Cob Jockey

Dressage made me cry tonight.

We worked heavily on 10m circles for the first time tonight, and they kicked my ass.  There was just so much to think about: where am I in the arena, what is this supposed to look like, what is my outside rein supposed to be doing, how should I be using my weight.  I sort of get them in the corners, but 10m circles at B and E?  Who invented this torture?  My poor trainer was probably running out of adjectives to describe "not flamingly awful, but somewhere below mediocre."

I think 10m circles are to 20m circles like a 3 foot fence is to a cross rail.  At 20m/the cross rail, you can get away with certain things.  At 10m/3 foot, all of your little mistakes get magnified, and there is no hiding from yourself.  And at 10m, my brain was exploding with all of the little minute adjustments I had to make.  My body felt foreign, gangly and awkward.

That, plus this very emotional week I've had, plus what happened next, led to the tears in my eyes.  She asked me to ride down the center line on the right rein at A, do a 10m circle to the right at X and a 10m circle to the left at X, so sort of a figure 8.  Then she asked me to do it on the left rein.  What I didn't understand was that I was to keep doing the left rein and right rein as one exercise, so I would turn the wrong way, get confused about what direction the first circle was supposed to be and I just got so frustrated.  I can ride better than this!  My concentration was there, but I had so many things to concentrate on that something was going to get left behind.  I know better than to circle to the left off of the right rein.  I know the exercise should have flowed better.  And I know I am a better rider than how the 10m circles led me to believe tonight.

She saw what was going on, and didn't acknowledge it (thank God), but just told me to walk Dillon out for a while.  After two quiet laps at the walk, we started working on leg yields and shoulder-fore down the center line.  Moving on to something related, but not the same.

This is how she works: she challenges and pushes me, then breaks it down into tiny steps.  At first I didn't understand this, but now that I do I can see how everything she does, and how every Dressage movement I've learned so far, are not separate items but connected to the very foundations of Dressage, and have the same common threads running through them.  Improving my shoulder-in will improve my leg yield, because through it I am improving the way I communicate with the horse and am gaining a more effective use of my aids.

Some nights are exhilarating, some nights are tough.  This is one of the tougher ones, but instead of getting me down it inspires me to learn more and improve.  Have you hit a block like this?  How did you push through it?  It's Dressage, everyone has a story exactly like this, I'm sure.