A big ole rut

Well, hi. It's been a while! Basically, I've barely been near a horse the last month, let alone riding and training 5 days a week! I've hit a big wall and am struggling to get over it.

It boils down to quite a loss of confidence that has crept up over a couple of months. The catalyst was a couple of lessons with a local coach, a person who doesn't go for a positive approach and basically left me feeling like a couldn't ride at all. It wasn't her fault, really, I just disagreed with her a lot and this inevitably resulted in me wondering if I was right or just adhering to 'tradition', 'ideas', 'approaches', 'methods' and all that crap that is unsupported by research or science.

A case in point. Andrew Hoy believes that one must not release with the hands over a jump as the jump is simply an 'elevated canter stride'. Why would you allow your hands forward when you are asking for a higher or collected canter, he asks. He teaches that the head and neck do not require rein to stretch out. This is clearly not supported by biomechanics, given a horse jumping a decent-sized jump is using his head and neck to a great degree for balance and to efficiently use his back, allowing his front legs and hindquarter to get out of the way of the jump, and the whole body position looks completely difference to an 'elevated canter stride'. Bizarre.

So, to be constantly arguing with someone that does this for a living is energy sapping. It doesn't really get anyone anywhere, and I started to wonder why I was paying this person money to just get told I'm wrong all the time. Fair enough.

Now I'm a bit lost, really. Lots of stuff going on in life and the horses just got pushed out. I was too tired from being up with the baby over night to get up at 6am in the dark to go riding. I know, what?? But I'm not even the first one out there most days!

I have Berrima next weekend and I'm wondering what the hell I'm thinking even still considering it. But I'm leaving it to the last minute just to see if I can pull a very large rabbit out of a very small hat.

Stay tuned!