Wahoo! I have a day off! It's been a looooooooooooong first week here but I've learnt so much already. I'm really happy that I made the change and came over to Sheepcote to stay for the rest of my trip. Although all the horses have quirks and their own issues, the fundamentals of training are there so you've got something to work both on the ground and under saddle. The farm itself is beautiful (as you can see from my previous post) and everyone is pretty friendly here. Our coach David is a typical European dressage coach lol but all of us learn a lot from each lesson so it's all good. He has this rule for his arena, if your horse has to poop, you have to stop as soon as you notice and yell "droppings" and then he or someone watching runs out with a skip (pooper scooper) and removes it. It's kind of strange to get used to stopping a horse if they have to poop rather than pushing them forward, but it makes sense as his arena is gorgeous and he said that your horse should be listening to you enough that at a show while riding a test, if the horse needs to "go" they will not stop if you don't ask them for it.
We have a group lesson at about noon each day followed by a lunch break before we continue on with the rest of our work day. Even though we have group lessons, David coaches each one of us individually which is nice. What I'm working on right now is controlling my muscles so that I can properly ask the horse to engage himself (relaxing my seat when I use my legs, properly using my lower leg, asking for flexion at the same time as asking the horse to engage his hind end, etc). I've been working for so long on relaxing horses and trying to just get them to do things calmly and it's been a very long time (since I was a teen) that I've actually had to put a horse fully together in prep for higher level movements. It's nice to do, but right now it feels totally foreign to me, ahh well, I'll get used to it!
On a non-horsey note:
I purchased a cell phone! Yahoo! lol Which means that even though I'm trying to limit my calls since it cost a LOT to call back home, I can actually talk to my mom (since skype and her an my schedules don't really work out for talking) and I had a chance to talk to my best bud, Krystina. :) It was so nice to hear their voices! Unfortunately my dad didn't answer the call (must have been in a bad cell area) but I'm hoping to give him a shout again soon. :)
Well, since it is my day off, and so far it's been jammed packed with some sleeping in, a little walk around the farm (went to take pics then noticed my battery was dead... uggg), charged my camera for a bit, watched the girls' lesson, ate some lunch and came on the computer for a bit... I think I might put on a movie and lay down for a bit-it's going to be another long week once tomorrow comes so I'm going to be as lazy as I can today and rest up! Hopefully my body fully lasts through this next week!
 |
| French Lucy on Tom! |
 |
| Ellie on Hector! Her family has a trekking center in Wales and she's going to bring Hector back on a lease next week. :) Gunna miss both of them! |
 |
| It's Spring here on the farm, and there are flowers everywhere |
 |
| David doing poop patrol :) |
 |
| Three of the girls hanging out at the end of the lesson. I normally ride Walk About, the big bay on the left. |
 |
| Ellie and Hector after the lesson :) |
You make me SMILE! :)
ReplyDelete