Sunday, March 9, 2014

On Tension

Dee and I moved to a new barn last week.  It's a great little place with only a few horses and a low-key atmosphere.  The horses basically live outside, only coming in for terrible weather and meals, and get 24/7 access to hay, inside and outside.  It also has a dressage arena to die for, with beautiful footing.  It's also about 20 minutes closer to me, so now I only have to drive 20 minutes each way instead of 40.  I'm thrilled, and I used our move as an excuse to get my butt in gear and start riding again.
Dee has not been ridden in about 3 months.  She has been working pretty consistently on the lunge, but for her that doesn't really count towards good behavior under saddle.  Our first couple of rides, I just walked around, thinking I should give her a chance to get used to having a rider again.

 On Friday, we trotted for the first time.  She was pretty good for the first few minutes, but definitely tense and on the verge of exploding the whole time.  So I gave her a break, then picked up the trot again, which went terribly.  She was 100% distracted, even more tense, and acting like a total jerk, taking every opportunity to spook and balk.  I got a few circles of halfway decent work and quit, because I was frustrated and figured it would keep getting worse.  I told myself that I should have just quit after the first few minutes of trot because she couldn't handle more of a workload yet.

Yesterday she was equally atrocious... wound tighter than a drum, taking every opportunity to spook her way out of working and just generally having no brain between her ears.  I was discouraged.  I felt like I couldn't ride and she was some sort of lost cause for me.  I was feeling pretty sorry for myself.  Why was I suddenly unable to ride her through the naughties?  Have I completely lost my nerve?

The answer to those questions, I think, is that I was being a wuss.  I think part of me is worried about another freak accident, and it was translating into me anticipating the spook, which in turn created more tension and more spooking.  I could feel myself riding backwards and being stupid, but I wasn't stopping the behavior, I was just quitting.  "Ok, you are being bad, I'll just stop asking."

Then I read this great blog post on tension and it was the wake-up call/pep talk that I think I needed.  Dee doesn't need to be coddled, she needs to be worked.  I knew this deep down, but it was helpful to read it, so that I couldn't talk myself out of it.  Do I think it's fair to ask her to canter around forever until she relaxes?  No.  I don't want her to go lame, and she is not fit enough/strong enough for that, I don't think, and canter seems to be harder for her in general.  Do I think it's fair to make her work her butt off at the trot until she releases some of that tension?  You bet.  So that's what we did today.

We did not achieve total relaxation, but we did achieve some relaxation, and maintained that relaxation continuously for about ten minutes.  Of course at that point she had been trotting for almost a half an hour, and given that neither of us has been riding for awhile, I thought it best to quit.  We actually went for longer than I wanted to, but she took almost 20 minutes to wind down to where she ended up, and I didn't want to quit until she started loosening up and getting down to business.  By 30 minutes, however, my lower back muscles were throwing in the towel and telling me that they were sore and not willing to keep working.  I figured better to quit while she was working pretty well and I was still able to ride really positively.  When we went back to walk, she actually went around on the buckle and gave me a few sighs, then stood with a droopy lip in the cross-ties back at the barn.  Did I finally tire miss thang out?  Maybe a little!  The conclusion I ultimately drew, though, was that I was expecting way too much of her yesterday.  She has no reason to be calm and collected unless I give her a reason to be by riding well and making her work.  She has been out of work for 3 months!  I'd be a little bonkers, too, if I was her!  I think we will get back to where we were i the fall as long as I stop being stupid.


She says "Why you gotta make me do things?"

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