Read - Execute - Totally fuck up. Welcome to self taught dressage

So what were these things that a 3 year old horse was so eager to perform that I was able to label her as an "overachiever" even at this young age?

Go. Stop. Turn.

Really, what else do you do with a 3 year old?

Well, actually - I should be more specific.  Because being horseless, I have been riding an assorted mixed bag of loaner horses these days and during this process, have been reminded that really these things can only be easily defined on a "macro" level (i.e. if horse is no longer moving = stop.  Horse moves = go). 

Once you get a little more granular in your evaluation (throwing that buzz word in there just for the office dwellers... don't you hate when your boss says "granular"?  It always makes me think of sugar, then I get hungry.  Or I start dreaming of being on a sandy beach) you quickly realize that there are fifty shades of go and stop.  And maybe 150 shades of turn. And people out there who think none of these 250 shades of anything are required to execute a course of fences, which amazes the living hell out of me, and is the main reason that I always tell people "I LOVE perfecting flatwork!" when they suggest I try jumping their horses. 

(They probably think it is because I am old and frightened.  I am good with that). 

What I was deathly afraid of back in the day was screwing up GO with Ms. V- since this was the fundemental issue with the Platypus (who on very good days still gave the equine equivalent of sigh/eyeroll before GOing), and also with most horses I had observed at clinics etc .  Right from the first time I climbed aboard, I was very commited to this idea of - put your leg on, horse goes forward immediately.  If they don't - rain of hellfire until they do, followed by petting and other niceties to cement the correct reaction in the noggin.

I also really wanted my horse to have that kicksled / skateboard quality that Kyra talks about in her book - i.e. once the horse does GO, you back off and let them cruise along, you don't keep nag-jab-kicking just for the hell of it.  When horse is not going forward enough for your liking - leg on and GO again, then ease off on the aids.

And, with these two ideas in my head - instantaneous go, followed by release of the aids - I proceeded to merrily instill an incredibly irriating habit in Ms. V, that somewhere down the road would require much work to undo. What was not entirely clear to me when reading about how to teach this kick-sled phenomenon was the fact that YES, you stop kicking.  NO you do not remove all traces of the aid from the horse and leave your leg sort of hovering on her side , such that once you do touch her again with your calf you surprise the hell out of her and she blasts forward as if shot out of a cannon.  Especially if she is an overachiever.

This happens all the time in life - people really and truly think they are doing the right thing, but instead, they are driving off on some crazy tangent and just making life more difficult for themselves.  The brain is always willing to fool us. It is the reason I still sing the lyrics "I'm hot, chicken feet, from my head to my feet" to myself when I hear the song Pour Some Sugar on Me. No matter how hard I try to stop. It seemed to make sense at the time, however in retrospect, is so totally ridiculous. How could I have thought this was correct?  Why would someone have rhymed "feet" with "feet".  Or sang a hard rockin' tune about Dim Sum?  Come on, Curmudgeon.

Yaaah!  Sing it, Joe Elliot!

And nowhere is this more true than in self-taught dressage.  The slogan for self-taught dressage should be ...Read it in a book - execute incorrectly on your horse - fuck up totally. 

As I am sure you can imagine, this same approach of - apply aid and back off when horse responds - can also make a real mess of a horse's steady contact.  There is a fine line between "softening" the contact and "dumping" the contact all together.  And when you are riding an overachiever, it takes only a very few corrections to create a horse that shoots forward like a rocket when you put the leg on, and assumes what feels like a nice light contact in the mouth when you even touch the reins, creating a lovely eye pleasing picture of a big forward trot and a lovely headset...without actually being "on the aids" at all. We were superstars in my mind.  Was that easy, or what?

I did get some glimpses of issues still to come, but of course at this point, when the "big stuff" seems to be going so well, the small things don't seem particularly relevant. 

The first one was - riding Ms. V was a bit like learning to drive standard. (Please don't say "hmm, I never learned to drive standard, I can't relate to that one at all". Women who can't drive standard are an embarrasment to the species. Do me a favour and humour me...just lie and pretend you can, and hope no one ever calls you on it like George Costanza on the Marine Biologist episode). 

The Curmudgeon family learner vehicle.  Three kids - three clutches

Remember how you would give the car too much gas and let go of the clutch and the car would jettison forward and burn rubber?  Or, not quite enough and it would do a stuttering jerk-jerk-jerk stall? Yah, that was kind of the feel  you got when riding Ms. V. Aids were all or nothing - you were going, or you were stopping.  And both things happened as suddenly as back when you were learning to drive that car, and getting yelled at by whoever was crazy enough to try to teach you. 

But much like learning to drive standard, once you were in the groove and rolling along- ahhh, it all seemed so easy.  It was just the application of the aids part that was as bit... uh... abrupt.  That will all smooth itself out. Right? 

She was also incapable of standing still - because every twitch / shift / nudge of any part of my body was interpreted to mean GO by the overacheiver.  An actual halt required me to sit absolutely immobile which really is not as easy as it seems to be when you are vegging on the couch.  Of course in that day and age, the absence of a halt was easy to ignore - it didn't stop people from winning Olympic medals, so why would I fret about it here doing walk-trot on my greenie. 

The other thing that was not developing quite like it should was... anyone... anyone... yesss, that's right kids. Two marks for stretchy trot.  But actually, I think the subject of stretchy trot is worthy of an entire rant post all of it's own, so I think I will save it for later.  Suffice it to say - when you can't put your leg steadily on your horse, or take a feel of their mouth - stretchy trot can be a bit of a challenge. However, being a kick-ass master of stretchy trot in and of itself doesn't mean you are doing things right either, smug reader (yah, I know you are out there, acing that double coefficient at training level), so don't get all proud of your peanut rolling downhill horse tripping around on the forehand.

I guess in retrospect, it still was a better place to be in than having a balky 3 year old that had a hissy fit and kicked out at the leg when asked to go forward - Or one with a mouth of iron that yanked me around the arena like the time machine schoolmaster from way back when.  I generally didn't get any negative attitude at all, unless I rode for too long or drilled something more than I should have based on our stage of training, which did sometimes happen. 

We all need to have something to fuck up when starting our first dressage horses. On the grand scheme of things, I think issues that stem from excessive willingness to please were pretty good problems to have. 

Ottawa. It should not be a Double Coefficient.

Aha!  So you see, Curmudgeon - it really is all about temperament. I have said it a million times on bulletin boards. Ms. V's overachiever attitude made her a natural to succeed in dressage. 

Oh surrre it did.

As a barren spinster, I get to witness the exploits of my friends and their children as an impartial observer. I have determined that nothing is a bigger pain in the ass than an overachiever as a child. As a dressage rider, I have learned that this is true for both humans and horses.

It brings to mind a dinner gathering a few years back which included a friend - let's call her Mrs. Momzilla. M'zilla happened to be the proud mother of an overachiever, and on this particular night, she recounted the horrifying tale to us that has now gone down in Curmudgeon folklore as "Ottawa - it is not worth two points".

I forget all of the fine details of this story, but the crux of it was.. this woman's overachieving 4th grader or whatever she was had to write a test on the capitals of Canadian provinces, and the bonus question - the Capital of Canada - was worth *TWO POINTS*.

Here is a tip for you canuck kids - if you get St. John's and Saint John confused - Just remember that "stupid" is spelled with an "S". And Newfies live in Newfoundland. Thus, by using triangulation, we can determine that St. John's spelled with an extra "S" = Newfoundland. It is not politically correct, but you won't mix them up again.

Well, Princess blew the Ottawa question.. losing two marks in the process, due to Ottawa being worth *TWO POINTS*..whereas any other error would have only dinged her one.

Being an overachiever  she was, of course, distraught.  M'zilla only had two choices. She could have told Princess to turn the frown upside down, suck it up, buttercup, or some similar catchy phrase that an irritating mother might say, and that would have been the end of that.

Or - alternatively, she could have gone to the school and gotten into it with the teacher regarding the framework of the test, and the total idiocy of making Ottawa worth..*TWO POINTS*.  Which is of course what she did. Eventually teacher saw the error of her ways (aka - wanted M'zilla the hell out of her office), made Ottawa worth the one measly point it rightfully deserved, and Princess gained a mark.  Thank goodness, justice was served. Take that and shove it up your beaver tail, you stupid canal skating, MP pocked city.

M'zilla then went on to explain to us that if the Canadian education system insisted on hiring only people with Master's degrees to teach our children, this sort of travesty could be avoided.

Having had just enough wine to be open with my opinions, but unfortunately not quite enough to be oblivious to the annoying conversations around me, I told her that as someone with a Master's degree, I would rather burn in hell than have to have some bitch of a mom come in and cry the blues to me regarding Ottawa being worth *TWO POINTS*.  Forget summers off.  I would have driven a letter opener into my heart right in plain view of her and princess, just to end the pain of listening to her whiny voice.  I almost wanted to do it right there, and then. At the restaurant.

(I guess I actually should have said that the topic of overachievers brings to mind a dinner gathering a few years back which included a former friend).

Anyway, the reason I bring this up is not just to firmly cement the "former friends" bit, on the off chance that M'zilla happens to read my blog, but also to stress that overachievers do not make for easy times for either parents or horse owners.  It is instead very likely that child and parent, or horse and rider, will feed off each other and both will eventually morph into balls of hard-core irritating whiner who have such amazing power they can even suck the joy out of a dinner that includes both red wine and Tiramisu.

To succeed as the parent of an overachiever....it takes a delicate balance of allowing them to indulge in just the right number of drama fits, when they are trying to achieve and failing (which will happen many times in dressage) while at the same time, still gently pushing them enough to someday help them to understand the right course of action.    If you don't indulge them at all and only punish the drama  - you will cause their brains to explode and they will give up trying.

But overindulge - and you become the horse owner we all know, with the talented youngster (who is only 14, still just developing), who can't canter on both leads without some gorgeous version of unscripted Cavalia type leaps and spins as a prelude.  Sure, he can't do a through transition to save his life, but look at how athletic he is! He is a genius!

These overindulgers and their overprotected babies typically wind up in classical barns, where they do things "correctly", never push their horses past (or even anywhere within eyesight) of their limits, and never, ever show - why bother, when the judges just won't understand their delicate, sensitive horses.

I think this is possibly the equine equivalent of having a 30+ year old musical genius child living in your basement "creating sounds" or whatever until they are finally "discovered" (possibly by the police, after being notified by the neighbours about a strange smell coming from the backyard, where the children have buried the parental bodies so they can continue collecting their social security cheques).  But unfortunately, whining to Linda Zang and friends that stretchy circle and free walk should not be worth *DOUBLE COEFFICIENTS* probably won't get you as far as harassing an Ontario civil servant.  However, should anyone decide to try, let me know.  I think it will be fun to watch.

 

Oh Platypus...how I miss your evil orange ass.. NOT

But enough about me and my obsession with watching others fail.

You may be wondering how Ms. V was making out with her new career as a Draaah-saaagh Hass.

Very well, thanks for asking.

In fact, after the surly sideways glances and constant scheming of the of the Platypus, she was truly a delight to work with.

Let me put it to you this way.  Pretend the Platypus and Ms. V were students at the same high school.

The Platypus would have been busily flirting with the cougary Ms. Crabapple type teachers, to distract them from the fact that he was using the wimpier children as drug mules and selling pot in their classes.

Ms. V on the other hand would be distraught and crying in the corner because she got 97 on a test instead of 100, and wondering why-WHERE-HOW she possibly went wrong.

Now, there are owners out there that are perfect matches for both of these horse personality types. To be honest, I don't think I have exactly the right personality type to own anything besides maybe a bicycle, and even Mr. Motard doesn't think I am quite cut out for that.  (Did you know they require something called "maintenance"?)

Thank goodness I wore pants.  I didn't offend dressage people, and had no inner thigh chafing either. Win-win.

To be honest, in retrospect the Platypus really was a much more amusing horse. Do you ever spend time fondly remembering the total asshole bad-boy type you dated in high school, then thanking the lord that he is permanently gone from your life?  Yah.  When I think about the Platypus, I have that same sort of feeling.  Ahh-hahh-haa... good times, glad you are long, fucking, gone.

The funniest thing about him... and we all know a horse like this.. is that he was constantly scheming and cooking up some plan to get out of doing whatever it is you wanted him to do.  But he was such an incredibly bad actor you could practically smell the smoke coming out of his ears as the little hamster in his brain ran on its wheel. This was of course most obvious when you were longeing him, as you could stare right into his sneaky little eye and almost read his evil mind.  It was usually saying something like this...

"Hmm.. I am going to make a run for it.  Yep, I am going to tear over to the gate, and rip that bitch's arm right out of it's socket.  Picture waterskiing through dirt at the end of that longe line - that's what I am envisioning for her.  Here it comes.  Waiiit, wait for it, waaiit, got to make this turn.. then..."  

And he was always shocked when I was ready, braced, wearing sturdy leather gloves, and weilding a longe whip. Typical man. They never expect you to be so well prepared, do they?

Mr. Motard's very very favourite Platypus story revolves around a visit from a work friend of his who had a lifelong dream of riding bareback (yes, I am sure there is something in there that Freud could have a field day with too, but let's stay on script here, shall we?).  And so, we brought him out to live his dream with the Platypus.

He was not a particularly small man, however Arabs in the western world have to deal with much worse, and he was by no means hurting the Platypus in any way as he rode around bareback, hunched over and gripping a hunk of mane in one hand, reins in the other.  But what was annoying the Platypus was his insistence on thump-thump-thumping him with his legs every time he wanted some action, instead of squeezing as I asked him to do repeatedly.

Every time he thump-thump-thumped, I could see the unmistakable look of an annoyed Arab flash across the Platypus' face.  Kind of like the look of a teenager being asked to pick his underwear up off the floor of his filthy bedroom - as I understand it, they are very similar expressions.

Now - I am usually a nice person. Well, sometimes I am a nice person. Ok, I have been nice to people a time or two in my life.  But something came over me that day as I watched this dude ride around in a fetal ball on the pissed off Platypus.  I suggested to him that what he should do - if he really wanted a good ride - was to kick the Platypus again.  Also - sit a little further back.  Yes - right there.  Now give one more good kick.

Mr. Motard still says I am mean to have told my horse to buck off his co-worker.  But I am telling you, it was just too perfect.  I felt some synergistic at-one-with-the-horse power come over me, like some warped and twisted horse whisperer. Yes, I have whispered with this horse.  He says he thinks you are an idiot, and he wants you dead.  Or at least off his fucking back.

And so - riding Ms. V on the typical night was just so easy compared to the psychological mindgames posed by the Platypus that in all honesty, I remember very little of the first 6 months.  Each ride, we longed first in sidereins and surcingle, switched to saddle, walk-trotted around, and that was that. Nothing really memorable happened.

Err.. I guess that is not entirely true.  Because although I really and truly don't believe in payback or Karma or whatever you call it (I just pretend to, in order to keep you new-age type readers intrigued), sometimes it really does seem to come and get you, doesn't it.

Shortly after I moved to Lilliput, Coach Ritenau's father showed up at the barn, coincidentally right about the time I was getting ready to ride. I proudly showed off my horse to him, and told him the wonderful work his daughter had been doing with me to get her going under saddle.  I then lead her up to the mounting block, swung my leg over ... not quite high enough, kicked her squarely in the ass, and sent her bucking bronc-ing across the arena, for about 20 metres or so before she put me into the kickboards and then squarely onto MY ass.

I got right back up, jumped on, and continued on with my ride as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. Dum-de-dum. But I am sure I heard a sound.. it was faint, but I am certain that somewhere, out there, at a hunter barn east of Toronto, the Platypus was tenting his little evil hooves and laughing demonically.

Touche, Platypus.Touche.

Ahhh- haaa - haaaa!

I know my riding is awesome... but be honest... does my butt look fat in these pants?

Oh come on... you aren't seriously going to another clinic, are you?  You have already bitched about clinics a few times!  Give up already.

No, no, you have misunderstood my feelings towards clinics entirely.  Really - I LOVE going to good clinics, operative word here being..GOOD.  The clinician must be someone who actually rides, and has proven that they can teach someone to do the same.  Riders should be an even split of amazing pros on horses that are breathtakingly wonderful, and puffing red faced amateurs exactly like me.  One group to inspire, one group to help you feel better about your pathetic inadequacies. Throw in at least one rider who says they are training level but shows up in a double because "I just seem to have more control with it", or has an ewe-necked, 900lb, 25 year old OTTB who is "schooling Grand Prix" just to add a few awkward sideward glance moments. Voila. Perfect clinic.

Believe it or not, I am in fact going to audit a clinic this weekend, or as Mr. Motard likes to call them, a "show'n'shine". Based on my description to him of what typically happens at a clinic, he interprets it as an event where people gussy up their horses and ride around showing off their tricks to onlookers (if all goes well), but don't actually compete per se.  Errr.. yah.  It is kind of a show'n'shine I suppose. 

(He even asked if he could attend this particular "show'n'shine" with me, for something to do.  When I told him he would have to sit on a lawnchair wrapped in the emergency blanket from the trunk of his car and drink cider from styrofoam cups, he quickly lost enthusiasm.  Thank God.  In reality, there were excellent lunches and delicious brownies and comfortable couches in a heated viewing lounge with piped in sound from the clinician's mike. This shall remain our little secret). 

Anyway, around this time in my journey, I audited a LOT of different clinics. I do think this was a really critical activity that did help me to keep my eye tuned in to riding that did not suck, and how one might go about recreating that in one's very own arena.  Although I did feel that things were progressing well with Coach Ritenau, she kept her upper level horse at a different barn, so I didn't get to see her ride him, and there were not any other mid to high level riders at Lilliput. Just me, and a few other solidly training level ladies, doing pleasant 20 metre circles.  I needed to keep my eye on what was supposed to happen NEXT...

Because getting Swiffer "supple and moving freely forward in a clear and steady rhythm, accepting contact with the bit" in a training level sense of the word was becoming quite easy.  It totally made sense to me now.

What was confusing was... how that possibly morphed into "accepting more weight on the hindquarters, moving with an uphill tendency, especially in the medium gaits, and being reliably on the bit" in a second level sense of the word.  And how the hell I would know exactly what a "greater degree of straightness, bending, suppleness, throughness, balance and selfcarriage" was, and when I had arrived at this point - "the beginning stages of collection".

To make things more confusing - as I mentioned before, when you go to the average show to observe, it seems like there was a whole chunk of people missing from the chain of events. You sort of get the "training level, first, yada-yada-yada, PSG" version of the story more often than not...  flat toplined "dum-de-dum-dum" low level people moving freely forward in a clear and steady rhythm around the outside in the warm-up with flexed, sweaty foamed, arched neck things snorting like steam trains while doing pirouettes and passage in the middle.  I found myself constantly wondering where the pupal stage was...

Enter A, X halt salute.

I reasoned to myself that maybe it was somewhere, out there, transforming .. possibly by attending clinics. 

In truth - the pupae aren't generally seen at clinics either. As in the insect world, whereas worms or caterpillar may be kind of cute or interesting, and butterflies or ladybugs or whatever are beautiful - the pupa stage is generally ugly.  No one gets excited about seeing a webby coocoon or crusty insect shell thing.  Likewise - one would not take their horse in the throes of the webby, crusty stage of training to a show'n'shine.

But what you did see at clinics were lots of people boldly driving their horses right up to the proverbial second level wall, and BANG - smashing into it.  Then kick-nag-kick-nag-kicking at them to try to somehow motor on through it and on to the butterfly stage.

I did get to hear plenty of different suggestions by the clinicians aimed at somehow getting the riders to understand that something much more dramatic was required to get their larval asses into a coocoon.  (Forget about getting out of it.  First things first). Which generally did not happen, and the clinician eventually backed off so as to save everyone face, encouraged rider to do a few transitions that didn't suck and whole show was generally over.

But now and then - you would go to a clinic with a clinician who really didn't care who the hell he or she pissed off.  Who told it like it was, even if it made people very upset, all for the right reasons.  And what they generally told these women was - make your horse go forward, and let go of its face when he does.

I started to feel good about the fact that I could SEE there was a problem - but more uncomfortable than ever about the fact that these riders just didn't seem to be able to get anything out of their horses that approached the power and suppleness that would be needed to change caterpillar into butterfly. I also was starting to feel more uneasy about the fact that such a large percentage of riders could not see or feel that what it is they were doing while riding was not taking them anywhere near where they had to be.  So many riders truly seemed confused when the clinician burst their "we are going to show third this summer" bubble.

And if you think I am being judgmental here, or catty - really, I am not.  Forget sitting the trot, or learning the footfalls or whatever other crap you may be worrying about now.  Just knowing when you suck - that is a skill that really takes time to develop.

You say outside.. I say inside... you say canter...I say travers...canter, travers, canter, travers..how bout you get the hell off...

Well, it was a rainy long weekend here in Canada... and you know what that means.  I have had time to go on a few bulletin boards and do a bit of stalking.  I don't do this as often as I should, and as a result I miss great opportunities to share. 

For example, one post that was already pretty dead when I got there was about white gloves - wear them / don't wear them, blah blah blah, and most of all, what a pain they are because they always get filthy.

Had I been earlier to the party, I could have shared my "white glove/smooth ass" protocol:

- buy only white gloves of synthetic material with the little plastic nibby things on the palm and fingers
- after your gloves get dirty (read: after one show, possibly after one class or one warm up, or just after leading your horse to the warm up), wear the gloves while you take your next shower
- use plenty of nice body wash, and scrub your butt and other scaly areas with the little plastic nibby things while you shower
- rinse foamy black horse filth and skin particles generated during exfoliation off of your butt
- rinse and wring gloves out when you are done and hang on line.

Voila - you have clean gloves and a smooth ass, and your secret is safe with me.  Win-win. I have yet to try wearing my filthy white breeches in the shower and scrubbing THEM with the white gloves, but that option on the theme would probably work too.  Which idea is better?  Well, your breeches would be clean, however your butt would not be as well exfoliated.  As with many other things in dressage, it really comes down to deciding on your priorities, and following through with a plan.  I can't make this decision for you.

Ahhh, I am feeling smoother already.

Anyway, the post that caught my eye today was the one on canter aids for dressage horses, and whether or not a horse that has been taught to canter from an outside leg aid is a good bet as a dressage prospect.

WTF?  Really?

If this is really and truly your biggest concern regarding whether or not you should buy any given dressage horse, I certainly hope your budget is in the comfortable six-figured range that will allow you to become picky about totally irrelevant things.  In the grand scheme of things this "problem" is right up there with pimple on ass or mane not silky enough (as many posters have pointed out).  If you can ride your way out of a wet paper bag, you can fix this "issue" in about a week.

However, as stupid as I feel this question may be, the discussion did get me thinking about something that dressage people say that drives me a bit insane.  It also gives me a chance to do some reverse hunter-bashing, since I have been a bit harsh on these posing prissies the last few posts...(oops, I am doing it again, aren't I.  Sorry, it is a compulsive habit) and as Anonymous 6 October 2012 10:23 pointed out, GM (that is "Gee the Man" George Morris people!) can do smokin' hot tempis when mounted on a totally trained horse.  (To Anonymous 6 October 2012 10:23 I say... wow, how about that NHL lockout!  When do you think we will see them back on the ice?)

Dressage people of the world, if you ever find yourself uttering the phrase:

Ha ha, I let my hunter friend ride Schnecke yesterday, and she couldn't even get him to move, let alone canter!  Stupid hunter people.  They can't ride at all.  We are so much better than them.  

Consider this...maybe you are better than them.  Maybe you aren't.  But if a five year old cannot get on your horse and make it go forward and DO STUFF, there is the possibility that a big part of the problem is that your horse is just not all that well schooled.  Perhaps what you have been doing is not creating a finely tuned dressage horse, but instead painstakingly crafting a surly douchehorse that no one enjoys riding but you. (Just throwing it out there).

The stuff that they do may be eye-burningly bad.  But regardless...your horse should go forward when leg is on, yield to contact, swing butt to-and-fro when lateral aids are applied (even poorly and if that is in no way the intention of the rider), and move sideways and forward in some sort of leg-yeildy/half-passy direction if asked to do so.  And yes - if outside leg is back, and inside leg is on - horse should make some attempt to canter, probably in an aggressively haunches-in position - but canter nonetheless.

There are some things your horse may not be able to do with a beginner rider on board - clean flying changes are one of them, since if your horse is falling on the forehand with a rider on its neck, it will be nearly impossible for him to get his haunches down and under to jump through properly (this may also be observed at the end of a line of 4's if adult am dressage rider finds herself in the same place on horse's neck due to her inability to keep her ass in the saddle for five consecutive changes.  So I have heard).

But with a little instruction, lots of the "tricks" should be easy, if not totally pretty. After all, I have seen Mr. Motard - who really can't ride at all - execute beautiful mediums on a retired GP oldster, doing nothing other than sitting back, hanging on for the ride, and screaming "w-w-w-h-h-h-e-e-e-r-r-r-e-e-e i-i-i-s m-y-y-y b-a-a-g-g-g s-u-p-p-p-o-s-e-d-d t-o-o-o b-b-e-e-e I-I-I a-m-m c-r-r-u-s-s-h-h-h-i-i-n-n-g m-m-y-y-y n-u-t-t-t-s".  (I was unable to answer the question).

(With no instruction at all, the horse will eventually give up and start giving the finger, which is why buying a schoolmaster and not keeping them in training is a stupid idea, as has been pointed out by many as well.  Which is no different in hunter, is it?  Anyone ever heard the one about the poor beginner who bought the point-n-shoot that will no longer jump a stick and is now winning the hack division?)

I desperately did not want Ms. V to become the surly douchehorse that no one wants to ride.  But I knew that the odds were against me, as clinic season was beginning here in Ontario, and there were lots of opportunities to pull up an uncomfortable lawnchair, wrap myself in the smelly trunk blanket, and watch and learn.  Good clinics this time, put on by decent barns, with a few excellent riders.  Along with many, many adult ams who were busily creating exactly this type of beast.

And one thing that became quite evident is that although much is said about the evils of "crank" - and it does make for great photo opps for the rabidly anti-deep-n-round crew - really, a good blue-tongue inducing crank takes a degree of strength, athleticism and determination that many of us adult am ladies don't possess. It is just not observed that frequently in our circles.  A gentle nagging spur-whip-spur-whip is much more our speed, isn't it....

It all seems so easy at the gynecologists...

So, it was definitely my hands that needed immediate attention and improvement.

But...just wondering...

Am I the only one whose legs continually contracted up towards my body like testicles in cold water?

Most of my other bad habits could be somewhat camouflaged for now, since I was officially a "training level rider".   But it is pretty hard to camoflague the fact that your feet are hovering in the pockets of air somewhere inside your stirrups, without actually pressing down on them. Anywhere. Or to hide the fact that your knees are protruding past the front of your saddle. Even the blind can tell something is amiss when the rhythmic sound of boots bobbing off of floating stirrups now and then follows you wherever you go. (Be sure to wear spurs to add a flashy metallic *ting* to your musical ride). 

Curmudgeon!  Seriously?  Didn't you practice riding without stirrups to learn to LENGTHEN YOUR LEG?

Ahhh yes.  Riding without stirrups.  The cure all, magical panacea to oh, so many equestrian woes. Hands up if you have ever heard a hunter rider who is pooh-poohing the difficulties of dressage utter a phrase something along the lines of this...

"Oh it must be so easy to sit the trot in a dressage saddle.  You have such LONG stirrups!  Really it must be like riding in no stirrups at all!  And that is EASY!"

Yes, it is, my hunter/jumper friends. If you are anything like I was, trotting with no stirrups IS easy, no doubt.  As is cantering, and jumping stuff as well. In fact - if you are a somewhat competent rider, all of these things can easily be done bareback too.  Apparently if you REALLY master these skills and team them up with a death grip crest release and a $100,000 ex-jumper, you are well on your way to a big Maclay Eq win.

If you were or are a good little hunter princess, at some point in time you probably put a lot of effort into mastering the hunter "ride with no stirrups" leg.  This lovely look is created by first firmly bending the leg into the appropriate right angles - shoulder/hip/heel alignment! - next, the toe is jammed aggressively skyward, heel aggressively down - lastly, this whole assortment of angles is superglued to the horse's side, never to move or jiggle regardless of what the horse may do with his shoulders, hips or heels, or what alignment he may try to put them in.

Yes, any hunter trainer worth anything uses a few minutes of "no stirrups" like some sort of sadistic tool on their students.  Come on now kids, cross 'em over the pommel - you know the drill.  I even had an instructor at one point in time who bragged about riding whole courses with no stirrups AND no girth, while her mighty coconut cracking thighs clamped her saddle perfectly in place. 

(I have no idea what became of her, but I wouldn't be surprised to hear that she has continued on with her tradition of bragging about useless skills - perhaps she has switched to dressage and now pontificates about how she can execute poorly ridden GP test in a bitless bridle. In retrospect, I do wonder why - if this story was true - she didn't put these mighty gams to use performing erotic feats of strength at the Sword and Shield or Pure Gold. She could have earned enough money to buy a decent horse then and wouldn't have had to put up with teaching us stupid bouncing kids).
 
And so, around we all went, doing a pinchy kneed "rising trot", which consisted of gluing the lower leg to the horse and pivoting around awkwardly from the thighs up, gradually sanding all of the skin off of the insides of our knees. Or, "sitting trot" - which entailed slowing your horse down to a virtual crawl (also known as "collected trot" in hunter circles) and firmly vise-gripping the entire lower body around the horse's barrel, eliminating any wiggle anywhere.  The good news for hunters is (as you soon find out in dressage), clamping on to your horse's body with your legs blocks any looseness or swing, and does generally cause your horse to grind down to a barely moving shuffling trot, which makes keeping everything firmly adhered in place quite simple.  Ahh it feels so right, doesn't it?

Anyway, where am I going with this - oh yes.  Perhaps if you are one of those prepubescent Spanish riding school boys I mentioned way back when, with unspoiled by hunter/jumper coach, non-coconut cracking thighs - riding around with no stirrups actually helps you to accomplish something - your leg hangs effortlessly, elegantly draping down your horse's sides like seaweed or wet toilet paper or my greasy hair after a week of backwoods camping (or whatever it is that Sally Swift tells us we are supposed to visualize). 

However - If you are a hard core recovering hunter rider - you only think you are putting in some virtuous saddle time that is taking you closer to long legged, loose hipped Nirvana.  You are probably wrong, Pinchy-Pinches-A-Lot.  Unless you have some good eyes on the ground helping you out to beat your old habits into submission (i.e saying "stop pinching with your knees - stop pinching with your thighs - stop pinching with your calves" regularly), you are wasting your precious time.  The day will come for no-stirrup work.  That day is probably not today.

Yes, readers, it sucks.  But you some day have to learn to ride with your feet actually in contact with the stirrups.  So you might as well uncross them now.  (When the day comes that you no longer hear *ting*ting*ting*ting*... maybe give it another go).

Ayyy! So what if my hands are all over the place... Fugetaboudit!

Curmudgeon, do share - what was (and likely still is) your go-to Bad Hands habit of choice.

Hmm, good question, good question.

I would say I had a moderate case of what you may know as "Magician Hands".  You may also know this by its latin based name "Fugetaboudititis".  Although people of all ethnicities may be afflicted, there is some suggestion that people of Italian descent may have a genetic predisposition to the condition, and unfortunately, I do carry a portion of these genes

While hunter riders more typically are inflicted with a mentronome-like back and forth sawing motion in the hands and arms, the less common but equally as mock-worthy clinical signs of Fugetaboudititis can be distinguished by their total lack of of any rhythm whatsoever. 

The hands and arms may move and gesture anywhere, at any time, as needed to communicate something  with extra emphasis and zeal.  This may be entirely appropriate when you are telling an exciting story to your Nono.  Not so much when you are attempting to communicate with your horse's mouth.  Up / down / over the crest / to the knee variations may all be seen, and may be seen in the same ride.  Maybe even on the same 20 metre circle. 

And THIS is a special aid I use to ask for some inside bend..

As I mentioned once upon a time, a long time ago - my real weakness was my tendency to cross my hand over my horse's neck when asking for inside bend.  This can actually come in quite handy when riding hunters. If your reins are really long and in your crotch, you need to move your hand 12 - 14" in some direction to have any impact on your horse's face.  This can make steering difficult to do in a subtle fashion.

For example - say you have to turn a corner to avoid hitting the fence/other horse/standards - or maybe you are one of those raging assholes who likes to maintain that fucking irritating little 15 m circle directly around the judge who is standing in the middle judging the hack class, so she has no ability to see any other competitor.  Moving your hand up/down/over to the inside this distance would be very visible to onlookers.

But - if you cross your hand over from inside to outside - well, there is a good 8 - 10" right there.  Take it waaaay to the outside - voila.  Your horse's face is cranked right in.  I even knew one trickster (you may want to sit down for this) who would bring her inside hand to about midline, then hook the rein with her pointer finger of the outside hand, and pull on the inside rein with the outside hand.  Sneaky eh. You have to be creative to put the Pee in Pleasure my friends.

This technique has other uses as well - when cantering on the wrong lead, if you cross the outside hand over the crest to the inside around a corner, you can easily crank your horse's head to the rail, throw him entirely off balance, and force him to do a skip change to avoid falling on his face.  It is gold, I say, PURE GOLD!

(Errr... unless you are hoping to get some sort of true connection going on with your horse's mouth.  Minor detail).

Now sure - due to my Fugetaboudititis, my hands and arms were partial to other gestures as well.  Yes, I have punched myself in the knee while riding.  However - it was this inside-outside hand crossover that was really the biggest problem, because it is pretty much impossible to begin to take even baby steps towards keeping a horse straight when you have popped their outside shoulder out by cranking their face in from the outside (does this make any sense to anyone but me?  Hopefully yes).  And as we all know from Zettl (or some other hat wearing dude), the three keys to dressage success are 1. ride forward, 2. ride straight 3. insist that your monkeys use Neet should they decide to remove any hair from their furry little bodies.


And so, my initial lessons on the dressage ponies Swiffer and Shortstop involved lots of creative reminders on the part of Coach Ritenau to STOP-DOING-THAT-BEFORE-YOU-DRIVE-ME-FUCKING-INSANE.  Of course, Coach Ritenau was quite possibly one of the most polite people on Earth, who wouldn't say "Classical Dressage" if her mouth was full of it. And so instead, she used gentle, Julie-approved type language such as "hand on either side of the crest" or "keep him between your hands" or "straight between both reins" and many other creative versions of STOP-DOING-THAT-BEFORE-YOU-DRIVE-ME-FUCKING-INSANE.

Worst of all - after so many years of riding with not a passing thought regarding straighness, I really was having trouble feeling whether or not I was keeping the horse straight between both reins, in a fashion that would enable a good solid connection.  But luckily - I had a natural, build in Straight-o-meter right before my eyes.

Both Swiffer and Shortstop were fairly lean, fit ponies - but they were still ponies, and as such, they had relatively meaty, cresty necks.  One of the benefits of this (and you may have noticed this yourself) is that when a horse with such a neck is working properly "through", the cresty part relaxes and looks kind of soft and jiggly.  (This sounds gross. It is hard to put in words, but really, it is a good thing).  And so, I started watching for this sign of connection and relaxation - tense muscles across crest = bad.  Best of all - both were absolute saints, and if ridden correctly, were quite easy to get through, and generously rewarded me for my efforts to STOP-DOING-THAT-BEFORE-I-DROVE-THEM-FUCKING-INSANE.  Another bonus - this really enabled me to develop the "clueless beginner dressage rider who stares at her horse's neck and is totally oblivious to all around her" habit quite quickly. 

The good news is - of all of my bad habits, I would say that this "crossing over" affliction is the one that I have entirely overcome, partly because it is impossible to fake breaking this habit. Is my Fugetaboudititis entirely gone - no. No chance.  But there are worse things in life than getting punched in the knee now and then.



The judge wrote "hands low and wide".  WTF is that supposed to mean?  Is she on drugs?