Four words. Sit back and ask. Okay, let’s try again. Four more words. I hate canter transitions. Seriously. At this exact moment in time, I find them to be the most frustrating thing in the world! The horse I am half-leasing is lovingly called Lazy Lizzy, but she’s not the problem. It would be easy to blame her. I want to blame her! But like any good breakup text—it’s not her, it’s me. When talking through with my trainer, I can eloquently and scholarly state what I need to do to get the correct transitions from walk to canter. I can break apart every thing I am doing wrong when I am asking for the canter transition, but there is a major disconnect when I am actually doing it. My biggest problem is I’m not sitting back. I’m not even sitting straight. I’m hunched over like Gollum loving on the evil ring from Lord of the Rings. My precious. It’s like my body wants to push Lizzy into the canter by sheer will and force of my shoulders moving toward her shoulders… like that’s gonna help. I am fully and completely aware that this is my biggest problem. I also like to throw my reins forward as if I'm pleading with Lizzy to give in and just canter already. And every time I think I have a handle on it and walk through my mental checklist of where my body is vs. needs to be and make the changes, I fall apart two steps into asking. Here’s an illustration: At the very end of my lesson, exhausted, frustrated, feeling all sorts like a failure, my trainer jokingly said "You gotta think open chest, head up like you're looking at God". I laughed-- "So... say a prayer and then canter". Haha so funny right? Y'all. IT WORKED. It wasn't perfect. It wasn't immediate walk to canter, but it was the perfect visual to help me get my body where I needed it to be and STAY there. I’ll keep working on it. And Lizzy and I will get it eventually. And I’ll celebrate with a victory canter lap around the arena like I just took home Gold for the USA!
-Michelle
2 Comments
|
Archives
February 2021
Categories
All
|