Lesson Time

I'm one of those people who gets stressed at work. Which I assume is most people, since you can't love what you do all the time. So I often times neglect to take my lessons, which is unfortunate because part of my pay is in the form of lessons and if I don't take them I don't get paid the difference, which kinda screws me over and is mostly my own fault but still sucks none the less.

The thing is I'm not able to push aside my stress and frustration before I ride, at least not most of the time. So when I get on and I'm already worked up Pony feeds into that, she gets worked up, and then we end up fighting because I'm tense and defensive and she will fight right back if I'm like that. So most of the time, when I feel like that I don't want to ride because I feel like it does us more harm than good and while I hate to be missing out on money I hate to ride my horse like an ass even more. So I skip them.

She loves her new halter fleeces! 

Yesterday I was a little frustrated but I put on my calming music, took a moment to collect myself and got on and rode my horse. I ended up tuning out my instructor, because sometimes her trying to talk me through things just distracts me and gets me more frustrated because I'm trying but the pieces just won't fall together and I end up over riding and not just doing it like you need to. When I tuned out distractions and just rode it was perfect. She picked up both her leads (which is a miracle because I've literally spent three years trying to get her to pick up her right lead and only in the last few months have we actually gotten it) and we jumped a bit without me feeling like I was dying. Which isn't normal since I'm not really a jumper. Pony, of course, loves to jump. She locks in on them and just has a blast. I think she likes the challenge of having to figure them out, she's very smart and I think if she was human she'd love puzzles.

She also actually changed leads on her own through a little combo across the diagonal which is great, again she really thinks and figures out patterns which is why I think she loves the challenge that jumping provides. One of the ladies at the barn actually complemented me at the end of my lesson and said it looked really good, which is always awesome to hear even though I feel like I'm flopping around all over the place and look like a total idiot all the time.

So in summary it was almost the perfect ride. My instructor was almost speechless, which is very rare, and actually had to change up her lesson plan because we did so well. Hopefully I'll be able to bring the same energy to each ride and we'll really be able to get somewhere. Pony, of course, got many peppermints and chips after the ride since she was such a good girl. Treats are her favorite thing.