Oh gymnastics, how I used to loathe thee

When Melissa told me that my next lesson would consist of gymnastics, I was likeGymnastics are not my friend. Actually, anything with a related distance is not my friend - I like to keep my friends at a comfortable distance away, and usually gymnastics are set at fewer than two strides apart (um, bounces, anybody?) and that's too close for comfort, in my book. I have also thought of gymnastics as being for starting babies (equine and human) over jumps, to get the feel of jumping out of rhythm. So, it's been a while since we did them, the last time being at G's when she had a xrail, one stride, oxer, one stride, oxer set up, and told us to go through them without taking anything down or building up first, and that was Not Good. Oliver skidded out when he saw the "sea of poles" and I was leaning forward (as usual) and nearly popped off, which of course did not add to my confidence level.

However, Melissa must have seen my face when she mentioned gymnastics because when I got out there, she asked me what was a comfortable distance for me - one, two, three, or four strides? I told her that two was ok - one was too tight and made me clench up inside, and anything more than two was too easy.

I'm still getting the hang of warming Oliver up - I still have trouble remembering that he's not lazy, just needs a long, leisurely warmup, because I tend to think that if I warm up too much, my quarter will run out that much sooner. In the canter, Melissa noted that it was interesting that he snorted and blew to the right, but not to the left - that indicated that the left side needed a bit more time to stretch and relax.

We started over an X, with a pole two out from the landing, where the second jump would be. Melissa wanted me to go over the X from both directions, and to be sure to sit lightly a few strides before so I don't influence the lead that he lands on, and not push or do anything - let him figure it out. That was hard to do - my instinct is to squeeze/kick if I feel that he's a bit sluggish going in, and Melissa said not to because all that meant was that he's still warming up. Sure enough, Oliver was a bit too quiet over the crossrail, which meant that he barfed over the pole on the landing side. After a few more times over the pole, Melissa rolled it in and had me cluck on the landing to encourage him to stretch over the pole. The pole then became a little vertical. The first time through, he barfed it big-time - came in under pace, didn't stretch to make up the lost distance, and then chipped it from practically a standstill. I, of course, slipped my reins and it was Awful. Well, at least to me, it was awful. M said no, not to think like that, it was the short chippy distance that he gets to a jump sometimes and wasn't he a good boy for jumping it, and wasn't I a good girl for staying with him and slipping the reins? Hm. Next time, he was great and stretched a little, because he was still coming in underpowered over the X. After one more time, he was stretching and the 2nd vertical was riding a bit short, so Melissa rolled it out and we went over that a few times, and finally the vertical ended up where it should have been, and he stretched over that beautifully. That, M said, was the longer reachy distance.

This was the whole point behind the exercise. To learn to deal with the choppy and reachy distances and find out that they're ok. I KNOW this in my head, but when it happens on course, it feels like this is going to happen:











Which it sometimes does when Oliver has gotten his fill of me being up his neck with no leg on.

We have decided to not go to the Pipe Opener in a couple of weeks, mostly due to the fact that I really don't need to jump yet another BN round the exact, same way, and the stuff that I'm addressing now hasn't been ingrained in my head and body as habit. We will be doing the gymnastic again this weekend, but making it higher and more complicated, and I'm actually looking forward to this!