DLB, how did it go?

[which_chick]

Regular readers are aware of my woes vis a vis dressage clinics with Clinician DLB. So we dressage clinic'd today. It was super-windy, all day. Horse's mane and tail blew straight out to the side of him, dust devils in the ring, clinician's-words-blown-away levels of wind. Also, zipper on my right tall boot gave up the ghost (At the ankle!? It's not even snug there, I dunno wtf its problem is but now I need a new pair of tall boots. Money. It was nice knowing you.) before I'd finished warming up my horse. Oh, and I brought along my dear friend Lala to explain to DLB that I cannot do this anymore if we cannot reach an accommodation vis a vis instruction.



Better. It went better. More about that in a bit. But first, we're going to talk about how getting what I want doesn't make me happy because all the answers are wrong.

*sigh*

Let us harken back to last year's fall dressage effort with DLB, wherein my mother (a constant pillar of support) offered the following, which I correctly tagged as super-helpful advice* at the time:

“Tell her you’re autistic. Apologize for having absolutely no inherent talent for riding. I can’t understand why you persist in doing things you TOTALLY SUCK AT, but if you’re having that much trouble with this and still want to do it (MOTHER OF GOD WHY ARE YOU SO PERSISTENT AT SOMETHING SO EXPENSIVE THAT YOU TOTALLY SUCK AT? YOU KNOW, THERE ARE MANY THINGS YOU CAN DO QUITE ACCEPTABLY. IS THERE SOME REASON YOU CAN’T DO ONE OF THE THINGS THAT YOU DON’T SUCK AT? ARE YOU TRYING TO BE UNHAPPY?), ask her to dumb it down further for your broken and incompetent brain. If you can’t do that, then obviously you don’t want to do the thing hard enough anyway.”

*Just because I am being bitingly sarcastic does not mean that it isn't true. Actually, it is true, which is why it FUCKING HURTS SO GODDAMN MUCH and also is such good sarcasm.

I didn't really want to have my dear friend Lala explain to DLB that I am fundamentally unable to learn via her style of kinesthetic instruction and that her statements of emotional judgment are like salt in wounds to me, but it was either that or quit. And, really, I want to do the thing. I so totally want to do the thing.

This feels like admitting that I am broken. I am not broken. But regular grown-ups do not have to let their dear friend fix DLB for them because they either (a) can work with DLB's instructional style or (b) are willing to quit or (c) can fix it themselves. Having someone else fix DLB for them because they are incompetent at interpersonal skills... that is not a thing that normal people do.

Damn it.

My mom: "This represents wonderful personal growth for you. She is a wonderful friend."

Me (to myself) "Fuck off. I am not broken and I am not wrong and I can learn to do A WHOLE LOT OF THINGS INCLUDING THIS THING and it is NOT MY FAULT that the instructor whom I am paying for instruction is unable to adjust their instructional style to suit me without being explicitly told to do so by someone who can actually talk to people. Instructors are supposed to be able to adjust the instructional style to fit the learner at hand. That is what instructing is all about. It's a HUGE fucking part of the job. If DLB were better at instructing in more than exactly one style and/or better at recognizing that there are different styles of learners, I would not be having this problem."

Out loud, I said "Mmm-hmm."

Personal growth can kiss my lily-white ass.

So I warmed up the horse and Lala talked to DLB. I have not a lot of idea of what she said because I was warming up the horse. It is not helpful for me to add things to conversations where I am the subject of the conversation. It really isn't. And it is better for me to give Lala the space to say whatever the hell she needs without me interjecting or correcting or whatever every ten seconds because that will be perceived as hostile or something and I for damn sure can't keep my fucking mouth shut under those circumstances. Further, if I could have been at all useful in solving this problem, I would not have had to have Lala to do it for me. Given that she's there to do the thing I cannot do myself, I might as well let her get on with it unhindered.

Also, horse needs to be warmed up and I can do that productively where any efforts I might have at explaining things to DLB would be non-productive if not actively counterproductive. So, I warmed up the horse.

And when Lala was done talking to DLB, we did walk. Walk is good. I fixed the walk a year ago via tape on reins and consistent contact and yadda yadda. DLB likes the walk. She's liked it since I fixed it. It is still fixed and she still likes it.

We did trot. I allowed as how last time she'd seen us, we'd had an OK "remedial jog" and had gotten the go-ahead to work on "fancy trot". (This is not extended or collected or anything, it's just a better -- more level balance, better step under with the hinds, less weight on the front end, more effortful -- regular trot.) I said as how he was getting better at handing over fancy trot in a reliable and efficient manner but that he only had about five good tries on each diagonal before he started to fade. She wanted to see fancy trot, so I put him in fancy trot. (This is not difficult now. It was at first but now it's not.) And DLB was like "Okay, there it is." (Of course it is. We've been working on fucking fancy trot for the last six months. It is not an effort to put him there or tell when he's there. This is a Thing we Know How To Do, this Fancy Trot thing.) So she is looking at our fancy trot and she's like... "So what would you like to address today?"

And I am "Okay, to the left, from his left ear back about six inches on his neck, it's... locked? Less flexible? Can you see this or is it just me?" So she looks at him trotting to the left (counterclockwise) and she's like "Yeah, now that you mention it, yeah. Hrm." And she's quiet for a little and then she says "Try lifting your left shoulder about an inch."

Hallelujah!

THIS IS A FUCKING CLEAR DIRECTIVE THAT I CAN DO. So I do it. DLB asks me to walk. We walk. She asks me to trot again. I trot again, with left shoulder an inch higher like I was just told to do about twenty seconds ago. We repeat this walk-trot-walk-trot thing a couple of times. Left shoulder is where I was told to put it, every time, because I CAN FOLLOW CLEAR DIRECTIVES. Horse's neck is somewhat better. It's not as locked. It's not fixed yet (because this is not going to resolve magically overnight) but with better position on my part, it should get better as we go on and especially so now that I am aware of the issue and how to address it.

Lala was standing with DLB in the ring (in case to offer better words if DLB didn't have any) and the wind was blowing correctly, so I overheard DLB say the following to the Lala ..."But... she just DID it. And she's still doing it. I'd have to do that like fifty times to get it. How is that even...?"

Look, my left shoulder is not FIXED but it's been added to my mental checklist of things to do to DO THE THING and I will keep after it until it is fixed for real. I have solid checklist skills and I can remove things from the checklist once they're automated and I am good at going over the checklist to make sure I'm doing all the not-automated things. Next time DLB sees me, the left shoulder will be fixed. (The right shoulder has a similar problem tracking clockwise, but it is to a rather lesser degree. It has also been added to the list of things to work on.)

I don't think DLB ever really understood that words could work for me for this. They won't work for EVERYONE but honestly if there can be words, I can totally make this happen.

So we work some more on the fancy trot and then we move on to canter. The canter is nice and it has contact and DLB seems to feel that this is a pretty decent canter effort on our parts. I feel like there is room for improvement in the canter -- we haven't done much with it yet -- but I am not unhappy with the current state of affairs.

We do some leg-yield. We've been working on being straighter in leg yield and it's coming along. it's a lot harder for Bird than the "pop your shoulder and flail sideways" leg yield efforts of yore, but he's making headway on it. DLB looks at our leg yield efforts in walk and trot and we get a "keep working on this" for those. It's a thumbs-up and also a "could be better"... kind of we are on the right track but not done with the race. Okay. I can live with that. He does better with smaller steps -- the rhythm doesn't die so much and he is better about being balanced with foot placement -- but again, more work to do there.

And then I'm like "Where do we go from here?"

This is not a question DLB likes to hear. It depends on the horse, says DLB, which I get that it does. I really do. If Bird were her horse, she could ride him and feel him and know what he needed to be doing next. It's harder to just look at him and make that assessment, in six-month chunks. But, I don't know what to do next and I have six months to go plug away at something. If it's the wrong thing, I can come back in six months and be like "Okay, this is not working." At four years in, I feel like DLB should trust that I'm not going to bust up the pony. He's going to be fine either way and if it's a thing too hard for him, I will figure it out and adjust the plan accordingly. I am not an idiot. Guidance going forward is helpful for me. I like having a Thing To Work On. If I don't totally understand the thing, that's OK. I will still try to work on it.

So she is all "I would maybe work on canter, like if you're doing like a left lead canter, try scooping with inside leg occasionally, like every fifth stride or so, to see if you can move him out to the right a little. No stress, no big deal, just... see what that does."

Okay. I can do that.

Also more supportive in transitions, with better preparation. I need to be better at planning ahead for the horse to do better at transitions. Nobody likes SURPRISE DOWNWARD TRANSITION OUT OF CANTER. So we will work on that, too.

All in all, it was a fairly productive session with DLB aside from the fact that I am fundamentally unable to fix my own problems and have to bring in a pro to talk to humans for me. That part sucked.