The Dreaded Two Stride

I had given Emma the heads up that my parents were coming to the barn to watch the Sunday lesson and we needed to make me look good. Cause that's what it's ALL about right?

There we were, just after the flat warm up, with a grid, outside line, and two stride. Emma asked us to canter into the first fence of the grid at an angle, making a shallow loop around the second fence, and catch the third.
Then we were asked to canter the grid (I'll add that in our Friday morning lesson Emma told me that the lines were set long and quite a few horses had difficulty getting through). Gulp. My Dad got a video- ignore my arms doing a solid round of the "chicken dance" aka flapping. I tend to override with my upper body when I get nervous about making it out of lines alive.
It actually went fairly well. 
Who is this *crazy cantering all the fences* fiend?

Well then Emma sets the two stride and instructs me to canter down the four and catch the two, Gulp again as I happened to know that Ellie had not previously been schooled over a two stride with these trainers. Is she trying to kill me?

I canter the four (again- who am I?) and come down to a walk. I'm exhausted and I'm not sure I can handle the stress of the two stride (all you adult ammys know where I'm coming from). By this time the 10am lesson, all six of them, had shown up and were in the ring warming up. I start to hear a chorus of "you can do it" and "you got this girl" from the KMT team. What a great group!

So we gathered our muster and came around the corner ready to tackle this combo! She jumped in, took a hard look at the second fence, and got out in three, knocking both fences down.

The second time around she was wiggly baby dodging left and right- so again we came out in three.

One. More. Time. Galloping around and we got the two! It was awesome and everyone cheered! It felt great to challenge myself and execute in the end!

Elbows to the sky!!!

Well deserved rinse!

My Parents Meet Ellie

Did I mention parent-pa-looza? This weekend we hosted my parents and had a ton of fun!

They came out for my lesson on Sunday and got quite a show. Ellie and I were busy cantering, yes, cantering a grid, four stride line, two stride (which took several rounds to actually get in two instead of three).
More on that later.
Now I'm off to monogram all my things with the goodie bag the awesome gals at Personally Preppy sent, drink wine, and go to bed early!

Mom meets Ellie

Dad gets an action shot and Ellie gets an A+ for toting her crazy Mom around!

One Jump at a Time

So we trot the crossrail going away (in this pic), canter through the corner, and catch the rocks heading away from home.
The first time we came through the corner to the rocks and she found quite a long spot. Emma suggested I add the next time around.
As we came around the corner the second (and third time) we broke to a trot because rather than move towards the fence with pace I was too busy trying to see a distance to an 18" vertical.
So I said, "Emma- let's nix trotting this red crossrail and just get a nice canter around to the green."

Sure enough! We got a nice forward canter and hit that perfect distance. Voila! Emma and I were chatting after the lesson and I was saying how much I just really wanted to practice cantering back and forth over a fence- so we can go long, get short, be perfect- but just get over it! And how important I felt it was to build confidence NOW.
She summed it up perfectly. One fence at a time!

Rushing

Lately I've been making the mistake of "rushing." Not rushing to a fence- but rushing in life.

Rushing to cut the strawberries for my yogurt so I can get out the door to work.
Rushing around the office, leaving only if I need a Venti Starbucks to give me a second wind.
Rushing out to the barn (or not- tonight it took me 45 minutes to go 17 miles).
Rushing home to get dinner started and usually adding a stop at the grocery along the way.
Rushing to do my blogs, cat box, and whatever other household chores need to get done.

So that finally I can crawl into bed and do it all again the next day.

I need to change my focus and live in the moment, stop and smell the roses.
Which is why, when Ellie decided she'd prefer to stand in the sun rather than go back inside the barn, we stood. Also- she got her mane pulled and looks adorable.

Horse Husband

I love that I can hand Paul a brush and he merrily goes to work!
Clearly Ellie's role as "couch" on Saturday wore her out.