green to 100

Today is the 1 year anniversary of green to 100!

Thought I would repost the innagural blog for fun.

Thanks for reading our story. I look forward to the next year of learning!

Source: Snow-an introduction

Sunday, January 17, 2016

Make tracks around every sagebrush in this area. It could take you all day- but once you do it you’ll have the best riding you’ve known yet. (Loosely quoted from Buck on the 7clinics set)

The saddle came right before my 2 busiest days of the week which called for great self-restraint. 

I never truly GET sick… Maybe I could call in sick and ride in my new saddle?

Inner voice: you don’t actually get sick days. 

Oh yeah. Never mind. 

Finally I had a short time window on Friday to take a ride before we headed out for an overnight errand near DC. I went to bring in Khaleesi and it was the first time in months she threatened to avoid me in the field. 

Was it my energy or the de-wormer in my pocket? Or something in the air? Hard to know for sure. 

The logging crew was making noise up on the mountain and the girls seemed to be looking intently across the road at the sounds of chainsaws and dozers in the distance. 

I went ahead and caught Faygo first – needed to give her the dewormer anyway- and Khaleesi came around.

As usual Khaleesi and I danced into the barn and she is getting really good at moving with me now and it helps us start the day more connected. 

I dry-fitted the saddle and it seems to be just right. There were no pressure spots and it seemed to set beautifully at the withers.   

Saddled up with pad and decided to start in the yard. I got on and she did not stand still. I got off and asked for her to pay more attention. Once she stood nicely we walked. 

It’s always exciting to try a new piece of tack- in this case I got to try both the saddle and a beautiful red and black biothane breast collar Ed got me for Christmas. 

  
We walked first to get used to the new feel. Now that I’ve gotten so used to the freeform  it feels funny to be in anything else. Also I learned last time that a brand new saddle from this company (and probably others) feels different than one with a few miles on it.  I also wondered if they might have made me a smaller seat (my first saddle was a 15″ last year and they ended up replacing it with a 16″ which felt more comfortable to me- so if someone looked back they may have made a mistake this time?)

It could just be that it isn’t broken in yet and feels more snug. I don’t dislike it- but it feels a bit different. I did measure both later and it’s still hard to say because the old seat has a pencil roll and this seat has nothing at the cantle in order to save weight on every excess piece of leather. 

  
Khaleesi for her part seemed to like it. She wasn’t bothered as I put in on to fit her or when I tacked up. She still sometimes gets antsy when I cinch (which I do slowly over time with both girls) but I hope a well fitting saddle will keep her comfortable. 

We moved on to some trotting around the driveways and then walked some circles around the trees in the yard. I rode with my dressage whip which seems to help settle teenager whining more quickly and of course just having it usually means I don’t need it much. A quick tap-tap-tap at my leg or her shoulder (depending on what she tried to do) puts us quickly on course. 

  
A little short on time we went into the woods and I decided to use our time to try Buck’s suggestion of working on circling the sagebrush. In our case we used the trees in the open woods. 

I made sure to be always clear in my intent and choose a tree and which direction to approach and if we would go a complete circle or weave through a group. If I wanted to go through a space she missed I always slowed or stopped her and went back through. I tried to use as little aid as I needed and always began with looking at the tree and imagining what we would do and in pivoting my upper body-shoulders practiced staying square in the seat and legs and not leaning my balance. (Helping her stay in nice form) I also used more legs than rein and tried not to push her but to ‘hover’ at her shoulder or hind if I needed to direct and time it with her foot falls so she could move more efficiently. So I was working on knowing where her feet were as well. 

Occasionally I would go back to the trail and we’d trot or canter straight for a stretch to give her some release from the focus and the turns. 

We did over 4 miles without leaving the property and she was a good sport and we were moving well I thought. 

It was cold and we didn’t work up a sweat but her back looked good when I took it off. 

I saved my tracks to see our mileage and tried to call it serpentines so I could easily pull it up. The touch screen isn’t always so friendly and it ended up serpentinas. I ended up liking the sound of that anyway. That’s when a mare does them… Serpentinas.

Here are a few more saddle shots! For the centerfold 😊

   
 

   
  

 

  

I love it… Jamie Evan at Phoenix Rising (formerly Imus) did a fantastic job of making their great saddle with a few tweaks that make it work better for us!  

             

Can’t wait to ride in it later this week!

I also use their bits and love them too! Lots of great horse tack. If you want to learn more about this fabulous small company… You can find them here:

Phoenix Rising

Tuesday, January 11, 2016

You’ve got to get the lead rope to mean something to the horse. 

We spent two afternoons at the barn just training this weekend. I forget when I get doing so much riding how much we both enjoy the learning and communicating process. 

Our ‘dance’ on the lead is going well and we dance every time I bring either horse in from the field. 

The walking circles routine is still hard but improving. I’m realizing the worst part is starting. I can’t send her off with just my lead rope pointing her in a direction. She doesn’t know what the lead rope means. 

If I can get her started then she tends to pull the circle and we do ovals but at least she’s not crowding me anymore. 

Here is a video of me leading her off then starting the circle. The circle is not as bad as earlier ones but I found a longer rope that is a little hard for me to manage and it reminds me of my struggle with fly fishing: line control!

Leading and circle video
We did some centered riding exercise as well and even had a chance to practice our conversation over turning around-

Khaleesi: I don’t want to go there- it’s too close to the gate… I don’t want to go in the woods today!

Me: you have to trust me. Whatever I need you to do is your job when we work together. GO!

Khaleesi: shoot it appears you have learned how to win this argument!!

Me: see- trust me. I’m not even making you go out the gate- this isn’t so bad right?

Buck said doing circles and serpentines around sagebrush as invaluable to fine riding. So we went around every tree in the yard!

  
We worked on finding my trotting diagonals and a little pivoting on hind and fore. 

The next day I decided I have to get her to understand what I mean when I point her with the lead to walk away from me. 

              

It took some time but we got somewhere. I tried to ‘let her think’ and not just push her off. Another thing I heard is that it’s important your horse learns you will wait on them. You will ask something and give them time to sort it out.

I thought my arms would fall off. 

But I did give her time to try something- I’d correct her (not that- try again) and she’d try something else (nope- not that) and eventually she would shift her front feet the direction I was pointing!

YES! 

Allowing my horse the time to think teaches her that she doesn’t need to panic first when I ask something. More importantly it encourages her to use her mind- many horses have shut down that ability depending on how they are treated and function on instinct and flight when faced with a problem.  Then we get mad at them for panicking….

It makes me think of young students as well. When impatience rules (we don’t have time for this) answers are given quickly or on another end of the spectrum neglect and/or abuse teaches kids not to try. 

I hope to have the patience to encourage the think in my horses and my students. 

 

I also rode her bareback to work on my feel of where her feet are and more centered riding. 

Except a little step over at the mounting block that put me in an awkward position (we started over and tried again) that was a helpful and successful day. I worked on timing my leg to ask her to step over at the walk when her back leg was coming off the ground. 

It was nice to spend some quality time together and communicate more than just what we do working on the trail. 

  
PS- just got the FedEx email notice that my new saddle should be delivered TODAY!!!

Saturday, January 9, 2016

Update on the turn around behavior:

Khaleesi tries to turn me around on the trail about…. 5-8 times a ride.  It generally happens early in the ride (not after we’re headed home) and is more likely if we are bypassing a trail  that would take us toward home. Considering we ride for 12-15 miles and are out for at least 3 hours it isn’t a constant problem and except that we take 10 seconds to “have words” it doesn’t add up to a lot.

It’s not a behavior I’d like to continue- that’s for sure!

This has been going on about a month on and off and I’ve been trying different approaches. My first try was the simplest: she was pulling my hands with her head to turn around. I pulled back to stop her head. My bit is not severe and I will never be strong enough to actually win that one.

Did not work at all.

Second attempt was to give in to the turn, but keep her turning so we’d go in a 360 circle. This put us back facing down the trail and heading where I wanted to go. This did work to keep us moving down the trail, but I don’t see the behavior diminishing. She still gets to try her turn around- in the end she doesn’t get what she wants, however she hasn’t learned to stop trying.

Kind of worked, but not solving the problem.

I’m constantly thinking over what else I should try to be more effective and I went back to my 7 clinics and the concept of untracking her hind as a possible tool.

For the non-horse folks out there- I will try to explain this correctly. Untracking the hind from the front is a lot like it sounds. It disjoins the front end (feet) and back end (feet) of the horse. What you would see is the horse step her back end over so it is out of the alignment it was in with the front end. It’s a pretty basic tool and can be a safety feature (it can stop a horse who is about to get into trouble… maybe run away with you) and it can be a building block to advanced maneuvers as well.

  
My understanding is it’s an important and basic part of a horse’s education- and I know I will continue to work on it without truly knowing why for a while. 

We do work on this some, and I can reliably get Khaleesi to step over her back end away from me on the ground and I can get a pretty good step over in the saddle as well and she’ll pivot around her front quarters decently if she’s calm and paying attention.

In thinking over the turn around behavior I realized that she was turning her head and pulling my hands to turn around. Using the same hands was reacting to her. She was in control. (that was obvious to anyone who saw this in play!) Trying to control the horse from the reins and head is never truly effective. I needed to control her feet, and the hind end is where the power is. My attention was being drawn to head and forelegs because they were what was in front of me- but the back end might hold the key. It wondered if this “magic” tool of untracking her hind held some potential in my current puzzle.

My new attempt would be to catch her as soon as she started turning me around and immediately push her back end with my leg so I was working against her direction but with the hind.

She always turns me to the Left (every single time) so her hind would eventually follow the turn. Instead I would quickly put my right foot slightly behind the girth and push back on her to move her hind end against the turn while also holding her front as much as possible with my rein. Now I’d be ahead of the game by starting with the hind.

On Friday this seemed to be pretty successful. My leg pushing the hind DID work to at first keep her in place and then in keeping pressure there and not giving in would turn her back in toward the direction we were headed so she wasn’t successful at turning around.

At first it was messy and I won’t say I actually DID untrack the hindquarters but I stopped them from following the circle she attempted to make. As the ride went on and she tried a few more times we eventually got smoother and she would actually step over behind and not even come close to getting that turn started.

I was not ahead of her game instead of reacting.

Possible Success!

I think this might be our answer to decreasing the behavior because I’m shutting it down before she can make the turn. In effect I’m closing that door to her as an option.

Conversation before:

Khaleesi: can I turn us around to go home? I don’t really want to work today. This is boring… Faygo is walking too fast all the time- what is her problem. We rode this trail last week why do you keep wanting to do this?

Me: what? No. What are you doing? A circle? Seriously? KHALEESI !! Ok get back on the trail and let’s catch up with faygo!

Conversation now:

Khaleesi: can…

Me: no.

I meant to have Susan get some pictures of us in action- but part of the training was she and Faygo moving on without us (no horse likes to be left behind) so the time she wasted in circles didn’t stop the forward momentum of the ride.

If any of you have had this training issue and have other thoughts- I always welcome them!!

  

Thursday, January 7, 2016

I’ve often told my students that learning the violin is like trying to carry too many marbles at one time. You carry as many as you can then you drop a few, pick them back up… carry them a little farther, drop others, pick them up… you do what you can.

Lately I’ve been getting in more riding than normal for this time of year. First it’s a lull in the teaching schedule through the holidays (and my college teaching comes back later than the young kids- so I ease back into the Winter/Spring schedule gently). Second we’ve had forgiving weather and decent trails for better than average riding lately. Last I’ve been blessed with lovely folks who are willing to come RIDE with me.

This confluence of favorable circumstances is not likely to last long so I’ve been trying to take advantage of it as much as possible and not to feel guilty for the nice days of riding they’ve brought.

I’ve also enjoyed sharing my love of horses and relationships with friends. When someone comes to ride I walk them through leading well, grooming of course, but also working from the horse’s point of view and making sure you are the lead partner in the dance. It’s not about fighting or control as much as it is learning how to work together and being clear (and sometimes creative) in answering their questions.

When Faygo gets hot on her way home Ann began to zig-zag her through some trees to bring her mind back and remind her who controls her feet when we’re in the saddle. When Bo started to get too much built up energy Madge could work on asking a circle from him to release the energy without pushing forward past everyone else on the trail. When we need to wait a minute for a horse to drink or a saddle adjustment Susan might work on asking for Faygo’s front or back legs to move around either on the haunch or the fore as a pivot.

Also- all the horses need to learn to stand to be mounted quietly and where you ask them to. Khaleesi is really getting this down, Faygo is pretty good, and now the barn horses are starting to learn as well. They are good horses with the least amount of trail hours on them as they aren’t usually ridden all year, so they don’t exactly know what is being asked of them, but they are getting it. Even if in the end someone has to hold them still for mounting- we begin by asking them to stand at the stool and every time we get a little better.

Things will change. It will get cold. Seriously cold. The kind of cold that makes a two hour ride about all you can bear without losing that little toe forever. The trails will get icy and slick and the snow might even get deep enough to make it tough to navigate for a while. (But looking on the bright side… no flies!)
I will have to work more hours very soon- and grant season is upon us- so I’ll be putting in late nights at the computer trying to sort out the details of my strings project for others to consider supporting it. My concert repertoire will be chosen and I’ll be practicing at every crack that opens up in my day.

My friends that are so willing to ride will have commitments that draw them away from riding- considering they know better than to invest in horses of their own– they are allowed that luxury. I will have some lonelier barn days (that’s ok… it’s never truly lonely at the barn).

For now though I’m in a hurricane of people and horses on the trail; am enjoying the unexpected flurry of riding- and trying to stay in balance.  I believe flexibility and realizing what you can do with what’s in front of you. Try to carry the marbles along as best you can because nothing is ever truly perfect.

I expect a call any day now to tell me my new saddle has shipped. I am still riding in my good friend’s Freeform treeless, and there have been weeks I’ve cursed the saddle under my breath (while thanking at the same time the fortune I’ve had to borrow it for the time I have no other option).

I am not in love with the saddle- and I still see some dry spots that I don’t think are perfect, but overall it’s a decent fit and a great transitional saddle that isn’t going to hurt her. I think I’ve finally got the stirrups in the best position, and I’m starting to get the hang of it.

The upside of getting so much riding time lately and riding the treeless saddle has given me the opportunity to work on my “Centered Riding” concepts. It is unforgiving of my mistakes and has been good for me. I am getting better at balance, at understanding where my horse’s feet are when we’re moving (I now feel that there is one diagonal I am more comfortable on than the other but I can’t tell you if it is R or L… working on that too). Lately I’ve been focused on two specific concepts from Sally Swift’s book (because there are too many marbles for me to handle all at once!): Soft Eyes and the Bubbling Spring.

Soft Eyes has to do with expanding awareness. In looking at something- then softening the center of your gaze and using peripheral vision to take in the largest possible expanse it helps you to become more aware of both your surroundings and your body

The Bubbling Spring is about the balance point on the foot. It is the point of intersection about 2-3 inches behind the big joint of the second toe in the soft part of the foot. It is a pressure point and I try to imagine energy coming up through that point helping to ground me and keep me balanced softly in the stirrups.

I am working on these concepts in life as well as in the saddle. I’m slowly adjusting my healthy habits to lose those few extra pounds and getting back to the gym more frequently (or running at home on nice days) is part of that. I recently had a great workout on the treadmill where I didn’t feel like being there at first, but kept at it trying to think about my center, bubbling spring bringing me energy and keeping soft eyes. At one point my ‘soft eyes’ had me almost convinced one of the posters on the wall in front of me was in Greek! I ended up keeping a good pace up for over an hour and ran over 6 miles feeling great when I finished.

I have also been thinking about these concepts in my teaching. They were developed after the Alexander Technique which is a big concept in music as well as riding, acting etc.

I was working with an advanced young student this week who wasn’t getting great sound or coordination. It’s a lot of marbles to keep track of- and there wasn’t only one thing to work on to improve. I believe this young man isn’t always aware of his own sound and what he was actually doing.

I asked him to think of his body like a tree that has roots into the ground through those balance points on his feet, and that his “trunk” needs to be centered and strong- yet flexible- and his arms and head were the tops of the trees and could move freely without tension. I asked him to play again but to move his attention between a few things: his sound quality, the balance of his fingers over the fingerboard, his bow arm balance and where his bow placement was. It improved dramatically just giving him a method for “tuning in” to something.  

 So the good things coming out of my abundant saddle time has been my riding and connection to my horse’s movements. We’ve also been getting some nice conditioning in with both 12 and 15 mile rides with at least 4.5mph moving pace- which has been good considering the conditions are not always great and yesterday we dealt with some icy spots on the trail that really slowed us down.

The down side is that I have noticed effects from the absence of training and groundwork. I am truly pleased with Khaleesi and all the great strides she has made literally toward being a good trail mount, but when we’ve spent more time together in ground work and in the arena, or just working in the yard with communication, we are much better. We are not dancing as well as I’d like. 

There are some things we are doing great with that were goals of mine:

Leading and backing up is really going well. I love that I can walk into her space and she moves out of my way yet follows wherever I’m asking. Sometimes her back up feet move right in concert with mine. She walks to the stool perfectly in place for me to get on and USUALLY stands still after I’ve mounted. Her gate control is really getting better and better: I can open and close almost any gate from on her back and she does a pretty good job of listening to me as I place her exactly where I need her to be. Also – I sent her onto the trailer last week and she walked right on almost faster than I could remove her lead rope.

Not so good: she still tries to turn me around on the trail. I can move her all the way to a 360 turn and continue, but it’s not what I want to have to do. It is also happening the same frequency- not decreasing- even though I’ve never let her take us the opposite directions.  I’ve decided after more thought that I’d like to be able to untracked her hind and move her back against the way she’s pushing me. I tried this today and it worked “OK” but we haven’t put a lot of work into that so it’s not nearly as clear.

In the 7 clinics videos, Buck works a lot early on with being able to untrack the horses’ hind end which is valuable in a lot of things, one being to stop a horse who is not in control, but also to bring a horse into control who is about to make a bad decision (kick another horse, turn around?) We need more work on this from the ground and in the saddle.

On the trail I don’t have nearly the control I want to asking her where to walk/trot etc. If I want her to move aside and let another horse ride next to us she doesn’t always move. Also we do some riding where the road condition isn’t great and I have struggled asking her to walk where I know the footing is better and it frustrates me when we slip around because she is not walking where I’ve asked her to. On the short strips of road we ride- I struggle getting her on the RIGHT side of the double yellow line.

We need to do some more closed environment work to address these things. Otherwise I have to jerk on her and “yell” (not actually yell- I avoid that as much as possible) but kicking her and popping with my leathers after she doesn’t respond to gentler aids, or pulling her head is not fun for me and not what I want our relationship to look like. Our dance would be more in Buck’s words “hands like a butcher” and dance like a “mosh pit” at those times. We can do better.

We need some alone time, and I am certain it is near on the horizon. Meanwhile I’ve enjoyed the company of great friends and horses on the trails along with some lovely views.

As for the “team” of team green to 100- I am so glad it’s expanded to include Susan Wager and possible one of her daughters! When we get to some of these longer rides we will appreciate the help getting through strong and sound, and we have a handful of folks who (schedule and travel permitting) have agreed to crew for the team and they also make great riding and conditioning buddies. Susan decided we need an official logo and is working on that currently!

Thanks to my vet friend who always gives input if I ask- and kindly looked at a particularly gross photo this week of something… well… in the end I think it was nothing, but thanks for checking that photo out!! Special thanks to Evelyn Grau who has generously loaned me her Freeform saddle for the past few months (longer than I’d anticipated needing it!)

And to all of you who I meet in the “real” world and comment on enjoying the blog news and following the story- thanks for being there supporting us in spirit!

Onward as always!

*****NEWS FLASH*******

Got the email from Phonix Rising right as I was about publish the post: Saddle is shipping FedEx today!!!!!  

December 30, 2015

As we wrap up 2015- my first year in endurance and in blogging- I can see we’ve been active!

My first post was in January and according to WordPress stats I’ve added 85 entries (so this is 86!) and had almost 3,000 views (WOW!) and my most common post day has been Monday (probably weekend riding recap). Thanks for all of you who read our story- the WordPress folks have convinced me to enroll this year in their blogU to help improve my writing. Since you are watching now I suppose I should try to keep up my game here. 

Also I finally picked up a selfie stick. I am a visual person and love photos- which is obvious in the blog as I always post as many photos as I can. I have had fun playing with the selfie stick this week and had to laugh out loud as I put it in front of Khaleesi on a ride yesterday- she wasn’t quite sure what to make of it!

  As for our miles- Khaleesi has 85 (limited distance) Aerc miles in our first year. Faygo has 30 from the No Frills ride as she was my trial horse on my first ride. (So I have 115 as a rider). Not a ton of miles, but I’m happy about our first season and how much we’ve learned. I couldn’t tell you how many miles we’ve racked up in conditioning and training rides but I might have that number a year from now because Susan picked us up a training log book and I hope to keep up with it.

Looking back at the big picture- what made the biggest impressions?

#1 – volunteering at the OD and the national championship rides. Any new rider should make volunteering a serious goal. I saw so many horses and riders, scribing for a great vet gave me insight as to what is normal/good/not good. Sitting around while they chat randomly or talk about a horse they have concerns about is great for learning. You get to see what it’s like from the other side so to speak and I hope it makes me a better participant. Never hurts to make friends with the vet staff either. 

#2 – took riding lessons. This changed my world more than I thought possible. All the things I didn’t know I didn’t know! It has improved (what was a pretty good) relationship with my horse and according to a vet recently also has helped her develop good muscling and a nice strong body. This led me to search out more riding help (recently balanced riding by Sally Swift ) and training techniques and a desire to dance with my horse every day and never ‘just ride’. 

#3 – do it. My first ride I did not know a soul, I did not know where I was going exactly, did not know if my horse would finish with my training, I didn’t even know if she would pass the initial vet exam! (No reason she shouldn’t… just… You don’t know if you’ve never gone) I was a little nervous, but I packed up and alone I went with my horse and found a great group of helpful people, that my horse was ready and willing and I was on my way. We did it. But even if we didn’t finish we would have learned a lot too and prepared better for the next one. 

What a great year…. Looking forward to more good things on 2016 as we keep on toward the big goal!