Two days of DLB, survived
Aug. 18th, 2023 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickDLB part 1 and 2 were surprisingly fine.
Maybe I'm over the crying? Maybe I finally have some emotional maturity? Maybe I'm getting used to the fact that a lot of this is going nowhere fast while you wander around lost until it does eventually make sense. Who knows? Not me.
Day 1. Quicker and lighter leg aids for perkier movement. Try not to curl forward, stay up and out of his way and then accept the bigger offer. We did this first in trot and then in canter. OOF that was a lot of loft in the canter. OOF. And yeah, I can repeat it. I know what we're going for. Also gotta have ze loft to have ze skipping. So, I am on board, here.
She used to say "put your (left or right) hip under you" and I couldn't do shit with that because the hips are attached to each other and I don't know how to move just one of them. Very confusing. Now she says "have a vertical alignment, all the parts stacked" and for some reason that works like fucking magic. So, yay. Straightness and verticality from the rider, no tipping forward into a fetal death curl, light light leg aids to encourage loft, and then BE OKAY WHEN THERE IS LOFT. (The loft is kinda lofty. It's a lot. But we... want the loft? So do not *ask* for the loft and then be all "whoa, buddy, not so much". Take the loft and be fucking happy about it.)
And that was the bulk of Day 1. I recall, in the early days of DLB, that I used to bitch that I didn't get to canter. I do not bitch about that now. Now I whine (internally) that super lofty canter is a bit scary and... a lot. But we will get crackin' on the lofty canter project because ain't gonna be no FLC unless we can lofty canter on the regular. You gotta be in the air to flying lead change. FLYING. IN THE AIR, dumbass. Earthbound and forehandy canter is the opposite of helpful, so... lofty canter ahoy.
We also briefly discussed riding tests. I mean, I am willing to take a stab at riding tests, but I am going to be spending half my time looking for H or K or F or something because I do not know or care where those things are and if you start doing shit with V and P and S, well, Game Over. I think DLB tabled the "tests" idea because I literally do not give a fuck about tests. I don't show. I don't want to show. I hate it. I hate being nervous and my horse acts like a bear is riding him because I'm all tense and the whole thing is a fucking expensive shitshow that I do not enjoy.
Repeat after me: This Is Supposed To Be Fun.
Dressage is not my job. I am not trying to produce or sell a dressage horse. I'm not trying to get clients to bring me their horses or take lessons with me. I like learning shit and I like riding my horse and honestly if I never ever walk into a dressage rectangle at a show again I will not feel the least bit sad. So... yeah, tests are not a thing I care about.
Probably she'd get further asking me to put together a couple of things. Like... "okay, come down the long side to the middle and do a 10 meter half circle and then back to the rail via half pass, straighten at the rail, come around to the other side and do it again in a mirror image". That's fine. I can do that. Or she could be like "Okay, ride test 2 of (whatever) and then you can do it for me next time and we'll talk about it." That would be OK too. But cold tests aren't my jam, kthxbye.
I am probably failing at being a dressage clinic student but on the other hand I pay promptly, in cash, and my fucking grubby wad of twenties is as good as anyone else's and better'n some, insofar as my horse understands the work and she feels I'm "very fair" to him and he's comfortable and confident about his job. (Literally she compliments my fairness like six times every time I ride for her, and how careful I am to stay within his abilities at the moment, bein' helpful and supportive and keeping good position and blah blah blah. I am not sure why we need to remark on this, but w/e.)
Day 2. This was an after-work ride (I do have a day job that doesn't really accommodate endless days off to play horse, so I rode super early on day 1 and super late on day 2 and Birb camped out at the lesson barn overnight) and I'd been installing flooring all day so I was not at my best. But y'know, let's set some money on fire over here.
Day 2 we warmed up with a review of Day 1 stuff (which was fine and I could do the things we'd done the day before with far less scaffolding. Sorta-success!) and then we did shoulder-in to haunches-out, in walk and trot. This is not impossible in walk but it's prettier in trot because there's more rhythm for me to work with and he is not as prone to grind to a halt from lack of forward due to rider being... ineffective. DLB likes seeing this stuff in walk because it one hundred percent will show your confusion, moments of cluelessness, etc. ALL THE FLAWS. We got compliments on the steadiness and smoothness of the transitions between shapes, but this really did feel like known-material. We don't normally drill the transitions between shapes but he does know all his shapes and he can flow between them fairly nicely as long as rider (a) maintains focus and (b) keeps the forward from dying. I expect if I worked on these, they'd be even better. I worked on the ones from last DLB and they're lovely and so obvi this DLB she wanted to see different ones. FML. I had no idea DLB wanted them as *a thing*. Shit, if she'd be "Hey, next time I want to see you transition between shapes, particular focus on.... " I would go do that. But no. It's always SURPISE stuff. I do not like surprises.
So with that done, she was "okay, so go back to walk and get him straight. More straight. Absolutely straight. And sit up. And leg-leg, as per the thematic directive of this DLB visit. And up. Like you want him to walk in place." and we continue a bit in this vein until I'm thinking "What the fuck are you going for, DLB?" 'cause at this point Birb is about as crunched up as he can be, trucking on politely and organizedly in a damn deliberate, considered, effortful walk. It is the thing that we do at home as "Pretty Little Walk" in that it is pretty and it is little and it is a walk. (There is also a Pretty Little Trot that is absolutely nothing like a "jog" and two laps of the work area in Pretty Little Trot will have Birb blowing red even though he's not moving fast. I haven't managed trot-in-place yet but it's on the agenda. Kinda wondering what might happen if I keep trying to crunch up PLT.)
And DLB is "Yay! Collected walk! So nice!"
I was significantly less impressed about this than I guess she expected me to be. Oh, well. Thing is, DLB should use her words more. If she had said something along the lines of "I'm curious as to how much you have in the walk. Could you ... make the walk smaller and also very lifty and as engaged as you can? Show me whatcha got along those lines." -- that would have saved us all a lot of trouble. I have enough dressage fu (and she knows I do) to understand what a statement like that would be expecting me to produce and I'd have handed our ... conception of it the fuck over.
Bird knows how to do Pretty Little Walk and he can do it fairly consistently as long as we are both on the same page with the ask. Arriving at PLW by following DLB directives isn't quite the same as doing PLW by just... doing PLW. (It felt kind of like trying to drive while blindfolded with someone in the passenger seat telling you how much to turn the wheel or whatever. In theory, this can work, but maybe just take off the fucking blindfold and let me see the road ahead?) It would have been a lot faster to just ask me to show what I had there and then, if needed, troubleshoot that.
Anyway, following my kinda lackluster "yep" (It'd been a long day at work and I have trouble faking enthusiasm at the best of times and generally don't even bother trying when I'm tired) to her "Did you feel that?" she was a bit deflated and was "Okay, so see if you can get it on your own now." And so I was "Birb, PLW." And Birb was "Yep, here ya go." There was no troubleshooting needed. I was "PLW" and Birb was "Ok" and that was that. And DLB was "Wonderful." which I guess is nice, but this isn't a new thing, DLB. We have this thing. This is Pretty Little Walk, a known thing we can do. And I have sort of suspected that "Pretty Little Walk" maps neatly onto "Collected Walk" or at least "our best effort of what I think collected walk might actually be in the event that we aren't quite there yet."
(I am very slow to assume or state in public that we can actually do real dressage things for real because the internet dressage world, which is full of assholes, is very Collected Walk Is Super Hard and there is NO WAY you and your dumb ass horse can do it for real without A SCHOOLMASTER and A TRAINER and blah blah blah. You're probably just hauling on his face or some shit." Fwiw, I am not hauling on his face. Arab. You literally cannot haul on his face, he will flip his head straight up in the air if you do that. Hauling on his face is never the answer and it's always fucking counterproductive. No face-hauling. I am sitting ramrod straight BUT LIGHT (if you sit heavy he won't lift his back) and holding a bit in my hips so he doesn't get big and leg-leg in the "pick up with your abs" tapping way that doesn't mean "go forward" and I got the reins to say, no no, dude, not faster. Uppier. (This is a very subtle rein thing. It is not obvious to observers.) And so forth. It's the recipe for PLW, like you do the things for PLW and then when he's PLW-ing, you let him get on with it, buffing the areas what might be flagging as you go.)
I told DLB that we also had Pretty Little Trot, if she wanted to see that. (She didn't. "I know you have that, we've seen it before. I was checking for how you guys were in the walk.")
DLB doesn't like to say stuff like "Show me your best guess of a collected walk" because she does not want to run into any of the following situations...
(a) I have no idea how to do that
(b) I might do it wrong and fuck up the walk beyond repair or
(c) we might not have that option on the menu at all
I get that DLB doesn't want to overface us with the ask because she wants a super encouraging and supportive activity for everybody. I think she reads the "Oh, look, you can Do A Thing, Surprise!" approach as less... emotionally risky for the rider.
But she's seen us for eight fucking years of progress, here. I've had the same horse FOR EIGHT YEARS and I am still riding him and he still hasn't exploded with his acre of neurotic Arab feelings and we are progressing slowly onward in a reasonably-OK way and I have never, not once, sent him off to a trainer to be "fixed". He's entirely my own work, by me, and he keeps getting better at this shit WHILE NOT BEING BRAIN FRIED OR TEETH GRITTY OR TAIL SWISHY OR OTHERWISE UNHAPPY. I feel like at this point she should trust us a little with the asks and our -- his and mine -- emotional state during the process. We had this do-the-mystery-thing experience also with half pass. *sigh* I do not love it.
DLB, it is OK to ask me to do things when you are not sure whether or not I will be able to do them. Sometimes you have to evaluate where we are because YOU DO NOT KNOW where we are especially when it's a new thing for you to ask us about. and that's OK. Also, when you ask us to do things that we can do all of, that is not super helpful except in a demonstrating where we are sort of way. It doesn't give me a ton to go home and play with.
Anyway then we got "Collected walk is very hard for your horse so be sure not to do too much of it too often." Yes, I know. (I did not say that but I totally thought it and I am certain it showed on my face like the rest of my damn thoughts. *sigh*)
I've had worse DLBs, this one wasn't terrible. And I have useful things to work on, so that's good.
I'm going up to see DLC again at the end of August, kinda looking forward to that as well. Bird likes the footing in that indoor and I would like DLC to see my horse without an acre of fur covering him. I missed the earlier-summer DLC because no trailer but now that I have a trailer... Money on fire everywhere. :)
Maybe I'm over the crying? Maybe I finally have some emotional maturity? Maybe I'm getting used to the fact that a lot of this is going nowhere fast while you wander around lost until it does eventually make sense. Who knows? Not me.
Day 1. Quicker and lighter leg aids for perkier movement. Try not to curl forward, stay up and out of his way and then accept the bigger offer. We did this first in trot and then in canter. OOF that was a lot of loft in the canter. OOF. And yeah, I can repeat it. I know what we're going for. Also gotta have ze loft to have ze skipping. So, I am on board, here.
She used to say "put your (left or right) hip under you" and I couldn't do shit with that because the hips are attached to each other and I don't know how to move just one of them. Very confusing. Now she says "have a vertical alignment, all the parts stacked" and for some reason that works like fucking magic. So, yay. Straightness and verticality from the rider, no tipping forward into a fetal death curl, light light leg aids to encourage loft, and then BE OKAY WHEN THERE IS LOFT. (The loft is kinda lofty. It's a lot. But we... want the loft? So do not *ask* for the loft and then be all "whoa, buddy, not so much". Take the loft and be fucking happy about it.)
And that was the bulk of Day 1. I recall, in the early days of DLB, that I used to bitch that I didn't get to canter. I do not bitch about that now. Now I whine (internally) that super lofty canter is a bit scary and... a lot. But we will get crackin' on the lofty canter project because ain't gonna be no FLC unless we can lofty canter on the regular. You gotta be in the air to flying lead change. FLYING. IN THE AIR, dumbass. Earthbound and forehandy canter is the opposite of helpful, so... lofty canter ahoy.
We also briefly discussed riding tests. I mean, I am willing to take a stab at riding tests, but I am going to be spending half my time looking for H or K or F or something because I do not know or care where those things are and if you start doing shit with V and P and S, well, Game Over. I think DLB tabled the "tests" idea because I literally do not give a fuck about tests. I don't show. I don't want to show. I hate it. I hate being nervous and my horse acts like a bear is riding him because I'm all tense and the whole thing is a fucking expensive shitshow that I do not enjoy.
Repeat after me: This Is Supposed To Be Fun.
Dressage is not my job. I am not trying to produce or sell a dressage horse. I'm not trying to get clients to bring me their horses or take lessons with me. I like learning shit and I like riding my horse and honestly if I never ever walk into a dressage rectangle at a show again I will not feel the least bit sad. So... yeah, tests are not a thing I care about.
Probably she'd get further asking me to put together a couple of things. Like... "okay, come down the long side to the middle and do a 10 meter half circle and then back to the rail via half pass, straighten at the rail, come around to the other side and do it again in a mirror image". That's fine. I can do that. Or she could be like "Okay, ride test 2 of (whatever) and then you can do it for me next time and we'll talk about it." That would be OK too. But cold tests aren't my jam, kthxbye.
I am probably failing at being a dressage clinic student but on the other hand I pay promptly, in cash, and my fucking grubby wad of twenties is as good as anyone else's and better'n some, insofar as my horse understands the work and she feels I'm "very fair" to him and he's comfortable and confident about his job. (Literally she compliments my fairness like six times every time I ride for her, and how careful I am to stay within his abilities at the moment, bein' helpful and supportive and keeping good position and blah blah blah. I am not sure why we need to remark on this, but w/e.)
Day 2. This was an after-work ride (I do have a day job that doesn't really accommodate endless days off to play horse, so I rode super early on day 1 and super late on day 2 and Birb camped out at the lesson barn overnight) and I'd been installing flooring all day so I was not at my best. But y'know, let's set some money on fire over here.
Day 2 we warmed up with a review of Day 1 stuff (which was fine and I could do the things we'd done the day before with far less scaffolding. Sorta-success!) and then we did shoulder-in to haunches-out, in walk and trot. This is not impossible in walk but it's prettier in trot because there's more rhythm for me to work with and he is not as prone to grind to a halt from lack of forward due to rider being... ineffective. DLB likes seeing this stuff in walk because it one hundred percent will show your confusion, moments of cluelessness, etc. ALL THE FLAWS. We got compliments on the steadiness and smoothness of the transitions between shapes, but this really did feel like known-material. We don't normally drill the transitions between shapes but he does know all his shapes and he can flow between them fairly nicely as long as rider (a) maintains focus and (b) keeps the forward from dying. I expect if I worked on these, they'd be even better. I worked on the ones from last DLB and they're lovely and so obvi this DLB she wanted to see different ones. FML. I had no idea DLB wanted them as *a thing*. Shit, if she'd be "Hey, next time I want to see you transition between shapes, particular focus on.... " I would go do that. But no. It's always SURPISE stuff. I do not like surprises.
So with that done, she was "okay, so go back to walk and get him straight. More straight. Absolutely straight. And sit up. And leg-leg, as per the thematic directive of this DLB visit. And up. Like you want him to walk in place." and we continue a bit in this vein until I'm thinking "What the fuck are you going for, DLB?" 'cause at this point Birb is about as crunched up as he can be, trucking on politely and organizedly in a damn deliberate, considered, effortful walk. It is the thing that we do at home as "Pretty Little Walk" in that it is pretty and it is little and it is a walk. (There is also a Pretty Little Trot that is absolutely nothing like a "jog" and two laps of the work area in Pretty Little Trot will have Birb blowing red even though he's not moving fast. I haven't managed trot-in-place yet but it's on the agenda. Kinda wondering what might happen if I keep trying to crunch up PLT.)
And DLB is "Yay! Collected walk! So nice!"
I was significantly less impressed about this than I guess she expected me to be. Oh, well. Thing is, DLB should use her words more. If she had said something along the lines of "I'm curious as to how much you have in the walk. Could you ... make the walk smaller and also very lifty and as engaged as you can? Show me whatcha got along those lines." -- that would have saved us all a lot of trouble. I have enough dressage fu (and she knows I do) to understand what a statement like that would be expecting me to produce and I'd have handed our ... conception of it the fuck over.
Bird knows how to do Pretty Little Walk and he can do it fairly consistently as long as we are both on the same page with the ask. Arriving at PLW by following DLB directives isn't quite the same as doing PLW by just... doing PLW. (It felt kind of like trying to drive while blindfolded with someone in the passenger seat telling you how much to turn the wheel or whatever. In theory, this can work, but maybe just take off the fucking blindfold and let me see the road ahead?) It would have been a lot faster to just ask me to show what I had there and then, if needed, troubleshoot that.
Anyway, following my kinda lackluster "yep" (It'd been a long day at work and I have trouble faking enthusiasm at the best of times and generally don't even bother trying when I'm tired) to her "Did you feel that?" she was a bit deflated and was "Okay, so see if you can get it on your own now." And so I was "Birb, PLW." And Birb was "Yep, here ya go." There was no troubleshooting needed. I was "PLW" and Birb was "Ok" and that was that. And DLB was "Wonderful." which I guess is nice, but this isn't a new thing, DLB. We have this thing. This is Pretty Little Walk, a known thing we can do. And I have sort of suspected that "Pretty Little Walk" maps neatly onto "Collected Walk" or at least "our best effort of what I think collected walk might actually be in the event that we aren't quite there yet."
(I am very slow to assume or state in public that we can actually do real dressage things for real because the internet dressage world, which is full of assholes, is very Collected Walk Is Super Hard and there is NO WAY you and your dumb ass horse can do it for real without A SCHOOLMASTER and A TRAINER and blah blah blah. You're probably just hauling on his face or some shit." Fwiw, I am not hauling on his face. Arab. You literally cannot haul on his face, he will flip his head straight up in the air if you do that. Hauling on his face is never the answer and it's always fucking counterproductive. No face-hauling. I am sitting ramrod straight BUT LIGHT (if you sit heavy he won't lift his back) and holding a bit in my hips so he doesn't get big and leg-leg in the "pick up with your abs" tapping way that doesn't mean "go forward" and I got the reins to say, no no, dude, not faster. Uppier. (This is a very subtle rein thing. It is not obvious to observers.) And so forth. It's the recipe for PLW, like you do the things for PLW and then when he's PLW-ing, you let him get on with it, buffing the areas what might be flagging as you go.)
I told DLB that we also had Pretty Little Trot, if she wanted to see that. (She didn't. "I know you have that, we've seen it before. I was checking for how you guys were in the walk.")
DLB doesn't like to say stuff like "Show me your best guess of a collected walk" because she does not want to run into any of the following situations...
(a) I have no idea how to do that
(b) I might do it wrong and fuck up the walk beyond repair or
(c) we might not have that option on the menu at all
I get that DLB doesn't want to overface us with the ask because she wants a super encouraging and supportive activity for everybody. I think she reads the "Oh, look, you can Do A Thing, Surprise!" approach as less... emotionally risky for the rider.
But she's seen us for eight fucking years of progress, here. I've had the same horse FOR EIGHT YEARS and I am still riding him and he still hasn't exploded with his acre of neurotic Arab feelings and we are progressing slowly onward in a reasonably-OK way and I have never, not once, sent him off to a trainer to be "fixed". He's entirely my own work, by me, and he keeps getting better at this shit WHILE NOT BEING BRAIN FRIED OR TEETH GRITTY OR TAIL SWISHY OR OTHERWISE UNHAPPY. I feel like at this point she should trust us a little with the asks and our -- his and mine -- emotional state during the process. We had this do-the-mystery-thing experience also with half pass. *sigh* I do not love it.
DLB, it is OK to ask me to do things when you are not sure whether or not I will be able to do them. Sometimes you have to evaluate where we are because YOU DO NOT KNOW where we are especially when it's a new thing for you to ask us about. and that's OK. Also, when you ask us to do things that we can do all of, that is not super helpful except in a demonstrating where we are sort of way. It doesn't give me a ton to go home and play with.
Anyway then we got "Collected walk is very hard for your horse so be sure not to do too much of it too often." Yes, I know. (I did not say that but I totally thought it and I am certain it showed on my face like the rest of my damn thoughts. *sigh*)
I've had worse DLBs, this one wasn't terrible. And I have useful things to work on, so that's good.
I'm going up to see DLC again at the end of August, kinda looking forward to that as well. Bird likes the footing in that indoor and I would like DLC to see my horse without an acre of fur covering him. I missed the earlier-summer DLC because no trailer but now that I have a trailer... Money on fire everywhere. :)
