I have been trying to prioritize my riding time ever since extending my lease on the California Horse back in August. I knew that to reach my goal for our remaining time together: be able to ride him to his full Third Level potential, that I would have to stop being so flexible about letting my riding time take a back burner to things that other people (typically family members) wanted me to do (typically for them). And so, since mid-September I have been asserting myself more ("Gee, I'm sorry, but I'm busy that morning and just won't be able to help you out") as well as scheduling riding lessons on a weekly basis. After all, as DH put it, I was earning those lessons through cleaning stalls, so why wasn't I taking lessons every week?!?
A few things have happened in the six weeks or so since I started back to regular lessons. Things like finding that minute adjustments to my leg, seat, or hands, really has a huge impact on what I get out of my horse. This I knew, but I hadn't really experienced yet to this degree.
Things like my horse's hind end getting more developed and stronger, with increased impulsion in the gaits. He has a nice butt, LOL. And it's really cool to dismount at the end of a ride and see veins popped out on his hindquarters.
Things like taking that increased impulsion and learning to channel it into either lighter dancing trot steps (ie much more collection; "Think piaffe!" my trainer encouraged a few lessons ago while working on collecting the trot a little more and a little more) or an honest to goodness working trot and even once (without me intending to ask for it) a huge extended trot--he was being super attentive and generous that day!
There have been some other unexpected perks to such focused riding. I've lost a few pounds doing nothing different in my diet or exercise routine (other than extra riding). I pushed myself to reach my goal of five rides a week, and then felt really weird on the sixth day when I didn't ride. Even though it's so dark out in the mornings now, I'm finding that it's a little easier to get out of bed and get dressed because I have arena time at 9:00 a.m. (I love that the barn I work at is totally fine with me riding first, and working later in the morning--such a change from the previous barn I both trained and worked at). I'm also finding it easier to not be a doormat and politely but firmly tell people no, I'm not available, can't change my schedule (when it's for something trivial or not specifically needing me rather than someone, anyone).
The past six weeks or so could be summed up by saying that I am learning to ride big by riding small, and to ride small by riding big. Refining my aids; making them lighter and less obvious to the observer, has brought out more expression and power in my horse. The increase of expression and power then makes it easier for me to refine my aids. With a more powerful engine--the hindquarters--I have more energy to work with, which gets cycled back through my seat and hands and the horse's mouth, into the engine again to create lift in the forehand and lighter dancing steps. So when we are doing a big trot, it actually feels not like the horse is charging off, but that he is stepping in time to my commands. The less I move in the saddle, the more he moves above (suspension) the ground. We actually hit moments of bliss where it feels like we truly are dancing. Dressage is, after all, the ballet of the horse world.
What is really cool (to me), is that I ride little with my hands anymore. Unlike in most horseback riding, my hands aren't for steering any more, pulling the reins this way or that. My seat does the steering. My hands keep the connection with the horse's mouth, the lines of communication. Like the string between the two paper cups of a child's telephone toy. My hands say "Hello, are you there?" and his contact on the bit says "Hi, I'm here, what would you like to do next?" But they don't say "Go here!" or "Stop there!" by pulling or bending the horse where I want it to go. Steering is seat and weight. And the legs don't make the horse go forward, banging and kicking. No, again, it's the seat--with a good connection between my hands and the horse's mouth--that determines go or stop. I cannot begin to tell you how cool it is to navigate an approximately three-quarter ton horse primarily with my butt (aka my seat, sitting bones, pelvis, hips).
We're going places. As the weather cools off and winter approaches I'm not reluctant to get out there and ride. Instead, I'm excited about what winter will bring. I'm excited to feel incremental progress from one week to the next; I can't even begin to imagine how awesome our rides will be come Spring.
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