B and I decided to have me ride Kiki in my regular lesson yesterday. One of the other girls that rides there has her mare in bootcamp with B so she rode with me. Kiki seems to thrive when she has some company and it really worked out in the end. I helped with evening chores a bit so I could feed Kiki before I rode and so we were running behind schedule for our lesson. I brought her in to the indoor hoping to long-line her for a few minutes before I got on (this usually works out any kinks), but she seemed really solid so B suggested I just hop on. She was great! She stood quietly at the mount block and walked off like she had been doing it forever. She was a bit up, so I got her to work trotting around so she could warm up. We did lots of trot/bending work and leg yields at the walk. The lateral work was really hard for her but she started to connect the dots and began moving off my leg...and of course she got loads of praise. Toward the end of our lesson, the next group of riders came in and I felt a pit of dread in my stomach. B asked us to canter around in both directions and I got all worked up before I even started. Kiki was not listening to me as I asked her to leave the other horses and I suspected that she would dive in toward the other horses (she did), but we tried our best. After a couple of failed attempts, we finally got our right lead canter and circled around the arena, phew. The left lead was a disaster and I felt myself falling apart. For the first time B was really hollering at me to get it together. I could feel myself welling up with tears and I told B that I felt defeated. She reminded me of the past hour and all of the positives we had just experienced together, to channel that energy and try again. We did...we finally got a few steps of canter, continued around at a nice trot and B let us end that exercise. We finished up the lesson with some trot work over poles. Kiki made it the whole hour without incident! Hooray!
After I finished up with Kiki I got a chance to talk more with Beth about my lesson. She really helped me to understand why she is pushing me so hard with this horse. She explained that she wants to be sure that I can handle ANYTHING that this horse can offer me, and then she will let us plateau and focus on certain things. I am quite self-analytical and so having this kind of discussion post-lesson (especially a tough one) is really useful for me. I need to figure out a way to go easier on myself and try to focus on the positive moments. After all, it was only a few weeks ago that I was dealing with a wild animal that you couldn't get near with a brush! We have made huge progress, and there are going to be setbacks...
She and I are really bonding these days and I think she loves the attention (not to mention having a job to do). I am daydreaming about showing her in the fall!!!! I am totally in love with this little chestnut mare!
No comments:
Post a Comment