Teaching Tuesday

You think I'm going to teach you something? Ha!

This isn't Horse Noob because I'm some sort of pro!
However, the difference between a Noob and an idiot is that the Noob is trying, learning, and improving.

And the most important part of that difference is that a Noob is able to realize a deficiency, seek out information, and use some SENSE to learn what is right (credibility of information source, age of information, whether or not it sounds dumb).

Execution of course, is another matter, and what separates a Noob from an advanced rider.

For instance, to jump a fence: Canter up, counting strides, adjust your stride length if needed, head up, eyes forward, assume the position at the fence, close hip angle while releasing the head, open hip angle and follow the back and head coming down, eyes up, continue on. Sounds so fluid and nice.

Can I do that? No. I can trot up to a teeny fence, assuming a two-point too soon, with a basic mane release, and keep my butt out of the saddle with springy knees, and then after the jump I lower back down. I haven't even done that in a while until I get my health insurance back. :) I may not be pretty, but my horse gets very chipper when a weenie jump's involved, and has shown no hesitation about the matter. I'm not yanking on his mouth, slamming on his back, and if I'm not as balanced as I should be (I feel pretty balanced unless he decides to make the jump much larger than the object, which he sometimes does) I'm at least keeping the jumps very small until I develop that balance. So while possibly being a little annoying to him I don't think I'm making him upset or otherwise stressing him.


One time my horse tried to get a cookie for himself while roaming the indoor arena. Between two picnic tables. The cookies were in a container between them. I went to calmly get him (I didn't want to chase him out in case he got a leg caught on the bench). He knew he was being bad, so he went to turn around (I'm like good God no!), and instead of letting me get him, he reared up, hopped over the picnic table, loped a half circle and put his nosie on my shoulder like "ain't no thang."

Yes, my unfit, overweight, swaybacked, 15HH foundation-ey QH can pop over a full-sized picnic table from a standstill. And this was before the chiropractor, without a warmup, in the middle of winter. (a minnesota winter)

It was beautiful. My brain was screaming "vetbillvetbillvetbillvetbillvetbill...OMGhesdeadisnthe?" the entire time, and then when he put the nosie on said shoulder, part of me wished I could make him do that again without it being incredibly stupid and foolish.

He was now however, not allowed to kick at a barrel lying on the ground and look at me like "too high!" F-no table jumper.


Anyways Teaching Tuesday is just where I share a source. I have a few on the side (I'll show the cavalettis I recently made soon, and I LOVE the sustainable dressage link)

Today in learning about topline development, I discovered a blog entitled Dressage in Jeans, and they have a decent article about long and low that relates to all disciplines

http://dressageinjeans.blogspot.com/2009/02/get-low.html

Swaybacked horse + Long and Low = challenge.