I feel good when I walk in corridors.

I feel like I look good. I feel awesome. I feel on top of the world.

Walking in that “Outdoors”-thing never does that for me. Then I’m always moving from point A to point B and trying to get there some time today thankyouverymuch. I can’t stroll down a street, but DAYUM do I stroll well in corridors.

Anyway. In the most atheistic way possible, I hereby lay my life in the hands of Sandelfon.

Honey

I watched her in the beginner’s class before us, and she did look rather lazy (though the rider did make brave attempts at getting her more alert), so I started my riding off with … making her stand still, natch. :p

Later, after having managed to get her moving forwards, she turned her tactics 180 degrees and started running away from doing any work – nose up, no reactions to half halts, etc. Smart of her, I have a much harder time getting around that than I have with getting a horse to go forwards. Ah well. Occasionally we had really good moments with proper hind action and she seemed to enjoy leg yielding and working with the pre-stages to the schools, so all in all we had a good lesson!

Sometimes I complain.

That doesn’t go down well. (Complaints rarely do – isn’t that strange!?)

The main argument for not bothering with such mundane and 20th century shit as spelling, grammar or style (for the advanced culprits) is, in my experience:
“Who cares if it’s perfect as long as everyone understands what I mean?” (or rather along the lines of “Who cares if its perfic aslong evr1 no wha I meen?”)

Well… I just recently thought of an analogy that might explain why I think everyone should be more careful with their language and their expression.

If I am sitting at a table with a 1-and-a-bit-year old kid, I sure as hell will understand both “Wanna go potty”, “Gotta go potty” and even just “Pottyyyyyyy!” Fine.

If I am sitting at a table with a 32/42/52-year old who goes “Me too gotta go potty!!! I wanna, I wanna, I wanna!!!” I still will understand it, but … Yeah. Point made, I think.

The occasional mistake and typo will not make you look like an arse. Expressing yourself on the level of a pre-school kid and claiming that it’s not your problem, but the receiver’s … well – it just makes you look like wanker.

Nothing much happened. We did make some progress, but because of the spookiness, kept returning to zero to start over again. While I really love this silly beast, she sure as hell ain’t helpin’ mah ridin’ improvement.

And this last Wednesday the lesson itself was a nightmare for anyone on Toulouse’s back – exercises that often ended up in facing other horses coming the “wrong” way. Anything that’s out of the ordinary helps making her more tense. Probably a lot of it has to do with the fact that it’s making me tense as hell too. I am not really scared of hurting myself, but I really, really, REALLY don’t want to be involved in a collision between horses in the arena because I fear the horses wouldn’t come out of it in tip-top shape.

So, riding her is a feckin’ chore, but when it’s good, it’s gooooood.

Toulouse

Toulouse, of course, found this highly unpleasant. Because of the high background noise, she had to listen extra carefully to everything around us to stay on guard against all those millions of things that, you know, are going to EAT HER ALIVE. After half an hour, she was soaking with sweat, despite us only working at walk and trot (mostly walk).

I kept working on the stuff I learned on Wednesday evening. The exercise we did yesterday was well suited for it, and I imagine we made progress, both me and Harey Mare. She is a wonderful horse to ride when she relaxes. All those seconds of relaxation you can get during an hour of riding make it worthwhile. At least I try telling myself that, so I won’t get too fed up with her skittishness. I would love to learn to ride this horse well, she seems to have much to teach me, and much to give once I learn it.

So, it was time for a fight with Miss Nutcase again…

Remembering last Friday and the little war we had every 20th metre or so, I psyched myself up a bit before mounting, deciding not to let her get away with the old spook shenanigans. So up in the saddle I get, and … Nothing. She’s as cool as a very hip jazz cat.

Toulouse

We worked hard with trying to get both sides to work as balanced and even as possible, with straight-ish horses on a round track (the 20 metre circles). After a brief while, Toulouse decided this was a bit of a chore, and then – of course – signalling potential spooking was suddenly relevant to her interests again. Ears pricked, head up, intense staring at the TOULOUSE-EATING green separating wall… I kept her from throwing herself hither and thither and mainly on the right track, but her tensions sure as hell made working with her rather difficult.

At times it really did go well, though, and I could feel that we were working in the correct way. Those times were just too short and too few for my liking…

Maybe I get another chance on Friday.

I had Toulouse, but this time I had decided to be a bit tougher than I was last term. When she decided to let me know that she was going to (each time we pass, not just once) spook at:

Toulouse

• the corner where the instructor’s sweater was hanging on a stool, and an obstacle pole was lying on the ground
• the corner where there’s an opening between the hanging walls
• the corner where there’s an opening between the hanging wall and the arena wall
• the obstacle pole used as a divider in the middle of the arena
• the door to the stables
• each and every cone placed on the ground to give us markers for the exercise
• any unexpected sounds

… I decided to not be having any of that. This meant being a bit more brutal than I like to be (but, I can assure you, in no way abusive). So for ten, fifteen minutes we had our little wars at just about every turn, but then, lo and behold, she actually decided that I was obviously determined enough to be allowed to take charge.

So, thanks to being slightly tougher than I am used to, I actually got some forty minutes of riding on a horse who seemed to trust my judgment calls, and turned out more relaxed than I am used to her being.

I guess the instructors were right after all… ;p

Trolle

Finally, I’m back in the saddle after the summer break with lots of lovely green grass and wide open spaces for the horsies. …and apparently a little too much of the goodies for me too as I seem to mysteriously have gained a couple of pounds since I last was on horseback.

Same Wednesday evening class, but a new instructor and a totally remade stable. Fresh, nice, all thumbs up! The new instructor (not new to the school, I’ve just never really had her as a regular instructor earlier) is really good, so I’m looking forward to this term.

I am not looking forward to my own riding if it’s going to be like it was last night. I could feel, most of the time, what I needed to do, but I just couldn’t do it. My stomach and leg muscles have turned spaghetti over the summer, and I don’t mean al dente. Trolle, as he is prone to do, tried the “I bend my neck so she’ll think I’m doing things right and then I can mosey around without doing any proper work”. I would have fallen for it if the instructor hadn’t been as good as she is on both spotting and commenting on errors. All thumbs up for her too!

Oh well.

I won’t let this make me too depressed – after all the first lesson after a long break is always very spaghetti-like for me, and I’m recovering from an unpleasant cold, the cough lingering still. So. Better luck next time, me! (Tomorrow.)

Anyway, my muscles are painy today. I think it’s a good sign.