Marc Grandia Clinic: Speed and Accuracy

Saturday was the second clinic date with Marc, this time focusing on Speed and Accuracy. I had accidentally double booked myself for Aug 1 but then one of the events (a 30 mile endurance ride) got cancelled. Boo... but I didn't have to choose at least.

I splurged on myself and got some purple cross country Majyk Equipe boots for Gwyn

Happy ears

For this session, we started with just the gallop and being able to regulate the power, influence and balance by shifting our own body in our rider positions (gallop, balance, three point, two point and landing). Usually I consider myself relatively fit but THIS was kicking my butt, literally and figuratively! So I've dug out my Rider Fitness book and I'm gonna buckle down with that. Remembering that I was really riding on my toes last time, between the two clinics and at this clinic, I really pushed myself to sink into my heels when I was starting to feel insecure. It definitely helped. I did not have any of the tipping issues over jumps that I did last time! So progress there!

This face tho... (Bend your GD elbows...) PC: Stephani

The big thing that we focused on was using our body and seat to signal to the horse. So the lower you go, like a jockey, the more stretch and reach you want from your horse while they maintain the same rhythm with better efficiency but while covering more ground. So we practiced galloping around, with the image of our chest touching our pommel and then rising upright to shorten the stride and act as a signal to balance and focus on the line. It was very core intensive!

He talked about how you watch 2 and 3 star horses who don't seem to change their rhythm on the xcountry course, but you can see the stride change coming into and out of a jump. For a lot of this I was really recalling my time as a jump judge at WEG and it was pulling memories up confirming what Marc was describing. 

Her pointed nose of concentration... 😆  PC: Stephani

I have a conundrum with Gwyn. When she's fresh and ready to gallop, she doesn't offer a lot of steering control, especially if she's magnetized toward other horses or the trailers, etc. And we had a lot of runaway moments, always to the right, where I'd have her nose at my left knee and she was still moving sideways right in the canter. Damn Goober Mare is too flexible. And at one point, she had locked onto a bank complex instead of making a turn toward a steeplechase brush fence. Marc laughed at that and said "She's learning, but she still needs to listen to you." When she started to get tired she was much more willing to rate and steer at the canter. So now I need to figure out how to merge the stamina of fresh Gwyn to the control of tired Gwyn. 

Marc really insisted that in those moments I turn her the direction I intended, otherwise she's learning the wrong thing. Yeah, guilty. I'll accept that. Again, I think I need to go recreate those moments and see what I can do in the moment to fix things. I don't think I had all the tools I could have used ( I didn't carry a bat this time or spurs) but I do want to fix it. 

And I have to say, even with the corrections he demanded, I never felt bad, instead, I felt empowered. He's an amazing clinician and so supportive of the riders. He was fair and wanted you to ride correctly and improve. He was never mean or bullying. 

Again with the nose...  PC: Stephani

Once we'd strung together a couple lines, especially working on letting the horse take simpler questions out of a gallop stride where our position didn't change because we were already ready for the jump being in gallop position, we moved on to accuracy. 

 PC: Stephani

For this, Marc set up three jump blocks as a skinny jump. Something low but that had challenge in the narrowness of it. We went over it as three, then he removed it, we went over it as two and then down to one block. The goal was to teach the horse to lock on and treat any object you present as a jump, and he described how if you really drilled it, you could get your horse to jump a traffic cone. That's serious goals! 

We did well with the 3 and 2 set  PC: Stephani

If the horse didn't quite make it over the blocks, we had to immediately halt and back up to put the horse back on the line. No circling around. Back up. It was as much to teach the horse that, no, I want you to try again with a different answer. Gwyn was the most proficient at backing up of the three mares there 😂  And honestly... was straighter backing up than going forward, a fact that Marc joked about. 

... and even succeeded a few times with the single!  PC: Stephani

We eventually strung all three skinnies together in an S bending line. It was super challenging but SUPER fun and I want to recreate it at home! I think this is an exercise that could really help us. 

Simplified diagram by me

Marc used imagery like keeping the horse on a railroad line made from your legs. What I learned from this is that Gwyn is VERY wiggly between my legs. This was tough! 

She is SUPER intent on the game. PC: Stephani

There was a moment where we made it over the first and she turned and locked onto the second and then we turned again and locked onto the short barrel brush and sliced through it like a dream. It was like I was a teen in pony club again with Clyde where we were fearless and he took care of me over any jump I pointed him at. Everything felt perfect and EVERYONE cheered, even Marc. It was perfect and with all of our steering struggles, we nailed it. Just.... nailed it.  I am still riding that high today!

The final skinny was a short barrel top with brush. We sliced this one to avoid the harder one that was in a line right after   PC: Stephani

The resting period while we all tackled this gymnastics exercise was enough for Gwyn to recover from her long bouts of galloping and when we strung a longer course together with the gymnastics, her steering went wonky again (and Goober Mare was very much present and wanting to GO) 

I had half a mind to take her on some trails because we'd only been riding 90 minutes and only done 4.5 miles of work... she was fit to keep going. She keeps reminding me that she's more fit than I credit her for.  And by that, I mean, she took off on me in the moment between her bridle coming off and me getting her halter on. The Shadowood crew helped me catch her and since I still had my helmet on, I tied the leadrope back onto her halter and hopped back on to ride back to the trailers. Of course she was steerable in the halter and leadrope 😒 😆

She got a bath at the newly installed washracks by trailer parking and then I made her hydrate by dumping some timothy cubes in a bucket of water.

Mom, dis bag here has the good stuff. Imma bite it.

All in all, it was a fantastic clinic.

Quick notes for myself:

• Shorter stirrups for jumping, this also emphasized after a timely Denny Emerson post on similar topics. My lower leg swings back too much. So shorter stirrups it is
  
• Better fitness for myself to be able to hold an effective rider position in the canter/gallop
• Straightness straightness straightness!
• Correct in the moment and BACK UP if necessary to reset the horse on the line immediately
• Tiny jumps in all the ways to work on accuracy!
• Pre and post-electrolyting with powerade/gatorade before the clinic really helped this human. Use that strategy going forward for endurance rides and shows. I did not finish with a sun headache like last time

Marc Grandia Clinic: Ditches and Coffins

 I was really excited to talk about this. Especially because I actually have AMAZING media thanks to a friend. But then I woke up to a fucking comment about weight on my IG where they grossly overestimated what I weigh. I just deleted it rather than engage, but fuck. Way to ruin a good mood. I was in such a positive headspace with constructive things that I could work on and improve. 

So understand that I am sharing these in an absolutely wretched state of mind. I don't mind being picked apart for my equitation or form over fences. Those are things I can fucking change way more easily than my weight right now.  And I'm just... ugh. There's just a lot of self doubt and spiraling self hatred in my head about this. And there shouldn't be. There really fucking shouldn't be. 

Anyway.

I board 5 minutes down the road from Polestar, a local eventing facility owned by Meika Decher. It's so close and I've never been there and I really should have by now. You can trailer in and flat on the cross country course for a small fee and by notifying Meika. She also has trails on the property. To use the cross country course you need an instructor. 

For this, I signed up for 2 days of a 3 part clinic with Marc Grandia, who has a training facility a town or two over. The 3 sessions were spread out over 3 months, so June, July and August. I couldn't do June thanks to moving houses, but I snagged a spot for July and August.

We were in small groups and trailer parking was basically at the start of the cross country field so there was very limited clustering of people. I operated solely out of my trailer and even had my camping toilet with me to minimize contact. It felt very safe. 

I was in the third or fourth group of the day. In fact, I was arriving to grab Gwyn when the barn owner was returning from her clinic session with him. We started off with establishing a steady trot and canter in the field. Gwyn was AMPED up. She wanted to gallop. She knew it was something fun we were doing and was ready to just go hogwild. So our canter had some steering issues BUT I was able to implement the things I worked on in lessons to stop letting her blow through my right aids and for the most part was able to do broad left turns at the canter, lol. But if she got too strong in the beginning, I really only have control if I tightly turn her right. There's still work to be done.

We started over a small log and BOY, suddenly the game was on! The focus to the first jump was staying straight and steady. Then we added in a couple more to string together a small course. 

Because these were smaller jumps, and Gwyn was having some straightness issues, Marc had me focus on coming in in a nice trot and encouraging a forward canter on the other side. As Gwyn got a little tired (haha) and I got my sea legs back, so to speak, I built up the confidence to string some of the jumps together with cantering completely. 

I have a weird mental hangup where I don't fully trust Gwyn to jump out of a canter yet. I'm not sure what's going on with that, but I do know that we just need to keep doing it so that I can outweigh the hesitation in my brain with good experience and examples. Maybe once I feel like I have more steering control? And that will only come with more cantering time in an open field.

Once we'd finished stringing a few fences together and establishing steady pacing and straightness into and away from jumps, we added in the ditches and coffins. Specifically working with the natural elevation changes and maintaining good rhythm despite downhill or uphill striding. 

The baby ditches/coffins for my level were simple rectangles of landscape timbers with stapled landscape fabric on the bottom. There was no depth to ours to start, just the illusion of depth. Gwyn handled these fine. We had more troubles being straight to jumps than anything. I'm seeing my right size weakness magnified out on the cross country course, so I'm filing that away for things to work on at home.

I'm also a little bit ahead of the motion. I'm not sinking into my heels enough which would help me fold more. So that's also something I'm working on at home on the flat. Lots of two point and really redeveloping a better base to jump out of in shorter stirrups. This did lead to two falls for more, though thankfully both were a roll and I was on my feet. None were head impacts and I definitely appreciated my vest. 

Despite the falls, it was such a great time. Blazing hot and I could feel Gwyn losing some power over the jumps as we moved from more starter level heights to true BN as she got tired. She still had power on the flat and was not content to just stand and wait our turn, so I'm crediting our endurance conditioning for that. She can trot for hours, but I know that her conditioning won't fully convert to jumping condition, especially in the heat. I rode conservatively and we didn't do everything everyone else did, which Marc was on board with. My legs were getting to be jelly anyway. 

We ended on a really strong note, tying several fences together and cantering the course, far better than our start! And again, my confidence rose as the day progressed, even though we were both hot and tired. It was such an empowering clinic, I'm really excited for the August one, which will be on conditioning and pacing! 

In the meantime, I intend to return to Polestar specifically to use their fields for cantering work. Gwyn feels better balanced in the open like this where our turns can be wide and sweeping, rather than tight and controlled in an arena. I would like to get to a point where we can canter around the perimeter of the field and that's going to require more stamina from me. 

Really, this gave me more of a desire to push forward with my AEC goal in 2022. And these clinics are a good stepping stone on the way there. 

Jompies!

At this point I'm finding it easier on my time and commitment to use the trainers that come to the barn. These are typically the ones my barn owner is using as she trains for eventing (she's moving up to training). Plus the BO typically schedules for groups of lessons so we all split a travel fee which makes them overall very affordable. 

All this to say, we had a jump focused lesson on Sunday! Since that was Kaylee's birthday, I didn't want to be at the barn ALL day, so I chose the 9 am lesson slot. I was the first out there. Gwyn had already been turned out with her breakfast hay and willingly left it to come to me at the gate. It was sunny and in the 60s, perfect temperature.

Mismatched brand, but matchy purple gear! 

Freshly groomed arena too

I was mounting up when Trainer S arrived. She seemed nice and got to work setting up the jumps which the barn owner had moved into the arena. She asked for a brief history of me and Gwyn and explained a little about her teaching style. She's very big on rider form and correctness. I let her know that Gwyn's education in jumping was very basic to nonexistent and I wanted her to develop a good sense of how to approach a jump.

I found her to be a bit of a mixed toolkit instructor. But what I LOVED was how brutal she was with my position and jumping form. She almost immediately had me raise my stirrups a hole (OUCH) and then proceeded to pester me about my heels, especially my right heel. I like to post from my toes. I'm not sinking into my heel as much as I should. When I apply leg my foot raises and swings back. So there was a huge biomechanic component that we worked on to make me more correct and secure.

To warm up my goal was to get Gwyn a bit more energetic and less dressage ploddy. This was the morning after all the personal fireworks of the 4th and Gwyn set the tone for all the horses today. They were TIRED and slow. It took a lot of effort on my part to perk her up and even trying some canter didn't wake her up like it has previously.

I was pleased, however, to find that my form over fences is still there in muscle memory from being a kid. We started with a set of trot poles, then moved to a simple trot pole into cross rail. My first task was to get Gwyn energetic to the jump to get her actually considering a jump rather than a big trot cavaletti. Eventually we strung a course together. It was all right turns but had two bending line approaches. I totally biffed the course a couple times, thanks ADHD, but Gwyn was a superstar.

She was a tired Goober when we were done. We did the final, middle cross rail once more and she just barely trotted it and immediately walked. Trainer S wanted once more but we had just finished the round and it was a good round on the course so I insisted on ending on a good note and letting her walk. There was no issue with that. 

So far, I like Trainer S. I think she'll be good for me and Gwyn to incorporate something with a little more technical difficulty. And it's a good step towards AECs 2022! She definitely thinks we could bomb around a BN course really well. And that's what I've got my sights set on. She even has experience with working with Friesians and F-crosses so she knows the struggle with that weak hind end and tendency to just be super front heavy.

I stuck around and watched a barn mate's lesson and took some pictures and video. The day was starting to get warm and I had to get home to celebrate a certain newly 8 year old's birthday.

Changing the Routine

This is mostly going to be word vomity with some pictures from recent rides thrown in for good measure. But I need to word vomit in order to make sense of things and organize my life.

Waiting for lunch and VERY unsure about me coming to get her with no lunch in hand.

 Jim and I decided on lessons every other week. We found a barn that will allow haul ins (at $20 each, ouch) so Cortney and I can meet him centrally with an indoor for these dark months. I can't wait for it to get lighter so we can go back to Bridle Trails because that is included in state park tags.

But still listening to the 3 year old. 

Given the snow recently, Cortney is snowed in fully so I had a solo lesson on Monday. It was the second day of snow storms so maybe not the smartest decision I've made to haul in, but the roads were mostly okay. I just took it slow.

 Despite wearing spurs during this lesson, Gwyn was still dead to my leg. As it turns out my half chaps are muting the signal (because in order to get appropriate calf width I have to get ridiculous length #fatgirlproblems)

I either need to treat myself to custom half chaps (yes please) or start wearing my tall boots for dressage work. I don't think my spurs will fit on over my half chaps.

Fussing about that other horses are getting fed lunch while she has to be lunged.

 So that's brain vomit 1. 

Hazel helpfully 'blocked' the entrance to the outdoor arena with the cones, LOL

 Then, my previously planned ride schedule was going to be Monday lesson, wednesday ride while Hazel has preschool in the morning, then a weekend *thing*.

Except I've gotten a new job now so riding will be relegated to evenings and weekends, which is more time away from family and relying on Eric to do majority child rearing in the evenings. That doesn't start until the end of the month but I'm really going to need to figure out a new schedule that will fit with work now added.

Finally getting lunch

 I'm not sure how much my schedule will fit into what they've told me is M-F 8-5. I'm very much looking forward to this job though because the pay is amazing, it's work that's right up my alley and specialty with a minimal commute.

Forward, down and out

 I still need to find childcare. And figure out how to add in the exercise that I've been enjoying lately like yoga and walking/jogging.

 I have paid for and been following Noom, with success so far. I'm hoping it will remain successful. It's working well with my ADHD.

 But yes, things from the lesson...

She's looking so good lately. 

 Working on shoulder in and half pass, also renvers/travers will help strengthen her weak hind leg. Having more effective spurs/leg aids.

 I need to remember shoulders touching for my own posture so I stop hunching.

Still using up my old colorstreet 

 There are other things that I need to physically write down, like things I'd like to have, rewards for milestones to treat myself, but those don't need to go here

The snow arrived.

 There's just a lot I'm mentally trying to organize plus I've got Girl Scout cookie season starting Friday so that's just one more thing on my mental plate.

So we went sledding

 So if you want girl scout cookies, my kid is selling them. I'll post the link on Friday when it's active and you can order them and ship them to your house directly, if you need to be enabled that way.

The arena for my lesson. It felt narrow but might actually be exactly dressage court sized. Also on a slope big enough that it's noticeable on horseback.

 I have lost 8 lb so far, so at least in that case I'm seeing success. I think with my first paycheck I'm going to get myself an actual fitness watch so I'm not relying on my cell phone to be my pedometer, which is what's currently happening. Any recommendations?

No actual lesson pictures. Just an almost fully untacked Gwyn who I was racing to get back in her blanket because the snow was picking up.

I took the kids to the YMCA yesterday to swim and the sun even came out.