June DLB day one
Jun. 20th, 2024 06:43 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
which_chickSo there were two rides before me this morning. I arrived in good time and got some nice video of N's rides on her mare Grace. But, we were a little behind schedule already so I did not start riding until about 20 after 8.
I wrapped my ride a little before 9 which was slightly short (we were doing 45 minute sessions) but on the other hand, we accomplished the things we wanted to accomplish and Bird was mostly out of high end abs, so... there wasn't much point in doing more and I didn't mind giving up a few minutes so that things would run more on schedule as the heat ramped up.
To start with, DLB asked what sorts of things we were working on (recall I don't show and she is a bit confused as to what I'm doing setting money on fire when I have a perfectly rideable horse and no showing aspirations) and I explained that we'd been exploring the range of work available to us in each gait, so... biggening and smallening and so forth.
I also allowed as how Bird had scuffed up his left front a week ago (it was puffy last Saturday and is cooling and unpuffing and generally improving as we get further from whatever fuckery he got into last week but it is still a bit visibly puffy on the outside (wound site) even though the inside (unwounded) is now tight and unpuffy. I note here that he has never limped on it not once, not in-hand, not in a literally tiny trot circle, not with fat assed me aboard making him Trot On in fancy trot. It's merely a flesh wound.
Given the heat and the flesh-woundedness, I didn't want to hammer things in canter and honestly we really need More Practice with that before we have things we can reliably demonstrate on that front. Now that all the hay's been made, I have a Functional Work Area and can start working on that again with serious purpose. But anyway, I did admit to having a fair amount to demo in walk and trot, so DLB was "Great, let's see that!" (She is very enthusiastic and upbeat about whatever people want to work on assuming it's even remotely in the realm of reasonable.)
Also, DLB has a bit of a baseline of watching us play walk and trot games (last year, iirc) and honestly the straightness and enthusiastic pushing required to play walk and trot games is likely going to be helpful for our pursuit of canter-walk transitions, so it can't hurt to get some thoughts on that stuff.
So we did "show me what you have in terms of walk adjustability" and that went well. Like, he has a lot of adjustability now and it's not me faffing about without having any effect on his way of going. Actual visible change, y'know. And then DLB asked to see "make the walk small, then trot from the small walk" which was fine, he can totally do that and she was very happy with it. I'm not sure why that was supposed to be hard, but it was not.
Once we were trotting (from smol walk, so smol trot), she asked me to build that trot, slowly, over several strides, which we did, until it was not small trot but medium-large trot. And she liked that, too. Very pleased with medium-large trot. (He has another gear but it's not as consistent and it gets a little flail-y because this gear just came online and it's not Ready for Prime Time yet. Needs more balance and straightness, more strength, y'know, the usual. Right now, medium-large trot is steady and consistent, so it's "Correct Work Within Our Capabilities". DLB likes to see Correct Work Within Capabilities rather than inconsistent or slightly flail-y Bleeding Edge Work. I think sometimes that you need to explore the Bleeding Edge because that's where you get progress, but I guess you could also get progress from Doing Correct Work Within Capabilities, just more of it. I don't do a lot of Bleeding Edge work, most of the time we revisit known work and keep on tryina polish that turd. But sometimes I like to check out the Bleeding Edge to see what we might be able to do someday.)
In pursuit of walk and trot games, DLB gave me some minor positional adjustments (left hand tends to straighten elbow, right hand wants to drift out to the side, hips need to follow, try not to get left leg short and "stuck", important to have relaxed thighs/seat when asking for smol trot so that it is less... rigid and more... fluid?) but also I got compliments on fairness and appropriateness of aids, setting horse up for success, ability to judge amount of work the horse can do, quietness and granularity of aids, able to fix things sort of without making huge changes, etc. The positional adjustments make a small but noticable difference in how Bird goes, and if I can get most of them working most of the time, we'll have a visible improvement that casual observers can see.
Anyway, it takes a fair amount of abs for Birb to do smol trot on the long side, like three long sides, he was kind of abbed out and needed a break so we did lateral work in walk (this sounds like it would be more abs than smol trot but smol trot is very, very effortful and honestly some shoulder-in up the long side in a reasonably assembled walk is a bit of a break from that). We did shoulder-in to half pass, looking (in the slow-motion of walk) at the minute and teeny things that need to be adjusted to get it from a reasonably-OK half pass to a BETTER half pass. Like it's not a question of "can we do the thing" (we totally can) but now it's "can we make this kinda-OK thing nicer" and that's a step forward. You gotta have some sort of recognizable thing going on, repeatable and sorta consistent, in order to start making it nicer. So, progress?
Under the dreadful magnifying glass that is lateral work at the walk, I got some good things to work on, including "Your half pass to the left sucks because you're an idiot who sits entirely on the right seat bone and if you could just sit more level, things would improve. Why don't you try that a bit?" This is honestly a super helpful thing to know, so... noted. DLB said it a lot nicer, though. I'm paraphrasing.
And that was our day. Birb is camping out at the lesson barn overnight and I'm taking Friday off work so that I can audit some rides and do lunch. My lunch covered dish is choux pastry mini-puffs (they're like two bites size) with vanilla creme pat filling and black raspberry glop topping.
Yes of course I made my own choux pastry from scratch. Doesn't everyone?
I also made my own vanilla creme pat because it's dead fucking easy and what else was I going to do, buy a box of vanilla Jell-O pudding? We all know that's a damn empty threat.
And obviously I am using organic, locally-grown (lol) black raspberries which I picked this afternoon from my canes and am making into my own private glop topping using my own private recipe.
My god, I'm fucking insufferable. What the fuck is wrong with me that I can't get a box of assorted doughnuts from the Dunkin like normal people?
But on the plus side, there will be lovely mini-puffs with pastry cream and fruit. On some level, that's winning.
(My truck has outstanding air conditioning. Also, there is a fridge at the lesson barn. We are doing the luncheon at instructor's house, two miles away from lesson barn. There is not any danger of food-borne illness from creme pat sitting out all day in 90F heat. I would not do that to people.)
I wrapped my ride a little before 9 which was slightly short (we were doing 45 minute sessions) but on the other hand, we accomplished the things we wanted to accomplish and Bird was mostly out of high end abs, so... there wasn't much point in doing more and I didn't mind giving up a few minutes so that things would run more on schedule as the heat ramped up.
To start with, DLB asked what sorts of things we were working on (recall I don't show and she is a bit confused as to what I'm doing setting money on fire when I have a perfectly rideable horse and no showing aspirations) and I explained that we'd been exploring the range of work available to us in each gait, so... biggening and smallening and so forth.
I also allowed as how Bird had scuffed up his left front a week ago (it was puffy last Saturday and is cooling and unpuffing and generally improving as we get further from whatever fuckery he got into last week but it is still a bit visibly puffy on the outside (wound site) even though the inside (unwounded) is now tight and unpuffy. I note here that he has never limped on it not once, not in-hand, not in a literally tiny trot circle, not with fat assed me aboard making him Trot On in fancy trot. It's merely a flesh wound.
Given the heat and the flesh-woundedness, I didn't want to hammer things in canter and honestly we really need More Practice with that before we have things we can reliably demonstrate on that front. Now that all the hay's been made, I have a Functional Work Area and can start working on that again with serious purpose. But anyway, I did admit to having a fair amount to demo in walk and trot, so DLB was "Great, let's see that!" (She is very enthusiastic and upbeat about whatever people want to work on assuming it's even remotely in the realm of reasonable.)
Also, DLB has a bit of a baseline of watching us play walk and trot games (last year, iirc) and honestly the straightness and enthusiastic pushing required to play walk and trot games is likely going to be helpful for our pursuit of canter-walk transitions, so it can't hurt to get some thoughts on that stuff.
So we did "show me what you have in terms of walk adjustability" and that went well. Like, he has a lot of adjustability now and it's not me faffing about without having any effect on his way of going. Actual visible change, y'know. And then DLB asked to see "make the walk small, then trot from the small walk" which was fine, he can totally do that and she was very happy with it. I'm not sure why that was supposed to be hard, but it was not.
Once we were trotting (from smol walk, so smol trot), she asked me to build that trot, slowly, over several strides, which we did, until it was not small trot but medium-large trot. And she liked that, too. Very pleased with medium-large trot. (He has another gear but it's not as consistent and it gets a little flail-y because this gear just came online and it's not Ready for Prime Time yet. Needs more balance and straightness, more strength, y'know, the usual. Right now, medium-large trot is steady and consistent, so it's "Correct Work Within Our Capabilities". DLB likes to see Correct Work Within Capabilities rather than inconsistent or slightly flail-y Bleeding Edge Work. I think sometimes that you need to explore the Bleeding Edge because that's where you get progress, but I guess you could also get progress from Doing Correct Work Within Capabilities, just more of it. I don't do a lot of Bleeding Edge work, most of the time we revisit known work and keep on tryina polish that turd. But sometimes I like to check out the Bleeding Edge to see what we might be able to do someday.)
In pursuit of walk and trot games, DLB gave me some minor positional adjustments (left hand tends to straighten elbow, right hand wants to drift out to the side, hips need to follow, try not to get left leg short and "stuck", important to have relaxed thighs/seat when asking for smol trot so that it is less... rigid and more... fluid?) but also I got compliments on fairness and appropriateness of aids, setting horse up for success, ability to judge amount of work the horse can do, quietness and granularity of aids, able to fix things sort of without making huge changes, etc. The positional adjustments make a small but noticable difference in how Bird goes, and if I can get most of them working most of the time, we'll have a visible improvement that casual observers can see.
Anyway, it takes a fair amount of abs for Birb to do smol trot on the long side, like three long sides, he was kind of abbed out and needed a break so we did lateral work in walk (this sounds like it would be more abs than smol trot but smol trot is very, very effortful and honestly some shoulder-in up the long side in a reasonably assembled walk is a bit of a break from that). We did shoulder-in to half pass, looking (in the slow-motion of walk) at the minute and teeny things that need to be adjusted to get it from a reasonably-OK half pass to a BETTER half pass. Like it's not a question of "can we do the thing" (we totally can) but now it's "can we make this kinda-OK thing nicer" and that's a step forward. You gotta have some sort of recognizable thing going on, repeatable and sorta consistent, in order to start making it nicer. So, progress?
Under the dreadful magnifying glass that is lateral work at the walk, I got some good things to work on, including "Your half pass to the left sucks because you're an idiot who sits entirely on the right seat bone and if you could just sit more level, things would improve. Why don't you try that a bit?" This is honestly a super helpful thing to know, so... noted. DLB said it a lot nicer, though. I'm paraphrasing.
And that was our day. Birb is camping out at the lesson barn overnight and I'm taking Friday off work so that I can audit some rides and do lunch. My lunch covered dish is choux pastry mini-puffs (they're like two bites size) with vanilla creme pat filling and black raspberry glop topping.
Yes of course I made my own choux pastry from scratch. Doesn't everyone?
I also made my own vanilla creme pat because it's dead fucking easy and what else was I going to do, buy a box of vanilla Jell-O pudding? We all know that's a damn empty threat.
And obviously I am using organic, locally-grown (lol) black raspberries which I picked this afternoon from my canes and am making into my own private glop topping using my own private recipe.
My god, I'm fucking insufferable. What the fuck is wrong with me that I can't get a box of assorted doughnuts from the Dunkin like normal people?
But on the plus side, there will be lovely mini-puffs with pastry cream and fruit. On some level, that's winning.
(My truck has outstanding air conditioning. Also, there is a fridge at the lesson barn. We are doing the luncheon at instructor's house, two miles away from lesson barn. There is not any danger of food-borne illness from creme pat sitting out all day in 90F heat. I would not do that to people.)
no subject
Date: 2024-06-21 06:12 am (UTC)While I'm not really knowledgeable enough about the intricacies of dressage to say much about it (my partner would be, but I am not), I have encountered the "why are you doing this if [xyz] isn't your goal?" sort of thing.
And man, that makes me really miss the black raspberries that planted themselves in the back yard of the house I grew up in. So good.
no subject
Date: 2024-06-21 11:29 pm (UTC)I've taken two and a half pounds of raspberries off the canes thus far and we're about halfway through the reasonable harvest season. I am... not awash in raspberries, but I'm definitely having to rearrange the freezer a little. It's a good problem to have.
no subject
Date: 2024-06-22 04:59 am (UTC)That is an excellent problem to have!
no subject
Date: 2024-06-23 10:00 pm (UTC)