Transitioning Into Competitors

Surya and I will attend our first event in two weeks, and we (well, I) am excited! Our goal is to complete the event. Going for blue will come later. But, in the interest of fostering a future winning streak (ha), I am concentrating on preparing for the competition season. In our last lesson my trainer commented that in order to be truly competitive in dressage, we need to work on Surya’s consistency in the bridle and our transitions.

Transitions are important, blah blah, yeah yeah, we all know. Over the winter, we did a lot of walk-halt transitions to extend our warmup when it was cold and to encourage bending even before we started trot work. Our downward transitions have steadily improved from full-stop-on-the-forehand to moving forward into the bridle. In general, though, I have eschewed work on transitions in favor of work on the bit, suppling, and bending.

I have especially ignored upward transitions. My approach has been to expect Surya to get it over with as soon as possible. Namely, I ask for canter, you canter, or you get smacked/kicked/named Acting President of the You-Are-in-Deep-Shit Committee. Not surprisingly, this approach improved reaction time and minimized fights over forward motion. Also not surprisingly, Surya does not particularly enjoy upward transitions. Sometimes she will pin her ears and swish her tail before I remind her of her pending application to juvenile delinquency camp. When she does comply, whether from walk to trot or trot to canter, she wrinkles her nose, throws her head in the air, and lurches forward into the faster gait.

Shockingly, I also do not enjoy upward transitions. They are uncomfortable before, during, and immediately after. They are an unfortunate intermediary between what I was working on (such as trotting), and what I would like to be working on (such as cantering). But, it is time to add transitions to the list of things we are schooling.

The past three weeks, I have spent the first ten minutes of each ride doing sitting trot and canter without stirrups. I like the schedule quite a bit. It warms my legs up (fast!), and gives Surya a chance to putter around in a pony trot before I go back to posting and am capable on insisting on a “big girl trot.” The other upside is that my sitting trot is vastly improved. Don’t be too impressed. By vastly improved, I mean improved to the point where I have a decent chance of keeping my stirrups on my feet and keeping my butt connected to the saddle.

This means that if I concentrate very hard, I can sit in the saddle, keep my back straight, and ask for a transition to canter without leaning forward and throwing the reins away. However, I still have a tendency to wish the transition to be over as soon as possible. Grit my teeth, clench my fingers, squint my eyes. My whole body screams “I’m uncomfortable, just go!” Surya reflects my body language, I reflect hers, and we reflect each other in one tense unhappy bundle.

The solution is obvious. I need to ride through the transition, before, during and immediately after. I need to breathe and stay with the uncomfortable feelings. If I always insist on rushing, no matter how fast her reaction time, Surya will never learn balance in transition and will always lurch forward. If I only have good technique and position when things are predictable and smooth within one gait, what kind of rider am I? There is a difference between insisting on immediate reaction to my application of leg and insisting on transition to a higher gait no matter what kind of balance she is in. I need to bend her, squeeze her to contact with the bridle, then apply leg and ask for the transition. Only then should I end her world if she doesn’t respond.

It will hurt. I will want to close my eyes and wait for it to be over. But I need to be unafraid to breathe and feel. The pain is good. We are not really hurt. Surya and I just experience an explosion of feeling when moving up. Our natural reaction is to shrink from intensity. Instead, we need to embody full awareness, and meet the challenge with equal power. Instead of a transition from one kind of work to another, I want the transition to become a moment outside of gait. A full stop to the music, a pause, a breath, before resuming in greater color. I want to love transitions. I want to want to ride nothing but transitions. Because dance is call and response, transformation from one step to another.

Cross Country Schooling!!!

Vulnerability is a difficult concept for me. I don’t like it and I decide against feeling it. In general, I am unafraid. I guess this is a coveted feeling in horseback riding.

But a few of weekends ago, something happened to shake my confidence. I usually go on a trail ride around the edge of the farm property before my weekly jump lesson. That Saturday, the weather was atrocious. A mixture of snow, rain, and hail dumped drearily from the sky, despite the fact that the calendar read March. I decided to go out anyway. We were jumping outside- why couldn’t we go on a trail ride?

Surya and I started out the gate and along the fields adjacent to woods bordering the property. These woods have historically been scary to Surya, and we have had more than one spooking “incident.” It hasn’t really fazed me. Beyond the woods along the backside of the property, there are suburban houses backing to the property, and Surya has found the need on occasion to spin 180 and bolt. This has upset me, resulting in anger and cursing, but again, hasn’t shaken my underlying confidence.

That Saturday, Surya power-walked alongside the woods, with her back tight and her head in the air, ready to leap for joy or run for her life. Suddenly, a branch on one of the trees cracked loudly to our left. Surya spun to the right and bolted back the way we had come. I lost my left stirrup, but really was in no danger of falling off. I sat back in the saddle and checked the reins hard. No response. All right. As we traveled along at a full gallop I evaluated my options. We were charging slightly downhill on leaf-covered rutted ground. There was maybe a horse-and-a-half length between the fence on our left and the woods on our right. A short field-length ahead of us, a gate was swung open and blocking our path. Under normal circumstances, I would have used a pulley rein and yanked her around in a circle until we stopped. But, I could feel her stumbling slightly. She wasn’t in any danger of slipping going forward, but I was worried that if I yanked her toward the woods she might fall down instead of coming to an abrupt halt.

Basically, it was up to Surya what happened next. THAT was scary. What was I scared of? What if she jumped the gate? I could probably stay on, and then we would have an open field coming up and I could stop her. What if she took a 90 degree left turn at a gallop? I could still probably stay on. I was scared of her trying to jump, but doing it wrong and getting caught on the gate. I was scared of her running into a tree. I was scared of her not being able to make the turn and smashing into the fence. Essentially, I was scared of her doing something stupid and not taking care of us. Staying on was my responsibility. Directing was my responsibility, until she assumed control. Staying upright was her responsibility. Did I really not trust her to do that?

This went through my head in a split second. Then, still having no brakes, I held on and waited to see what happened next. Surya galloped up to the gate then came to a halt that would have made a reining horse proud. She lowered her head and snorted. I considered that an adequate warmup and then went in the ring to have a jump lesson in the hail.

The next weekend, ARF was nice enough to go on a trail ride with me. I kept Surya’s neck engaged and bent the whole time, but she was predictably bored. The following weekend, Surya and I were leaving the farm and going cross-country schooling for the first time. I needed to have a better stop-gap measure should she spook at the scary things off the farm and choose to bolt again. The Friday before we went, I took the afternoon off work, put on my nifty new safety vest (required for cross-country but I guess useful for trail riding too), and went on another solo trail ride.

Surya was very up, and determined to spook and run despite the sun being high in a cloudless sky and absolutely nothing happening on the farm, in the woods, in the backyards of the houses, or the wheat fields on the other side of the property. She tried to spin and bolt four times. This time, though, I was prepared, and continued to spin her in tiny circles as soon as she pulled 180s. I was happy that she tried her best to act like an OTTB instead of a sensible mustang. It gave me the chance to insist on forward movement and her listening to me no matter what, and restored my confidence and sense of invulnerability.

However, it didn’t really answer the question- do I trust her? Of course there are all kinds of trust.  The most basic concept of trust is the expectation of a certain behavior from someone. I trust that Surya will not deliberately try to unload me from the saddle or hurt me on the ground. I think she has trust in me that I won’t put her in inextricably bad situations. If she didn’t have trust in me, there is no force on this green earth that would get her to go forward when she didn’t want to, load in a trailer, or accept clippers.

That is basic trust though. The same kind of trust that a business acquaintance won’t pull a knife and shive me when shaking their hand. Or maybe the trust that a friend will speak well of you when asked.

That is not life trust. Life trust is an extension of each other. That whatever the situation, you will get through it together. It is not a guarantee that nothing bad will ever happen. But it is knowledge that you each will support the other through it, that the breathing of one will suffice for both.

I didn’t have that belief in Surya. I have trust in myself, or the brazenness to go leaping in anyway. To Surya, I was acting as a director, refusing to cede any control, rather than as a partner.

When we got off the trailer at the horse park where we were cross-country schooling, Surya had her head as high as it could go. When I got on, I bounced off her back it was so tight, as she pranced and looked at everything. We warmed up and she slowly relaxed and listened. Then we entered the field and our trainer had us trot over some logs. There was a dawning of understanding on Surya’s part. “Ohhhhh THIS is what all this stuff is for! Jumping! Alright, woohoo!!!”

As we got deeper in the park, we started cantering and jumping larger obstacles. Toward the end, we jumped a coup and a rolltop. I was feeling very unsure. Again, not of my ability to stay on, but of Surya’s ability to take care of us. As we approached each, I asked “Surya, can you jump this?” The answer was unequivocally yes.

And just like that, I trusted her. With my support, she pointed herself toward the jump and leaped with room to spare. We were true partners!

ARF has told me frequently that cross country is “just you and the horse.” I thought she meant that there are no distractions, and it is nice to be in a quiet open space while horseback riding. But she meant it much more viscerally. It is you and the horse, as one team. Nothing else matters, and you each depend on the other.

We were both unafraid. But we were also both unafraid to be vulnerable, because the other has our back. She was unsure and I was sure. I was unsure and she was sure. We are a team. And, cross country schooling for the first time, we got each other home safely.