Feeling Accomplished (Again)

 But wait, there's more!

On the theme of big personal accomplishments of late, I'm having great rides on Sophie. The other day, I rode alone, at twilight when everything is shadowy and spooky (according to Sophie) and I still got some solid work done and felt like we made a few breakthroughs. We've had several good arena rides with friends, and she's got so relaxed about the whole thing that yesterday we had to have a chat about moving off my leg. You may recall previously even touching her near where my leg goes or using a stick near her was cause for much irritation and threats of violence (from her, not me!) So, recent developments may be a testament to how relaxed she's gotten, or perhaps to how much I'm willing to nag. I'm trying very hard to be self aware re: the latter and follow up immediately when I don't get a response.

Can we talk about how civilized she's been at the fair grounds - there's a busy farmer's market next door she's eying up here, but not at all worried about.

I need to get her out on the trails again, and she's going to have three days off this week prior to our clinic. I think there's a good chance she's bored of our routine and also just a bit sore and tired. I think I've been riding every day for a month (don't worry, Bridget's still on the team too, so I'm not just riding Sophie day after day.) But, Sophie still is quite underdeveloped/immature looking, plus I've been adding spirals and baby lateral work into the mix so she's likely in need of a little time out in the field.

Zero riding pics though, because I seem to just take pics for everyone else then kind of lose the momentum when it comes to arranging some of myself these days. Pivo was going to help with that, but the arena's been so busy it's not been ideal either.

I owe a bit of the recent ride successes to the RideIQ app - thanks for the reviews! While it's no substitute for a lesson, for those of us without regular coaching or who struggle with ride plans it's perfect. Without a coach, it's easy for me to waffle around and lose confidence in what I'm doing when things aren't going to plan. I think this app probably really shines for riders like me who've done the thing before and probably have the basic tools in the toolbox, but don't have a regular lesson schedule or maybe just need some added validation and encouragement. I don't think it'd be great on it's own for riders themselves who maybe are greener - I can see in some of the more advanced lesson notes I'd definitely want to be going through the exercises with a coach a few times in real life first to make sure I know what it feels like to do it well.

Her neighbor this day was a giant tree. Far less exciting than a cute gelding.

The big value for me is to have someone talking in my ear and reminding me to check in on this or that. Yes, sometimes the lessons end up being a bit not applicable because we're doing OK (or we're not and I need to go back to work on something else!), but it's still good to check in and I feel like my brain retains a lot of it the information even if I don't end up using or needing it for my ride or my particular horse. Plus, I don't think there's ever a time it's not useful to hear someone remind me to sit up and carry my hands ;)