which_chick | Adult Horse Camp, Part 2 (Reply)

Second full day of Adult Horse Camp. How did it go? Was it awesome? Was it fun?

It was (big surprise) neither awesome nor fun. Friday night AHC comes with ground pole work to assess whether or not you are likely to die. Then on Saturday and Sunday, you get a dressage part and a jumping part and lunch.

Saturday’s jumping stuff was rhythm and straightness, both of which you need for jumping, with a few very tiny raised poles and x-rails at the end. And, in case you are not a regular reader, it went like this: “…you want contact (which, yes, important) and you want rider not jumping “for” horse or “ahead” of horse (which, again, important for security in the irons), horse grinds to a halt in front of obstacles because his previous experience has been “rider throws me the slack and picks up off me for the jumpings” and this is all different now and he’s not convinced that forward is the answer. We are failing at crossrails. A lot. It’s horrible. I know I feel all different, buddy, but you have to go the fuck forward, not grind to a halt.”

That’s what I had coming in to the Sunday jumping work. Now, you do not have to tell me to pick up the fucking reins more than about three times. I WILL HAVE CONTACT. Yes, yes I will. And I will do my very best to not overjump or jump before the horse. I will try VERY HARD to wait for him to jump first. Also, since he is a young horse and does not really understand this contact that you keep talking about (and honestly neither do I because I don’t have the ‘contact’ skill online even though I look partially competent in other areas), in addition to this contact business, I will slam enough leg on him to get him to GO THE FUCK FORWARD in spite of the ‘contact’ that he doesn’t understand. And then I’m gonna aim him at fences.

The clever among us know how that went – for the rest of us, horse jumped the jump, rider mostly got left behind and then flopped forward onto shoulders, horse landed forehandedly, rider snatch-grabbed reins because CONTACT DAMN IT, horse started to accelerate towards jumps, do a way oversized hollow “deer” jump, and then zoom off (because LEG ON) ass-over-tin-cup with massive forehandy headshaking on landing, rider up over his shoulders and way out of position. It was awful. AWFUL.

It started out awful and by the time we were doing short courses of like eight jumps, it had gotten consistently awful and was looking like an imminent wreck every time he LAUNCHED himself over a fence all hollow and then landed rocketing forward and shaking his head like a wild thing.

I am ashamed to admit that I did the entire course (such as it was, maybe eight jumps) that the clinician set up for me even though it was clear that things were going horribly. A better rider would have stopped way earlier and said, “Look, something is horribly wrong and this is very upsetting to my horse and he’s not usually like this and my god help me fix this problem…” but I am not that rider and I shoved my poor baby horse through the entire course via yank and crank EVEN THOUGH I WAS AWARE IT WAS SUCKING BALLS AND COULD NOT FIGURE OUT WHAT WAS GOING WRONG OR FIND HOW TO FIX IT MYSELF.

Clinician, after watching it be awful and letting me power through, horribly, was like: Okay, asshat, I’ve given you the opportunity to see that there’s a problem here and you’re clearly not getting it. The AWFUL going on here is your fault. You do understand that, right? You are creating the hollow deer jump by grabbing him poor widdle face immediately on landing. This is all you, all of this AWFUL. He is reacting to your ride and bracing to be ready for the face-grabbing he knows is imminent. He is also thundering off because you land forward with extra leg on him in the “go” position. What you need to do is to stay in the back seat, throw the reins away when you get to the jump, and just let him get on with it himself. Seriously, get him there reasonably straight and then let him drive. LET HIM LAND and TAKE A FEW STRIDES and then gently gather the reins back up.

(This advice resembles the at-home jumping we were doing before you spent all day Saturday telling me to PICK UP THE REINS and PLEASE MAKE CONTACT and CONTACT PLZ and stuff. Saturday you were all HE MUST BE STRAIGHT TO THE POLES. DO NOT DROP HIM ON HIS FACE. PLEASE MAINTAIN CONTACT THROUGH THE EXERCISE. That’s what I heard all fucking day on Saturday… “STRAIGHT” and “DO NOT DROP HIM ON HIS FACE” and “BE PRESENT TO PROVIDE GUIDANCE” and “HE NEEDS TO FEEL YOU THERE, BE HIS SECURITY BLANKET”. Plus also you shared the illustrative example of rider throwing the reins at scary creek crossing to get horse to do it “WRONG ANSWER. YOU HOLD THE REINS AND ADD SOME LEG AND HELP HIM GO THROUGH INSTEAD OF RIDING LIKE TEN POUNDS OF SHIT IN A FIVE POUND SACK.” Seriously, what the hell was I supposed to get out of all that emphasis on contact? Fail. I am so fail.)

I must have looked somewhat incredulous, so clinician threw the lesson plan out the window and was like “OK, look, this is horrible and you’re going to get yourself killed. See this one fence here? Trot to this fence and just drop the damn reins. All the way. Drop them on his neck.”

God

Damn

So I’m coming off of a series of horrific jumping efforts in which the horse is thundering around forehandedly after deer jumping like a fucking nutjob (at heart he is not at all a nutjob so I have no idea where the nutjob is coming from) and clinician wants me to let go of the reins NOW in the middle of this trainwreckitude where I might die?

*sigh*

But I am paying for an expert opinion and something has to change because what’s going on right now terrifies the shit out of me so I do what the expert tells me to do. We trot the terribly imposing 18″ vertical. He gets to the fence. I throw the reins at him like I am told to do. (This is in the top twenty most terrifying things I have ever done and I am 100% certain we are about to die. Ave, Magister, Morituri te Selutant!) He jumps the fence, deer-hollow and brace-y. He lands and thunders like ten steps before he figures out I’m not there all up in his business and he drops to a trot. Again. Five steps. Jump gets way smaller and less launch-y, too. Again. Again. He’s doing appropriately-sized minimal-effort jumps like a real horse, not a deer, and kind of coasting to a relaxed trot three or four strides after landing.

And so clinician is “See?” and I lost my shit. My damn fat middle-aged self sat up there on my dumb-ass inappropriate shithead of a horse bawling in the middle of the fucking indoor going “I DO NOT UNDERSTAND! Yesterday you were all rawr contact and today you’re throw the reins away and I don’t understand. I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. You spent the entire fucking time yesterday going on about contact and leg and straightness and not dumping him to figure it out himself because he couldn’t possibly…”

Clinician: Well, yes, but he’s a baby. He needs to figure out how to use himself over fences before you can expect him to jump in contact. Maybe six months from now he can do some contact while jumping, but first he needs to figure out his own body and you need to give him room to do that. Also, yesterday was ground poles, not jumping. Totally a different thing, totally. (How can you not see that? Are you stupid?) Ground poles, you keep steady contact on both reins and apply comforting leg to reassure and keep straight. Jumping, you’re going to throw the reins to him and give him room to figure it out himself. Only idiots expect everything to be the same answer allatime in riding. Clearly you are an idiot. So, you wanna do some more of this?

She had to ask twice because the first time she asked, the other student (there were two of us) asked a different question right then and I was totally going to let it go by. But then she asked again so I had to answer her. Damn it. Look, lady, first I wind up crying in the indoor (terrified, humiliated, stupid, so fucking stupid, fail and fail and fail in front of everybody until you had to derail your whole plan, stop everything, and explain to me in very small words about the problem of my own making and how to fix it now that it’s spiraled far out of control) and now, having helped me fix my stupidity, you want me to verbally confirm that I’m fresh out of try so that nobody watching will have any doubt about what a fucking pussy I am. Huzzah. How many ways can I fail today? ALL OF THEM!!! LET ME FAIL ALL THE WAYS!

My response was something like “No, I want to go home and think about this and play with it a little.” (While entirely true, this was not what I wanted to say. I WANTED to say “No. No, I do not. I am distraught and bawling in your fucking indoor. I do not want to do more because I am feeling very incapable and unhappy and my confidence is in tatters because the horrific was seriously horrific and you act like it was both (a) not a big deal and (b) ALL MY FAULT. It was A BIG DEAL. SERIOUSLY HORRIFIC. VERY SCARY. Also, it was totally all my fault and I am furious with myself for not stopping it sooner because I truly did see it going tits up well before you called a halt and I failed my boy who didn’t deserve that bullshit when he’s just figuring out the jumping gig. If I were better at this maybe I would have fucking just KNOWN that one does not attempt to jump baby green horses in any sort of contact but I’m not better at this and we spent ALL DAY on contact yesterday and I thought that was what you wanted and my god why did you let it get so horrific and really truly what I’d like to do now is go get a cold wet cloth to clean up the snot running down my upper lip and try to compose myself so that I don’t look like an exhausted toddler post-tantrum at the lunch break.” I am a grown-up and it is not fair to unload all of my stupid personal issues on the clinician, so I did not say that shit.)

FML. Super not-inspired to go jumping ever again. I mean, totally I will and crap, but this did not so much light a fire under me as pour down rain all over my kindling and kick apart my carefully-laid sticks. (They were probably laid wrong anyway.)

*sigh*

Also, for the record, no amount of complimentary things about my horse will make me feel better once I’m bawling in the fucking indoor. At that juncture, I figure you’re just trying to be kind. It’s all right. I have eyes. I am not stupid. I know he’s a shitty little parrot-mouthed backyard arab with no papers, street value roughly six hundred bucks now that he more-or-less rides. I love him anyway and I think he’s awesome.

Then we had lunch.

After lunch was dressage. Clinician (the dressage clinician is a different person from the jumping clinician) was like “Ok, let’s get a working gait and make it nice-ish.” We walked a couple of circles. We worked on getting him round-ish in his walked circles. I should use my inside leg more. We did a few trot transitions while staying round. He did that and we were done. No, really. That was what we did, maybe twenty minutes of work, and clinician was “OK you’re done.” (It was hot and horse was kinda stiff behind, so, yeah. Not a bad call, just a disappointing call. It’s a year later and he Still Can’t Fucking Trot. Stupid damn horse. Useless damn rider.) Also I am not straight and I collapse to the left and stare at the leftward ground. He cannot do a good job if I suck and I totally fucking suck.

So, dressage was also something of a wash. Clinician helpfully said “I do not think you are giving yourself enough credit, here.” So apparently my nonpositive attitude is both noticed and applauded. There’s no stoppin’ me now!

*sigh* I think I have a hearing problem.

Kind clinician says You have very fair and correct aids.

I hear Even with halfway decent aids, you can’t do this correctly.

Kind clinician says This is a horse that would be easy to ruin but you’re doing a good job with him.

I hear You’re doing a good job ruining him. (I mean What The Shit? That’s NOT EVEN CLOSE TO WHAT THE CLINICIAN SAID. What am I, an idiot?)

Kind clinician says He comes in ready to work and gives a really good effort for you every time. You should give him more credit.

I hear You are a shitty and unappreciative trainer.

They’re trying to say nice things and all I can hear is how fucking stupid I am and how I’m doing it wrong and how my horse sucks and our overall insufficiency and *ugh* Even when they say good things, I only hear the bad parts.

Regular instructor (at home) says I’m impossible to teach because I have too much self-taught crap cluttering up the system and think I already know things and am unwilling to listen. UGH.