Don't overthink it Curmudgeon. Eat Less. Feel more.

It is winter here in Canada.

You know that that means. We buy skis, snoeshoes, and trendy puffer jackets with saucy hoods and cuffs trimmed in silky cat fur harvested in China.

The really moronic among us who are doing our best to deny climate change in Southwestern Ontario spend upwards of $10,000 on a snowmobile and accompanying insurance and trail pass. All for the opportunity to spend 6 hours driving to Sudbury a few times a year to get the chance to actually use the smelly thing, thereby justifying our crazy expenditure.

Motard is ...CANADIAN! (but that is actually my sled).

But what it actually means is - although we put a brave face on regarding the horrific climate in which we live, what we really spend most January days doing is dreaming of getting on a plane and escaping this slush coated hellhole and going somewhere else. Somewhere WARM.  To lie on a beach and work on our skin cancer.

The one good thing about snowmobiling is that you get to wear a lot of bulky clothes and no one notices the size of your ass.  The bad thing about going someplace warm is that you don't, and everyone does.

Now, I am sure we can all agree that one of the funnest experiences of being a few pounds overweight is going out to dinner with a 5'11", willowy twig-like ectomorph of a buddy, who, while scraping the last traces of whipped cream off of her dessert plate, (as you finish up your water with lemon) announces:

Seriously Curmudgeon - I think that a rider with a reasonable amount of "feel" probably does not need to focus on the horse's legs to this degree.

As though it had never occurred to you that the easiest way to look smoking hot in a bikini is to not worry about calories, or exercise, or any of the other tedious methods that may have been suggested to you to achieve our unrealistic culturally defined version of hotness.  

The best way to look hot in a bikini is to be born with the genetic ability to ...uhh... look hot in a bikini. 

Oh - wait a minute.  I am getting my blogs all mixed up here, aren't I. That is a passage from my other blog, "short-ass, sawed off and hammered down Curmudgeon who must watch everything she eats, especially since she is now over 40 and her metabolism is on some sort of crazy hard-core work to rule that any Ontario elementary teacher would envy"

What do you say to a rider who just isn't FEELin' it?  Saying "you just have to learn to feel when to apply the aids" is like saying to an overweigh person "you just have to eat less".  

Why yes, of course. Great tip. How does my fork FEEL in your eye?

(The hunter equivalent of this is of course the naturally gifted rider who says "Did you even look for your spot there? It was right there!  Didn't you SEE your spot?  Just ride your horse forward to your spot. The five strides will come naturally once you get your spot to the first jump!)

The problem with being human is - sometimes we just aren't endowed with the genetic potential to "JUST DO IT".  So fuck off, Nike.

Unfortunately, I was blessed with neither the ability to look effortlessly hot in a bikini, nor feel the precise moment to apply a perfect aid.  

However, the good news is - these things can be learned. Being a rider with "feel" is not a secret club you can't get into.  Don't despair. 

By following the concepts learned during too many years studying nutrition, and running an insane amount of kilometers per week, I now understand how not to morph into a shapeless roll-laden Sharpei dog, and it is such second nature that it takes very little thought or effort - it is part of my daily routine, and now comes naturally to me.  

And - likewise - by spending time learning where my horse's feet were once upon a time, way back when...and playing around to see how my aids affected them at different points in my horse's gait - knowing when to apply an aid now comes fairly naturally to me.  I don't have to put a lot of thought into when to ask to get the effect I want.  I have learned FEEL.  It did not come naturally to me.

Had I not done this - and had I just ridden around waiting for FEEL to strike me like lightning - the process would have been much more frustrating. I would suggest if you are waiting for this lightning - what the hell. You might want to give the footfalls thing a try. 

(If FEEL does come naturally to you - well, aren't you fucking special.  Where is my fork...)

We probably all have had different moments when we were struck by the fact that something was horribly wrong with the timing of our aids.  For me - the biggest revelation that perhaps there was room for improvement was in the walk-canter transition. 

(Which of course is one of those transitions where your hunter friends scoff at you "...Oh Curmudgeon!  We ALWAYS canter from the walk.  It is EASY!"

No. No you don't.  And no, no it isn't at first. Hunters typically canter from one or two strides of trot, shoved between the walk and canter. (Which is why the "simple change of lead through walk" cannot be faked by a hunter rider trying to show second level)).  

A dressage walk-canter transition happens in one, beautiful light step, and a good one is really one of my favourite things about dressage - so simple, so smooth, when done correctly. 

The problem is - as your horse is walking along..one (inside hind) -two (inside fore) -three (outside hind) -four (inside fore), one-two-three-four, one-two-three-four... there is only one moment when the outside hind foot is about to take its turn in sequence - and that is the moment when you can step into a perfect, light canter.  

If you ask at any other time - the horse physically has no option but to wait for his legs to catch up with your request. It might happen...but it will take a second.  

If you are an inexperienced rider with no feel, as was I, that second feels really long.  You start to worry. Oh my god. This can't be right. I am not getting an "instantaneous reaction to my aids".  Why isn't anything happening?  I am asking for canter...giddyup there, Paddy...

And so, my obvious solution was to dig in my heel and apply the aid even harder. That always works, right?

Well, no. Since Paddy had a good haunches-in button installed, this harder aid by outside leg slightly behind the girth meant - haunches-in.  So now I had a crooked horse, unsure as to whether to canter, or crab-step down the longside, or just get pissed off and do absolutely nothing. 

My GOD.  Seriously. It took me a pathetically long time to figure this out.  Poor, poor Paddy.  (May you RIP in horse heaven, where no stupid women are messing with your mind giving you horrid canter aids).  

The worst part is that 25% of the time, entirely by chance - I asked for canter at precisely the right moment and of course thought I was finally doing something right. In fact, I was really just spinning the roulette wheel of legs. YES!  Numbah THREE!  Winna - Winna - Winna (horse steps off in a perfect canter transition).  This only made things even more confusing.  

So, what was my eventual solution to the problem...since FEEL was apparently not one of my wins in the genetic lottery? I needed to develop some little trick to follow, until feel..uh..felt natural. So, for me (and you will have to develop your own plan here, but this is how my brain worked...) the thought process was...

If we count inside hind as #1...inside fore #2....the magic moment of the outside hind stepping into a beautiful, light canter is #3.  So..watch for outside shoulder to move forward - that would be #4 , the end of a given cycle - then get ready to ask in the next cycle.  

I would count...

#1 (AND...get organized..) - #2 (NOW - my leg is in position ready to give aid) - #3 (CANTER...give the aid)

One might argue that really, I still haven't fully figured this out, as I admittedly ride tempi changes very poorly and the same sort of thought process is involved...but any timing errors are even more  screamingly evident.  At least for walk-canter transitions, if you apply the aid at the wrong time but just hang out patiently waiting, a good horse will step into canter when his legs catch up with your request and onlookers may be none the wiser that you really don't know what you are doing.  

When doing 4-tempis (generally agreed to be the most difficult, believe it or not) - incorrectly timed aids give you some mess of a zig-zagging 4-4-3-4-3 count, likely with a late change or two thrown into the mix as your poor horse counts out 1-2-3-W...1-2-3-T...1-2-3-F... along with you.  

Yah, in this case...onlookers will realize you are a bit out of your league.  Just ask me how I know. 

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