Mastering Habits

 Several years ago, I attended Gil Merrik’s Mastery Class down at Hassler Dressage. I almost didn’t sign up, as the name “Mastery Class” seemed a bit touchy-feely-vague for my tastes, but I got the impression they were a bit short on people, and I had the day free, so thought I’d be a good egg and attend. 

Boy, am I glad I went.  I was pretty blown away by how much I got out of that day. Now, years later, I still refer to my notes from Gil’s class.  Last week, in preparation for our annual “Show Goals and Planning Party,” I again reread those notes, and realized that when I applied one part of Gil’s class, I reaped unexpected results.

The part I am referring to is Gil’s discussion about moving goals forward.  He talked about taking goal planning one step further, and creating a process for achieving those goals. He explained his process, which involved making a commitment, applying certain actions to that commitment, and getting results.  He had a nifty white-board to draw all of these circles and arrows on (my notes actually call this ‘the circle thingy for goals’), but I am limited a bit by the media, so I’ll do my best to explain it in words.

It starts like this:

            Commitment + action = results

According to Gil, when commitments match up with actions, trust and integrity are created.

Underneath it all, I am a practical Midwestern girl, and I remember rolling my eyes (inside, of course—once I hit my mid 30s I learned to do that, well, sort of) at Gil’s whole discussion of creating trust and integrity. Integrity is all well and good, but not very measurable, so I had a hard time correlating “integrity” with the more concrete, usually-quite-measurable “goal.” 

Aside from that, the next part really resonated with me. He said the problem with this equation is not the results, it is taking the stand.

Because by taking the stand, I could, by definition, fail. Without a stand, there is no failure. But with a stand, there is. Failure is scary. And let’s face it, fear can easily lead to creating stories. As kids, how many stories did we tell to avoid punishment? But a story is not an action, and when we replace action with story, we get our second equation:

Commitment + story = no results

But the bigger problem is, in our culture -

                        no results + a good story = kinda looks like results

But that's not true. 

                        In reality, no result + a story = no results. 

According to Gil, in this situation, there's no integrity and no trust.  He stated that taking responsibility for our words and commitments needs to matter to us.  Which I agreed with, but I’m kinda hard wired to “say what you mean, and mean what you say,” so again, I didn’t find the integrity part all that earth shattering. But seeing how clearly stories can derail results, well, that did resonate.

Gil went further. He said the additional danger of the story is it is based on your history, your past and your experiences, not necessarily all of the facts.  This may be incomplete info, but we perceive it as THE TRUTH, and boy, is it easy to fall in love with THE TRUTH – just look at all of the different religions, exercise nuts, health food advocates, the list goes on.  Once someone has fallen in love with TRUTH, we will defend our truth. A quick look at the current political climate confirms this. TRUTH is really easy to commit to, but then actions line up with the story, instead of with the commitment, which leads to no results. Which is all too common.

Last week, as I re-read the notes, I realized I had applied Gil’s process of moving goals forward to Venus, and in large part, that process had been as much a part of her rehab as the vet services.

Here’s how it applies to me—I bought Venus, and told everyone that I was going to do FEI Young Horse with her and then take her to Prix St George, which meant I needed help. So I took my first lesson with Scott Hassler, the USEF Young Horse coach.  That was my action to support my commitment.  I did my homework, and returned for regular lessons.

Before you get to thinking “well, she had this great opportunity and this great horse, of course that’s what she did.” Yea, no.  Venus was the best horse I could afford, and my budget was very, very small.  I could afford a nice front end, a nice back end, or a nice brain. I went for the back end, but the problems came out with her fearful, slightly tense brain. She ran through my aids A LOT as a youngster. 

Plus, have you seen the horses at Hassler’s? Hasslers arena was, and is, full of beautiful horses, being ridden by beautiful riders who seem never to move, or have ineffective aids, or get frustrated, and I was just trying to steer and stop enough to not run into them.

Many, many times I nearly quit going. I nearly bought into the stories I told myself -- I’m just a poor working horseperson just trying to get along, not like the rich, pretty riders down there, or I can’t afford to give up 6 hours, I could get a lot done, etc.   But I didn’t, not because of integrity, or honesty, or any other abstract term.  I kept going because going down there every-other Wednesday became a pattern, and everyone knew that was my pattern, and would ask about my lessons, which, of course, reinforced the pattern. Soon, that pattern became a habit.

After a while, that habit began to yielded results—Venus started to become more consistent in her responses, I started to develop a bit of confidence, and she and I competed in the FEI 5-year-old division. So for me, Gil’s equation began to look more like this:

            Commitment + action = habit = more commitment + more actions = results

Then Venus got hurt. I did the rehab, and put her back in training.  Frankly, I wasn't hopeful of her becoming an FEI horse. I bought into the story that she had done a lot of damage to her body, and probably wouldn’t make it.

But aside from that story, I had a habit. I was in the habit of climbing on her back and heading to the ring every day, and putting her in the trailer and heading down for Scott’s help on a regular basis. So I kept up my habit.

Last winter her training became really, really frustrating, but again, my habit was to take her in the arena, so I kept going.  When I was off of her, I would lament about her lack of progress, but my habit was strong, and I just kept putting my foot in the stirrup and swinging a leg over.

And somewhere, when I was doing what was habitual, Venus began to blossom.  She has become the light, forward, delightful horse I dreamed of when I bought her, and our short-term goal became to compete 3^rd level this year, with goals of moving up in the future.

All because of mastering a habit.

            

Will Ride for Food

I love my job. I spend my life riding and caring for a bunch of really wonderful horses. When I tell people what I do, I get a look of envy from them.  “You are so lucky to get to do what you love,” they say, and frankly, I agree with them. I have the amazing luxury of loving the way I earn my groceries.

But there’s a side of me that feels really guilty for spending my life doing something so self-indulgent. I learned social consciousness at my grandmother’s knee, and growing up with a single mom, I remember the winter she had pneumonia and couldn’t work. The grocery gift boxes fed us.

I firmly believe that everyone should give back to their community, so last Saturday SFD held their first “Open Training” session. In it, I sat on Mandy, my young Morgan mare, and did my best to explain what was going on in my mind while I trained her.  The cost of admission was a donation to the Chester County Food Bank.

Thank you everyone who came. I hope you got something out of the training, and I know the people who will get the food will also thank you.

Winter Workshop 2012

By Cheryle Oshman Blunt

I can remember when I was about 10-12 years old, I would sit for hours every spring reading the descriptions of horseback riding camps for kids my age.  I was very dedicated to choosing just the right one.  Did I want to swim in the pond with “my” horse every day, or did I want the camp where we would jump and jump and jump?  I knew even as I pored over those brochures that we did not have enough money to supplement my weekly riding lessons with an expensive camp experience, but it was still a dream.

A few years ago when Ange started talking about adult dressage camp, my excitement bordered on the ridiculous.  I told my husband that all I wanted for Christmas was to go to horse camp.  Of course, we call it a winter workshop, but you couldn’t fool me, I was finally going to horse camp.  Believe me, I wasn’t disappointed.

In the last couple of years, I have my role has shifted from participant to staff. We have some younger riders who participate these days, but most of my time is spent with the adults.  And what I see is pretty special.  I see a weekend when a bunch of grown-ups get to immerse themselves in their passion.  I see people who leave their limitations behind – time limits, physical limits, and the limits of self-consciousness – to grow as dressage riders.  Actually, we all grow as equestrians.

This year’s workshop had tons variety, from silly to serious.   On the less-traditional-dressage side, we formed a semi-circle around a shivering woman in jingly hip scarves who taught us to isolate our abdominal muscles. Sure, she called belly dancing, but we weren’t fooled.  “We call that lead changes,” Ange said, as we popped one hip to the side and then the other. 

That wasn’t all. Later on that day, I watched riders grab swords, spears, and lances to try their hands and their horses’ hooves at lobbing heads (well, foam mannequin heads) and pig sticking (or, spearing tape-covered pieces of foam).  Needless to say, there was a lot of laughter that day.

In the mounted work, I saw many riders stretching their riding skills in private, group, and seat lessons.  Throughout the weekend, everyone was taught by Ange, Cara, and Kelsey, getting different perspectives and different words to help them progress as riders. And boy did they.

The unmounted events catered to dressage geek skills, overall horsemanship skills, and fun skills. The mounted upper-level dressage demonstration and the “how confirmation effects training” theory session satisfied the dressage geeks in the group. Learning to take a horse’s temperature, pulse, and respiration, as well as how to wrap a horse and get tack pony-club clean, satisfied overall horsemanship skills.  Then there was goal setting, and the history of those Medieval mounted games to round it all out.

At the end of each day, riders and horses went to bed tired and happy, to return next morning full of smiles and coffee.  In all honesty, I’m glad that my camp experience has come to me as an adult.  It’s sweeter now than it would have been during my childhood.  Whether I participate or teach, full days at the barn surrounded by horses and friends who share my passion is an exquisite luxury I can appreciate keenly.  Thanks, Ange, Cara, and Kelsey.  And thanks to all who came.

Red Mare Update

Several people have asked about Venus’ progress, as I have been a bit silent about it lately.  Frankly, I was afraid to jinx her very steady progress, but at this year’s Winter Workshop, we looked at videos of her at 4, 5, 6, and from December, and I was really pleased with what I saw. To paraphrase Denny Emerson’s latest book, training progress is like grass --you don’t see it growing until it needs cut.

To recap (and save you time digging through old blogs), I purchased Venus as a 2 ½ year old. She proved to be a tricky youngster because of her very fearful nature.  Dressage training did what it was supposed to do, giving her more confidence, enough to compete in the young dressage horse FEI classes as a 4-and-5-year-old, and by age 6 she was really coming into her own, giving me a red ribbon in Suitablity at Dressage at Devon. 

In March of her 7-year-old year, I was letting her run around in the indoor (we had been stall bound for weeks from crazy amounts of snow – it snowed over 70 inches that winter), and she tried to jump out. She didn’t make it.  Yea, it was ugly.  “The Crash,” as we call it in the barn, did quite a bit of damage, and took a lot of time off, hand walking, slow rehab, and crossed fingers hoping she would come back 100%. 

Last January, almost 2 years after her accident, I had spent 3 days at with Scott Hassler trying to find my “before the crash” mare. Our mixed results left me pretty disheartened. Two weeks after, she gave me 5 minutes of amazing—it was like a pin-prick of light at the far end of a very long tunnel.  

In February, six frustrating, doubt-ridden weeks later, we returned to Scott.  Some days she’d be cooperative and soft in her body, other days diving onto the forehand and locking her neck.  He saw signs of progress, so advised I stay on the same path, but the little light at the end of the tunnel had taken on a frustrating strobe-light feature.   

 

We muddled along this way until April, with a frustrating cycle of her cruising along, looking pretty, but feeling very flat and unresponsive, and then be really good and quick-off-of-the-aids for a while.  I would think we were past her “staleness,” as Scott termed it in February, only to have it show up again a few rides later.  My other mounts were progressing consistently, but my own horse was consistently inconsistent.  Despite all of the other horse’s progress, Venus’ lack of progress had me feeling like a failure as a trainer. 

Because of the dramatic trauma she had inflicted on her body, I worried that the problem was physical.  I had the vet, chiropractor, massage therapist, shoer, saddle fitter, and other trainers look at her, and no one could find a physical reason for her lack of responsiveness.  Which just added to the frustration–if she didn’t hurt, why couldn’t I get her to work correctly?

It all came to a head in April (while a few students were watching, of course. I guess that’s the risk of having an open training program). Venus was cruising along, not really responding to my aids unless my aids got loud and ugly, then would over-react.  I got off frustrated and in tears over Venus’ lack of ridablility.  I was emotionally wrung out. I decided that if she needed that much pressure to do the work, then I wasn’t the trainer for the job.  I just don’t have it in me to use that kind of pressure every day– it was not worth the emotional cost.  I felt like I had wasted 2 years and countless dollars trying to rehab her.  Maybe she just wasn’t capable of the work.  The strobe light at the end of the tunnel flickered to tomb-like darkness.

As timing would have it, I was scheduled to take Secret and Sling to Scott for 3 days. I decided to take Venus for the first day, and then return with Sling for days 2 and 3.  I figured if he couldn’t help me with her training block, no one could.

After I whined to Scott about my frustration, I put her to work, and as I expected, she looked ok. Flat, not responsive enough, but from the ground, she didn’t look nearly as bad as she felt. So he got on. 

And he agreed with me.

He said she felt ok in her neck and the contact, but she just wasn’t using her back or hind legs, particularly her left hind. She also was not responding to the seat and leg aids, and it showed up most in the canter. The left canter was stuck, the right canter was quite unbalanced and running. He worked on quickening her responses to the aids, and getting her using her hind legs. She improved.  He asked me to leave her for the three days, and he’d ride her again the next day. 

I ended up riding her the next day, and the next. He had me warm her up, then ride her in short, 3-7 minute long segments, going between a small compressed trot, walk, compressed trot, and working trot. Then do the same in the canter.  The point–the shortened gait makes her bend her hind legs and prevent her from using speed to avoid the work, and the short sets respect her growing back and stifle strength.  She, of course, threw a few objections (she is red, after all), but the frequent breaks kept her tension from evolving into a “battle of the red-heads.” When her temper flared up, he’d have me maintain the current level of intensity with my aids until she relaxed a little, then give her a break.  She was not allowed use her emotions to escape the work, any more than using speed to escape the work.

He said this was the path he has wanted to go with Venus for a long time, but she hasn’t shown the emotional maturity to let go here. He felt her mind was ready for it, and frankly, I was at wits end, so I was equally ready. The added bonus of this method is it should teach her to manage her emotions when the work got harder.

He sent me home with the advice to use anything to get her more active and uphill EXCEPT forward.  Yea, it was the opposite of how I rode pretty much every other horse in the barn, but at this point, I was willing to try anything. He cautioned me that this would probably take six months to get her committed to really bending her hind legs, but he thought I would be happy with the results if I stuck with it.  After three days, Scott had managed to turn the tomb back into a tunnel, with dim light at the end of it.

Since I was in uncharted territory with Venus, I begged Jann, the secretary at Hassler Dressage, for a follow-up lesson. Two weeks later, I loaded the mare up and headed down again. I had been a good little dressage queen, and stuck to the homework, but had concerns.  I wanted to talk to Scott about adding some lateral work, as I felt like Venus was getting a little bunched-up with the steady diet of transitions within the gait.

Scott saw improvements in two areas – Venus’ acceptance of pressure, and the clarity of my aids. He agreed with adding controlled lateral work, as long as she didn’t swing her hips out to avoid bending her hind legs.  Again he advised patience, and he said would start to see an improvement in her gaits and responsiveness gradually over time. He reminded me that I was looking at a 6-month project.

We went home and continued our homework.  While this is going on, Silly, my other mare, become lame and subsequently bred, I hit show season with Eclipse, Secret, Flash and Sling, someone hit and totaled my truck, and we are moving to our new barn—in no particular order. I like stress. Stress keeps my outlook so positive.

With the new barn though, Venus could again get turnout, which helped. She was becoming consistent in the work–not stellar, but consistent, which is enough for me. 

We continued to make steady progress through the summer, and her mind became more and more calm.  She became more and more accepting of the work with less and less tension—a huge step for her, and necessary for her to climb the levels. Her only minor setbacks were honest physical complaints, and quickly resolved (sore front feet when the ground got hard resolved with hoof packing, a really tight back just before she cycled resolved with B-L, that sort of thing). The light at the end of the tunnel was at about 25-watts, but steady.

In late July, I took her back to Scott to check her progress. He was very pleased with what he saw, especially in the trot work.  We worked on creating more activity in her lateral work, instead of just using it to break up the compression work. We added activating the walk before the canter to get the first stride of canter more uphill, added more school figures in canter, but kept the canter strides relatively small.  Again he cautioned me against big, forward gaits. He told me he’d like to see her canter pirouettes starting to develop before we introduce the medium canter. Finally, we had some measurable forward progress.  The light dialed up to 60 watts.

By August, Venus was beginning to have moments of really swingy, soft work, and was starting to offer more work on her own, but I still felt like we were getting stuck, especially in the canter.  I took her to Scott for a check-up, and after he watched me warm up, he said I had more hind-end activity than front end movement – a huge change from April.  We spent the lesson discussing techniques to teach her to lift her shoulders more. I went home with my mind full of new ideas for the direction of her training, and the bulb burning a bright 75 watts.

Venus and I continued to plug away, using various techniques to improve her balance and suppleness in trot and canter.  I mixed her work days with lots of walks on the hills to keep her mind fresh. Somewhere along there I started to really look forward to riding my girl. 

In September, again I returned to Scott for a check-up, and he was thrilled (his words, actually).  Ashley, the assistant trainer at Hasslers who has seen Venus since she was 5, didn’t recognize her.  I was actually a bit surprised by their reactions. Venus had improved gradually, and although I knew our rides were going well, I hadn’t realized her gaits and balance had changed so dramatically.  Scott sent me home with the orders of “come back with a canter pirouette.”  The light bulb was burning bright and steady.

I continued to do my homework, and when I headed down to Scott’s for our December lesson, Kelsey tagged along to shoot some video. The lesson went well, with work on improving her right lead canter, improving the clarity of her half-pass work, and cleaning up her changes.  At one point, she locked into a brilliant, balanced, ridable left-lead canter that completely rocked my world.

Then I came home and watched the video.  She looked even better than she felt. 

I am touching wood as I type, but I feel like Venus and I are standing at the end of the tunnel looking into the full sunshine, and it is a wonderful place to be.

Cliffs Notes from Clinics

My favorite movie is Dangerous Beauty, the story of a 16^th century Venetian courtesan. One scene depicts the heroine, addressing a group of Venetian wives, and, as she is peeling a banana, she says, “The Latin for banana is arienna. Banana tree is pala.  A woman’s greatest, and most hard-won asset is an education.” The scene is all the more memorable since she concludes by deep-throated the banana, but that doesn’t really relate to my blog, so I’ll leave that alone….

I treasure my education, and I routinely augment my regular lessons with clinics. The quality of education from this year’s clinician list has been truly impressive.  Secret, Venus, Eclipse, Sling, Flash, and Legend have been my mounts, and I thought I would give you a peak at my lesson notes.  Rather than bore you with pages and pages of notes from each specific clinic for each specific horse – and believe me, I have them – I thought I’d sum up in a Cliff’s Notes-style blog.  None of these things are profound, as the difficulty of dressage is not in the complexity, but rather in the specificity.  So here goes.

Control every part of my body. Control my thigh pressure, control my seat, control the angle of my pelvis, control the placement of my legs, control the pressure in my calves, control my hands.  Ride better.

Control every part of the horse, every stride.  Control the shoulders, control the hind legs, control the tempo, control the balance.  Train better.

Keep every part of my body separate. If I need to boot a horse forward, my hands need to stay still. Otherwise it’s confusing to the horse.

Sometimes I need to ride the harmony, sometimes I need to disrupt the harmony to change a specific item – balance, suppleness, activity, obedience. Then I need to re-establish the harmony.  Don’t leave the exercise until the harmony is reestablished.

Pushing when there’s tension only makes more tension. 

Pushing when there’s relaxation and balance sometimes creates some really amazing work. Don’t coast when it feels good, use the “good” to make “even better.”

Tempo and clarity of the gait cannot be overestimated.  If every stride isn’t in a clear, correct rhythm, fix it. Don’t move on until that basic is in place.  Skimping on that step will cost you balance and suspension in the long run.

The calf is for go. The spur or a thumping calf is the correction for not responding to the calf.  Save the whip for collection.

If I think my horse is supple enough, supple some more.  A lack of suppleness can show up as heavy on the aids, running from the aids, or just plain stiffness. 

Ride the horse out to your hand. Don’t take the bit back to the horse.  If the horse won’t go to the bit, check the suppleness, then let the horse go out to the bit again.  Ride better.

Ride the horse out to both reins first, and then worry about bend. If he’s not out to both reins, I don’t have control of enough parts of him to make a correct bend anyway.

If my horse is heavy in one rein, make sure the opposite shoulder isn’t popping out. Don’t give him the rein to lean on, instead put movement in the “heavy” rein, and a steady contact on the rein that is avoiding contact. And get off the track – the second track encourages straightness.

Break things down for the horse. If he understands walk pirouette from the seat aid, but wants too much help from the rein in the canter pirouette, keep going between the two until he understands that it’s the same thing, just a different gait.  Teach the horse, don’t just muscle him.  Train better.

Know what I am doing and why. When I ride a circle, I need to know what I want to accomplish through that circle. Do I want more bend? Do I want to control the tempo? Do I want to improve the balance? The clearer I am in my mind, the more clearly I will communicate to my horse.

If an exercise begins to fall apart, stick to the “why.”  If I wanted leg yield in trot to improve suppleness, and the horse misunderstood and cantered, rather than correct the gait (which wasn’t the goal of the exercise) stay in leg yield until the horse understands and gives me more suppleness.

In short, ride better and train better.  I think that’s what we all want. With or without the banana.

A Little Help from My Friends, Part 2

In addition to Cheryle and Linda, two people fall into the “I can’t live without them” category – Doug and Amy.

Yea, Doug is my husband, and he is contractually obligated to be around, but the level of support he gives me goes far beyond the ‘good horse husband’ requirement. In reality, SFD is what it is because of him.

About 9 years ago, I was in a slump. I had left my working student position and starting to build my own business. I understood that building a business takes time, but I had a few other things going on.  Swayze, the horse I had developed while I was a working student, was dying of cancer. I was busting my butt as a waitress to cover Swayze’s vet bills. I was riding for a gal with some nice dressage horses, and frankly, I could tell she was working her way off of my client list. The remaining handful of students only had outdoor arenas, and it was fall. I was looking at a long winter in the restaurant, feeling like I wasted four working-student years and had nothing to show for it. I decided I had had enough, and it was time to engage the back-up plan and return to school.

Doug and I were living together, but we weren’t married yet, and frankly, I don’t know how he put up with my depressed, surly self.

I brought up the topic of returning to school. He was supportive of my plans, telling me it didn’t matter to him what I did for a living, as long as I was happy.

Then he bought me a web site, and lent me money to attend a USDF instructor workshop.

The web site became a turning point for me. It started as equichic.com and later, when we rented our first barn 2 years later, evolved into straightforwarddressage.com. The early web site helped me stay focused on my goal. It gave me a place to organize my training theory, showcase my students and horses, and helped me see the big picture of my career, instead of getting bogged down in the day-to-day ups-and-downs of building a business. Later, when SFD started to need me more in the arena than behind the desk, Doug learned Dreamweaver and became webmaster. 

The USDF Instructor Workshop was another turning point. At the workshop, I met Mary Russell, who has Lucky Cricket Farm. She asked me to come teach a series of clinics at her place, and from that clinic came three training horses, all of which the owners wanted to see in the show ring – two under me, and one under his jr rider. Mary has a full-time job in addition to a lesson barn, so that is a service she couldn’t provide.

As a working student, I had funneled my limited funds into clinics, so my show resume had a glaring 5-year gap in it. Competition exposure was something I really needed, and those three horses got me back in the show ring. All three horses have won numerous year-end and all-breeds awards, Pentacle with his junior rider Victoria.  One of those horses is Statesman’s Eclipse, the Morgan stallion, and he is still with me, currently competing at PSG.

Since that pivotal winter, Doug has worn the hats of photographer, video editor, show groom, holder-of-the-homefront while Ange is at shows, stall help, chief maintenance man, moral support and occasional kick-in-the pants.  My dreams come true every day because of this wonderful man.

Amy is my groom, and is the best groom I have ever had. One of the realities of riding professionally is I just don’t have the time to curry and buff to my heart’s content. How a horse is handled on the ground directly relates to how they go under saddle, so having the right groom is crucial.

I remember when I hired Amy. I had been trying to fill my grooming need with working students and in-house for a couple of years, and finally gave up and put an ad in the Horse of Delaware Valley. I had a good response to my ad, but I was worried about the whole interview process – what questions should I ask, what if I hired the wrong person, etc. I set up interviews with nine people, and by the end of the day, I asked two of them to come in and try the job for a day (with pay, of course). In reality, I liked Amy the best, but the other gal had a stronger resume.

Once the day was over, it was clear that Amy was the right one for the job.  She has been with me over a year, and I hope she never leaves. She is careful and safe, the horses all like her, and she is great at the details. Two of my horses, in particular, have a LOT of details to help them perform their best, and Amy handles all of their quirks like it’s no big deal.   Plus she has a great sense of humor, something that is sorely underestimated in a barn.

Thank you doesn’t even begin to cover the depth of emotion I have for the help and support you two give me.

From the Student's Perspective -- Alexa and Mi Alma

Alexa Derr is one of my juniors who spent last winter working with SFD's schoolmasters. I thought it would be fun to see how her winter lessons affeted her show season. So I asked her to write a blog for us.

by Alexa Derr


Last winter, I had the opportunity to ride SFD’s schoolmasters, Silly and Pikasso. and those lessons really shaped me as a rider for Mi Alma, my young horse.  Thanks to them, Mi Alma gave me a truly memorable 2011 competition season.


Before every lesson, I would get butterflies in my stomach. Mentally, I psyched myself out thinking that maybe if I sat there and looked pretty, Silly would do the rest, since she is a schoolmaster. As you know, that’s not the case. It took time for me to stop riding her as if she was a glass horse and my inexperience would surely break her. Once I got over that, we had some really good rides where I learned to organize Silly’s big engine and big gaits. 


Once I had a handle on balancing the big dressage engine, Pikasso took over teaching me the lateral movements. We clicked and his power was perfect for me. Riding lateral movements gave me a variety of tricks when schooling other horses. He has amazing willingness in collection, and riding half steps for the first time sent me to cloud nine! These two horses took me from sitting and looking pretty on a horse to feeling every movement, using different parts of my body independently, and riding actively. 


After searching months for my next dressage partner, I found my budget was too limited for a trained horse. So I had to get creative and start from scratch…how about a three-year-old off-the-track thoroughbred? I met Mi Alma two weeks after his last race in October of 2010. With his puppy dog personality and sound mind, we bonded instantly and I knew he was the right project for me.  I had hoped to train him enough to sell, and then use that money to buy a more trained horse.


After an exciting winter of learning and growing, it was time to put my new tricks to use. In late spring, Mi Alma and I had the opportunity to ride with Suzanne Hassler of Hassler Dressage. I was decently calm and collected on the drive down, but as soon as I walked into that amazing facility and humongous ring, I became a deer in headlights. I had to overcome those paralyzing voices in my head, which is easier said than done. 


Ange got me out of my fear with her ever-tactful words, “You don’t suck and you won’t suck.” It worked, I snapped out of it and RODE. Turns out, there was nothing to be afraid of after all. Miss Suzanne was such a sweet lady and a great confidence booster. She declared Mi Alma a possible third level candidate. So maybe he isn’t a resale project after all.  He could be the one to help me reach my goal of ‘A’ Dressage rating (third level) in United States Pony Club. 


Mi Alma was very easy to mold into frame, but that was the problem. Over the summer, he trapped me into doing his work. He looked pretty just coasting down the long side, earning his pretty blue ribbons at intro level, meanwhile my arms and legs were killing me. Enough was enough; it was time for some role reversal. Getting his hind end under, his back swinging and his forehand up was very challenging, especially with his three-year-old body parts going every which direction. Keeping his shoulders aligned, his barrel/back pliable and non-board-like, his legs where I wanted them, and a relaxed top line was no easy task. Once again I had to overcome my mental block and get those independent aids back in action. When I did, boy did it make a difference. 


Then the ‘C’ word came into the picture… Canter. Looking back, I am not really sure why I was so nervous to canter since his days on the racetrack were short lived due to his lack of energy. But I think the transitions was the problem. His transitions went from trot, crash on the forehand, race to the first stride of canter, and then crash on the forehand again. Again with body parts flying everywhere, Mi Alma had me trapped into doing his work. It was bad enough my dad started calling me “noodle,” due to my flopping arms, stomach and legs. Rather attractive right?  


So back to those beloved seat lessons I went. After a nice tune-up, I was able to “sit, slide (my legs into position), cue.” Bam! We had a non-scary transition followed by a decently uphill canter! My oh my what one week at SFD Baby Boot Camp can do.

Now, the day I had been dreaming of finally came. Ladies and gentlemen, I’m talking about the “Big Leagues:” Dressage at Devon! Now if you have met Mi Alma, you know he has the most laid back personality, so timing warm-up, class size, and class time length was quite the task. In the end, he had just enough energy to strut out of that ring with that DAD green ribbon flapping on his bridle. Remembering that day brings such a smile to my face because I not only overcame all butterflies, but I held my own riding in a ring of professionals.


Mi Alma has taught me patience and how to be affirmative in my cues. He has also taught me to anticipate his reactions and from there I am able to cue faster and more accurately. This has helped me to feel more and use independent aids to their capability. Thank you to Ange, my parents, the Brok family for finding Mi Alma, our fan club, and those who played hooky from school and work to watch us at Devon!