Yesterday I struggled with my translation work as my right arm and shoulder started ached something fiercely. Most likely, its a repetitive strain injury of some kind, which is not exactly great if I am considering a career at the keyboard. I have had smaller issues over the years, but over the last weeks it has escalated, making each new job progressively more painful. So, that depressed me.
Until, that is, I got to the stables and got a nice surprise. We were supposed to have a theory lesson, but its a winter holiday week for schools so we had lots of early cancellations and the one other person who was supposed to show up called and said he wouldn’t come. So ... the instructor asked me if I wanted to ride instead? Did I? Oh yes. Fortunately, I had worn okay clothing for riding, since I had expected us to be in the stables for the theory. So, I had my coat and my gloves, though just regular non-riding tights and walking boots. But with a borrowed hat and whip I was ready to go. And I got Murphy, too. Of course, he was a little surprised to quickly get tacked up (we were a bit late since the fellow called just as the lesson started to say he wouldn’t come ;P) and to not get any candy, since I had forgotten to bring any. But he complied. ;)
And, well, he certainly didn’t hold a grudge about missing the candy, because once I had walked him for a bit and the instructor (not our regular, btw) came down to get us started, he really got started. I shortened the reins, and all of a sudden Murphy started working. It was like pushing a magic button. He became nicely rounded, hindlegs under him entirely of his own volition, and almost right off (we’d just done a little walking and trotting) he was huffing and puffing with the effort.
This has happened once before on Murphy, and I don’t know what I did then and I don’t know what I did now. Partly, it was him being almost alone (just one other horse and rider, doing their own thing) in the arena, because he does work so much more willingly when he’s being ridden privately. Partly .. he just felt like it, I think. The instructor noted later on how pleased with himself he looked, and that was certainly true. He was having fun. And our regular instructor has noted that he’s the only horse at the stables that she’s seen trotting around in the field in perfect balance all on his own. So he’s got it in him. Its just hard to believe most of the time that you see him, and she certainly said she’d never seen anything like it from him.
Of course, that doesn’t mean doing what I wanted to do was easy. Especially not since I had asked to work some on my problem with feeling what canter I’ve got. We started with some warm up on a large circle, and I did soon find out that he was very unevensided and didn’t exactly respect my left leg. He was clearly working because he wanted to, not because I was riding brilliantly. Once he showed himself so willing to work, I should probably have switched to working at a trot instead, to correct some of my issues now that he was doing fine on his own. Like hands. All instructors notice different things, and she noticed my hands. ;P They were not together enough for her.
We did manage to work a bit on that, however, before moving onto the canter. She seemed amused that I had selected Murphy for canter work, seeing how relatively poor his canter is. I said that I figure if I can do it on Murphy, I can do it on anyone. The main exercise, which ended up being fairly short as we had more like 30-35 rather than 45 minutes (but feeling my legs today, that was plenty), consisted of turning in straight up down the centreline, passing a rail on the ground and then turning sharply either left or right and asking for the opposite canter of the direction you turned in (so you’d be in the correct canter once you reached the long side).
That, unfortunately, involved one too many lefts and rights and opposites for me, and I rather messed it up by being confused about which canter I was supposed to get. She must have thought I was totally ditzy. However, I did manage, on a few occasions, to sit down and feel the canter and get the right sense from that. So, yeah, I think I could improve my sense with a lot of practice. Preferably on Murphy. But even if that was the goal of the lesson, the really good part was still when he decided to turn it all on just on his own. I know I didn’t precisely cause it, but it was marvellous to feel it anyway.