

My tail bone was still sore and so I was riding carefully.

Call me crazy but I think she was looking after me.  She was so steady in the bridle. Our trot was really slow at first (think western jog). But we warmed up into a nice, soft trot. The walk-trot transitions were easy. I also had 3 trot poles out and she was reaching and stretching over them.

After 30  minutes my butt was done so I stopped. I am not sure what this all means for my riding/showing/horsemanship. I am still in love with dressage and will keep pursuing it. But not with the same intensity or drive.  I am curious to see where it takes me.


25 comments:

  1. Horses are so sensitive to your moods, no wonder Carmen relaxes with you. Blowing in your ear is a high compliment, of that I'm sure.

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    1. Thank you. They are very sensitive that’s for sure

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  2. I love that little cartoon, great message!

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    1. It resonated with me as soon as I saw it.

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  3. ha i love the cartoon too, and the horses inspecting/tearing apart the tractor lol. but yea, all in all i'm really finding a lot of value in breaking things down to their component pieces and making sure i'm doing everything for the right reasons ;)

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    1. The two of them inspecting the trailer was hilarious.

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  4. Aww yay! Seems like all your work relationship building and the new mindset that you are cultivating are really paying off.

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  5. There are so many things to do on the back of a horse that don't include 20m circles. And they are all learning experiences.

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  6. Horses dont have an agenda. They teach us this every day. Lovely post and hope your tailbone gets better fast.

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    1. Well, they do have a carrot agenda. And right now Irish has an agenda to be on the grass.

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  7. I love this so freaking much. Tho, maybe not the tractor getting torn up.

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    1. Thanks! Fortunately, the tractor remained unscathed.

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  8. omg your comment about the fence post is so true. There's always something going on at the farm and I used to get so mad if anyone was doing anything that got spicy flustered. Once I reset my parameters I started to see these things as training opportunities. I ride at a very quiet farm but my horse is still getting desensitized to heavy machinery :D

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    1. It’s so good for them. It’s just sometimes our perspective needs to switch.

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  9. LOVE this. It has inspired me to write my own post, one that's been rolling around in my head the last couple of days. Jumping on the blog hop wagon!

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  10. Your new attitude is definitely working! Love them checking out the tractor.

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  11. Did you know the Type (Letter) spectrum goes to D? I didn't know that until a couple months ago until I looked it up while talking to a friend - and it really is a spectrum we aren't fully one category only. So Enjoy your B moments and maybe pull some stuff (the positive stuff) from the C and D category!

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    1. I did not know that! Now I have new things to google. thanks. :)

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  12. Maybe the feeling of "should" was translating as tension to Carmen? It sounds like with you being more relaxed, she is too. I'm sure you'll still accomplish your dressage goals, but it will be a lot less stressful this way!

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