Hip Flexor

On our day off, Faith and I got to audit Linda's Instructor Horsemanship Course. We were both pretty stinkin' excited about it and you can't imagine how grateful we are to have been allowed to. In the early morning, I was in the office helping some of the student/instructor people who needed office help, but after that, we did simulations of the stead rein and then seated posting on the barrel. I did not post on a barrel, but I did watch and take good notes. It was educational to say the least and I was pretty excited to see the riders ride it later on.

Linda came up and set us up to do another simulation on stability. Faith and I were partners for this one. We stand on the flats of our feet with our knees bent as much as possible (keeping the heels touching the ground), "crunch your dots" down our sides and on our front, tuck our butts, focus ahead with neck stretched up like a string is pulling our sternum back around and over our shoulder blades and up through the top of our head. Then, the other person tests the stability by gently pushing the front, back, and side of the positioned person's shoulder. Next, we tried putting something out of position and feeling how that affected stability. It was really crazy how little it took for stability to be lost and also interesting to see what affected all of the stability (front to back and/or lateral) and how much or little each tweak changed stability. An important observation was that sometimes what felt like stability was actually just brace and by opening the hands, we can isolate stability without brace.

Watching the riders in the first group, I took lots of notes. Linda shortened stirrups if the lower leg was mobile, telling us that after a couple days, the hip flexor would open up more and the stirrups could be lengthened without the lower leg becoming unstable. Linda also corrected crookedness in the riders' stirrups and shoulders. It was really interesting and when I watched the second group, I took fewer notes because I mainly just watched and tried to make conjectures about what Linda would have each rider do to become straighter and have better position. By the end of the auditing, I had a brand new eye through which to observe riders.

In the 75' round pen on the 45' line, I played with his circling game and played a game of canter on the big circle, walk on the circle close to me. I had to go back to online once and then it made sense to him and he sent on a small circle right away.

I saddled him up and took him to the small coverall to find that the guys had left the volleyball stuff out--including the net hanging in the middle of the coverall. At first I said "Aww, man," then I realized the opportunity here and took Blu in. I played with sideways then had him canter a couple circles before mounting from the fence.

We proceeded to take down the volley ball net without using the reins. He was awesome; it's like he was born to take down volley ball nets! He never spooked or flinched with all of the shaking, dragging, and wrapping up. I pitched the bundle in the corner, made a couple laps around the arena freestyle and relaxed then began practicing the positioning I learned from Linda. It felt like being back in the show ring.

Natural Horsewoman Out.