woke up to a bloody 5:15 alarm to enable myself to caffeinate and reluctantly slouch toward a very early lesson on a downright cool, if 97%RH, late summer NC lesson at Wildwood Farm today on Ms. Patronus, the Ultimate Persnickety Arbiter of Whether-I-Am-Getting-It. Or-Not. (At least she is fair and objective and not full of herself such as Phoney Ultimate Arbiters of the Simon Cowell ilk. :-) ) She was gracious and afforded me an early insight -- happily quickly addressed due to Jeannettes pragmatic creativity -- that hanging from the stairs from my right hand for a near minute to stretching my heel down to the floor pretty much temporarily fixes my bodys ornery proclivity to compress my right side. I will not skip doing that at home again. Once *my* straightness was addressed, we went on to my addressing Patronus straightness, invoking all the subtle but necessarily constant attentions and consistencies in making it gently but unfailingly clear precisely what the track is to be and what my expectations are. (God, I do miss Jack. He always just filled in my gaps because he knew what I wanted even if I couldnt articulate it then to save my soul.) Amusingly, perhaps the most educational moment of the morning was when I was trotting Patronus down the long side of the ring managing everything well, and sweat dripped into my eyes. I momentarily shifted the light contact of reins to my left hand to wipe the salt out -- Im right-handed -- and suddenly with no clear guidance defining the way even though my legs and seat had not changed, she veered from my track momentarily. I fixed it in half a second and suddenly all was again well. Jeannettes comment was nice recovery and we never spoke of it again, but for me that was the vivid highlight of our lesson for me today. In general terms, it was a fine lesson and Ms. Patronus ended in a happy frame of mind. She afforded me 90% of the sought transitions when and where requested. Her ears made her attentiveness clear. When things dropped out, I managed to fix them pretty quickly. Theres more but Ive bored the non-riders to tears once again though none have read this far, and doubtless again annoyed advanced riders who likely cannot imagine how anybody can be so thick and clumsy. Id love to show what Ive been learning to Miss Emily Bug.
Posted on: Wed, 10 Sep 2014 19:06:29 +0000