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Sep. 1st, 2011 08:57 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickYesterday and today, just Olivia and me with the ponies.
If you ask Olivia, there is cantering. And there is cantering. Yippee, for what it's worth. However, when there are just two of us, there is more trotting and it's faster trotting. :) I like the more-and-faster trotting. A solid road trot is like flying, kinda. The exercises we do are harder, too.
I mentioned stretching exercises last time... for balance, rhythm, agility, stability, yadda yadda yadda. The other kids do them at the walk. Olivia and I can do them at the trot. (They're kind of fun at the trot.)
I checked out some other stuff, too, since Olivia is able to do more than my first-year kids. We tried some hands-free stuff -- airplane posting (hands off reins, out to sides like airplane wings), air-reins two-point (airplane two-point is very hard because arms out to sides puts your weight too far back so it's air-reins instead), hands high up posting, it's all very entertaining. It is more entertaining for Olivia, who can trust Ceres to trot along solidly behind Whimsy when she drops the reins. It is less entertaining for me because when I stop steering, Whimsy steers under the overhanging branches and sometimes I get a faceful of oak leaves when I am not expecting same. I am letting it be a challenge to me.
I need more and harder gymnastic stuff. Airplane posting is dead easy. Hands-high posting is pretty easy (my problem is overhanging tree branches, not balance). Air-reins (hover hands above horse neck, not holding any real reins or any mane) two-point is also pretty easy. Two down, one up is easy if I am not trying to talk at the same time. I have a hell of a time switching to One down, two up after 2 down 1 up. Olivia thinks this is funny. We haven't done hands-on-hips posting but we can easily enough. I'll add that tomorrow. Hands-behind-back should be fun, too. I should add that one. (If I don't add stuff then it's just endless "posting trot" and "sitting trot" and "two-point". Those are things we need to be doing, yes, but it's mind-numbingly dull without variation.)
We should probably start some stirrup-free work. I don't have enough leg for much of that, sadly. Also, Whimsy takes it kind of personal when I drop the stirrups. She gets more leg than she's really happy about, I reckon. Maybe if we work up to it in small doses...
A lot of what we are doing right now is stuff that ideally would be done with the horse in a ring, at the end of a lunge line, with an instructor controlling the horse. Er. But we don't have horses that lunge and we don't have an instructor or a ring. So, y'know, we drop the reins on the horse's neck and carry on just like we had an instructor and a ring and a lunge line. Waiting for everything to be perfect just means that you'll never get anything done. The people who get on with it when things are good enough to be going on with will always be miles ahead of the "waiting for everything to be perfect before starting" folks.
If you ask Olivia, there is cantering. And there is cantering. Yippee, for what it's worth. However, when there are just two of us, there is more trotting and it's faster trotting. :) I like the more-and-faster trotting. A solid road trot is like flying, kinda. The exercises we do are harder, too.
I mentioned stretching exercises last time... for balance, rhythm, agility, stability, yadda yadda yadda. The other kids do them at the walk. Olivia and I can do them at the trot. (They're kind of fun at the trot.)
I checked out some other stuff, too, since Olivia is able to do more than my first-year kids. We tried some hands-free stuff -- airplane posting (hands off reins, out to sides like airplane wings), air-reins two-point (airplane two-point is very hard because arms out to sides puts your weight too far back so it's air-reins instead), hands high up posting, it's all very entertaining. It is more entertaining for Olivia, who can trust Ceres to trot along solidly behind Whimsy when she drops the reins. It is less entertaining for me because when I stop steering, Whimsy steers under the overhanging branches and sometimes I get a faceful of oak leaves when I am not expecting same. I am letting it be a challenge to me.
I need more and harder gymnastic stuff. Airplane posting is dead easy. Hands-high posting is pretty easy (my problem is overhanging tree branches, not balance). Air-reins (hover hands above horse neck, not holding any real reins or any mane) two-point is also pretty easy. Two down, one up is easy if I am not trying to talk at the same time. I have a hell of a time switching to One down, two up after 2 down 1 up. Olivia thinks this is funny. We haven't done hands-on-hips posting but we can easily enough. I'll add that tomorrow. Hands-behind-back should be fun, too. I should add that one. (If I don't add stuff then it's just endless "posting trot" and "sitting trot" and "two-point". Those are things we need to be doing, yes, but it's mind-numbingly dull without variation.)
We should probably start some stirrup-free work. I don't have enough leg for much of that, sadly. Also, Whimsy takes it kind of personal when I drop the stirrups. She gets more leg than she's really happy about, I reckon. Maybe if we work up to it in small doses...
A lot of what we are doing right now is stuff that ideally would be done with the horse in a ring, at the end of a lunge line, with an instructor controlling the horse. Er. But we don't have horses that lunge and we don't have an instructor or a ring. So, y'know, we drop the reins on the horse's neck and carry on just like we had an instructor and a ring and a lunge line. Waiting for everything to be perfect just means that you'll never get anything done. The people who get on with it when things are good enough to be going on with will always be miles ahead of the "waiting for everything to be perfect before starting" folks.
