Riding lesson for the day
Caffeine is my friend, until it isn't. Today it was my BFF. I did a good session at work (aided by a fairly ordinary but otherwise effective coffee that may or may not have been a single shot trad macchiato with cold milk and one sugar), then I got a niggly errand out of the way, did some ordinary shopping, a spot of research, and then had an *awesome* session at RDA.
The niggly errand involved disposing of a broken gas stove lighter that still had some fuel in it. The petrol station didn't want it, but my mechanic next door was happy to take it away. Apparently "the boys" would have fun trying to fix it. Methinks "the boys" have too much time on their hands.
The ordinary shopping involved oranges, oats, milk, sleeping pills, cat food etc. Stuff like that.
The research was my first foray into locating a sunlight lamp to help me banish the darkness and survive the winter. I called two local retail lighting places, both of whom had no idea what I was talking about. I did get a reference for a speciality lightbulb supplier, but their website had an embarassment of hits for medical/therapeutic/sunlight bulbs. After the famine, the feast. Need human assistance; I'll call them later.
Then: horsies! It was just starting to spot with rain as I arrived, but most of the facilities are protected if not actually under cover. The adult-sized legionnaire's hat for which I searched so long and hard came into its own: if you can't feel the rain on your face or on your neck it's much easier to ignore. I shall have to acquire a non-threatening raincoat of some sort.
I declined a request to give one of the students a (horse) grooming lesson. I can do what I do by feel, but there's so much I don't know nor have the confidence to teach. One question and I'd be exposed as a fraud! Speaking of fraud, I was also a bit embarassed when a couple of the girls kept asking me for opinions/advice about tacking up, despite my protestations of ignorance. "You seem to know what you're doing," they kept saying. I really really don't! Particularly when it comes to precise fitting of sundry straps and buckles; I've just not had the practice, nor can I recite even the theory of two fingers spacing here, fitting your hand through there, doing up the front buckle first (and if there's three straps and two buckles, use the outer two). Saddle and blanket positioning are up there on my very long list of things to learn properly and practice. At best at the moment I'm doing it once per week.
I am definitely improving in haltering and bridling, mostly because I've had more practice there and there are fewer mistakes to be made, and I'm more comfortable with head handling. Today I worked with the smaller ponies which felt even newer and stranger than working with the big horses. The ponies attempted Nonsense. There was ear-flattening and hindquarter sidling. I permitted No Nonsense, which may have involved some horse-appropriate growling, but mostly bodily push and shove. It's becoming harder to remember exactly what I'm doing, which is a good sign.
--
It's just occurred to me that I might be transferring years of shopping trolley wrangling to the problem of communicating movement and balance requests to living horseflesh. And before that I always thought my (teensy tiny) little bit of kung fu training might have helped with the shopping, and before that, the ballroom (but I was never very good at being led). Actually, for a while the ballroom hindered the kung fu, but it got sorted eventually. Even my whole-body style of automobile driving wants to join the physics party. Ooh, it's all starting to come together: ballroom dancing > kung fu > sporty driving > supermarket skills > ground-based horse handling.
Cool. Plus I get to be a geek as well :-)
--
No-one attempted to put the brakes on while I was leading today, so I had no need to break out my enthusiasm-inducing hup-heys and hip-hip-hips, never mind the rope work or foreleg nudging. I was reassured to both learn and directly observe that the two big horses with whom I had been temporarily stranded last week did this to "everyone", and the people I saw tugging on halters today looked reassuringly mortified. Ah, the wonderfully soothing properties of It's Not Just Me Then.
The rain did disrupt the schedule a bit, so in the end there were only a few hand-led students who had a shortened lesson. There weren't many volunteers left by then so I said I'd be happy to lead for a while, as long as it wasn't the full hour. Also the ground was much more compact today so it was less of an effort for me to walk. I was leading Silver, a small grey pony I'd already prepped, and up top a small boy of 7ish with autism. It was my first proper lesson, apart from simply leading around the arena. I learned to go through some obstacles and play some simple games.
Near the end of the lesson I had little Moment. The coach was occupied with one of the other riders, and my student and I were doing slow laps of the simple obstacle course (I can be trained to walk in circles it seems). I had talked at my student very little, just occasionally repeating the instructions the coach had given, although he did interact with me a little bit. On the practical side, talking *with* him properly would have involved walking backwards whilst leading a pony through an obstacle course, so constant communication wasn't really on the cards. I wasn't really sure how much I should try to engage him--if at all--so I felt ridiculously pleased when he stopped squirming around for a moment and reached for a ball when I asked him to. That place really does work miracles on people :-)
The niggly errand involved disposing of a broken gas stove lighter that still had some fuel in it. The petrol station didn't want it, but my mechanic next door was happy to take it away. Apparently "the boys" would have fun trying to fix it. Methinks "the boys" have too much time on their hands.
The ordinary shopping involved oranges, oats, milk, sleeping pills, cat food etc. Stuff like that.
The research was my first foray into locating a sunlight lamp to help me banish the darkness and survive the winter. I called two local retail lighting places, both of whom had no idea what I was talking about. I did get a reference for a speciality lightbulb supplier, but their website had an embarassment of hits for medical/therapeutic/sunlight bulbs. After the famine, the feast. Need human assistance; I'll call them later.
Then: horsies! It was just starting to spot with rain as I arrived, but most of the facilities are protected if not actually under cover. The adult-sized legionnaire's hat for which I searched so long and hard came into its own: if you can't feel the rain on your face or on your neck it's much easier to ignore. I shall have to acquire a non-threatening raincoat of some sort.
I declined a request to give one of the students a (horse) grooming lesson. I can do what I do by feel, but there's so much I don't know nor have the confidence to teach. One question and I'd be exposed as a fraud! Speaking of fraud, I was also a bit embarassed when a couple of the girls kept asking me for opinions/advice about tacking up, despite my protestations of ignorance. "You seem to know what you're doing," they kept saying. I really really don't! Particularly when it comes to precise fitting of sundry straps and buckles; I've just not had the practice, nor can I recite even the theory of two fingers spacing here, fitting your hand through there, doing up the front buckle first (and if there's three straps and two buckles, use the outer two). Saddle and blanket positioning are up there on my very long list of things to learn properly and practice. At best at the moment I'm doing it once per week.
I am definitely improving in haltering and bridling, mostly because I've had more practice there and there are fewer mistakes to be made, and I'm more comfortable with head handling. Today I worked with the smaller ponies which felt even newer and stranger than working with the big horses. The ponies attempted Nonsense. There was ear-flattening and hindquarter sidling. I permitted No Nonsense, which may have involved some horse-appropriate growling, but mostly bodily push and shove. It's becoming harder to remember exactly what I'm doing, which is a good sign.
--
It's just occurred to me that I might be transferring years of shopping trolley wrangling to the problem of communicating movement and balance requests to living horseflesh. And before that I always thought my (teensy tiny) little bit of kung fu training might have helped with the shopping, and before that, the ballroom (but I was never very good at being led). Actually, for a while the ballroom hindered the kung fu, but it got sorted eventually. Even my whole-body style of automobile driving wants to join the physics party. Ooh, it's all starting to come together: ballroom dancing > kung fu > sporty driving > supermarket skills > ground-based horse handling.
Cool. Plus I get to be a geek as well :-)
--
No-one attempted to put the brakes on while I was leading today, so I had no need to break out my enthusiasm-inducing hup-heys and hip-hip-hips, never mind the rope work or foreleg nudging. I was reassured to both learn and directly observe that the two big horses with whom I had been temporarily stranded last week did this to "everyone", and the people I saw tugging on halters today looked reassuringly mortified. Ah, the wonderfully soothing properties of It's Not Just Me Then.
The rain did disrupt the schedule a bit, so in the end there were only a few hand-led students who had a shortened lesson. There weren't many volunteers left by then so I said I'd be happy to lead for a while, as long as it wasn't the full hour. Also the ground was much more compact today so it was less of an effort for me to walk. I was leading Silver, a small grey pony I'd already prepped, and up top a small boy of 7ish with autism. It was my first proper lesson, apart from simply leading around the arena. I learned to go through some obstacles and play some simple games.
Near the end of the lesson I had little Moment. The coach was occupied with one of the other riders, and my student and I were doing slow laps of the simple obstacle course (I can be trained to walk in circles it seems). I had talked at my student very little, just occasionally repeating the instructions the coach had given, although he did interact with me a little bit. On the practical side, talking *with* him properly would have involved walking backwards whilst leading a pony through an obstacle course, so constant communication wasn't really on the cards. I wasn't really sure how much I should try to engage him--if at all--so I felt ridiculously pleased when he stopped squirming around for a moment and reached for a ball when I asked him to. That place really does work miracles on people :-)