How Two Minds Meet Part 1: Mel on Meditation

A year ago, as the global panini was just getting warmed up and I began working from home, I thought, “well, at least I’ll have lots of time to work on my blog!” 

And then proceeded to not write a word for about 360 days. 

The problem with living through a Danielle Panabaker is that everyone and their brother is writing about it or tweeting about it or talking about it (and screaming about it while alone in their cars because sometimes you just need to scream really really loudly). Collective pain and anxiety weighed so darkly on all of us that even the words that aren’t directly about covid feel heavy with its absence. 

Through it all, I elected to share my pain with my journal rather than with you. The internet is full of far more talented and thoughtful writers who are sharing far more insightful pieces about our generation’s own 1968. Amidst it all, it felt silly to agonize publicly over my decision to stop riding Dizzy and leave her barn at a time in which so many people were losing their jobs. Later in the year, it felt even sillier to celebrate a new lease pony during a horrifying election season that would lead to an even more horrifying insurrection. 

But, as I feel the ground beneath my feet settle a bit, I missed blogging and I missed talking about what I’ve written with all of you, so here we are. My barn’s dressage book club once again gave me the perfect opportunity to write, especially given our cerebral book of choice. We’re reading Beth Baumert’s How Two Minds Meet: The Mental Dynamics of Dressage and it’s just as wonderful as her first book. Beth examines how our mental state affects the horse’s mental state, and was really the kick in the pants I needed to get back to practicing yoga and especially meditation. 

In one of my favorite books on mental health, Anxiety as an Ally: How I Turned a Worried Mind Into My Best Friend, author Dan Ryckert explains that successful meditation comes only with practice, just like any other sport or hobby. My dumb brain has always thought of meditation as something you just...do. But there are very few things in life we can just pick up and do. Sure, you can probably stop your horse, but you have to school the halt as a movement to do it correctly. In the same way, I can certainly sit quietly for five minutes, but I need to school sitting in a meditative state for five minutes. 

This all came to mind as I read the first part of Baumert’s book. She constantly stresses the importance of being present with your horse. Outside the saddle, I am terrible at being present. Driving to the barn means thinking about the workday I just finished. Tacking up means chatting with my friends and asking myself if Fergus will ever truly be clean. Even as I put on my helmet and spurs, I’m often a million miles away, thinking about what time I’ll need to begin my cooldown to be home in time for dinner. It’s not until I lead him into the arena and begin hand walking Fergus that I feel myself center on the task at hand. Baumert would say this presence of mind needs to come in about 30 minutes earlier, the moment I approach Fergus’s stall. (She also mentioned the importance of audibly greeting a horse as you enter their stall, which I’ve immediately implemented and think the ponies appreciate.)

During book club, we talked a bit about how to achieve that presence of mind. How can we pull ourselves into the moment, especially at a show or during a high-pressure clinic? Of course the answer is both very simple and very difficult--practice. I know that the more I practice meditation, the easier it will be for me to train my brain that barn time is barn time and not “agonize over the day you’ve just had/are going to have” time. 

But even knowing this, it’s so difficult to create these habits. I once had a coworker who worked in recovery IT, the guy who put out other people’s fires all day long. This dude was painfully zen, always calm, and downright delightful to be around. I asked him once how he did it and the answer was just as straightforward as I suspected: he did tai chi and meditated multiple times a day. He made his mental state his top priority and it showed. He confessed to even stepping away from his desk amidst chaos to take a few moments to gather his thoughts. We’ve all heard this advice, but here’s someone who actually took it and reaps the benefits. This is a real “easier said than done” situation, but that doesn’t make it any less worth the effort.

As a neurotic person, I spend most of my time thinking about my mental state, painfully self-aware of my flaws and strengths alike. I’m constantly replaying conversations, re-reading messages and instagram posts, and journaling obsessively about how I feel and why I feel and what I think others are feeling and blah blah blah. As I read Baumert’s book, I have to ask myself, “what if you just...didn’t do these things? What if I taught myself to let these thoughts flow so I can focus on what’s really important?” Again, easier said than done, but after 2020 picked away at my mental health like I pick away scabs, it feels like time to put forth some effort.

Meditation isn’t about controlling or stopping thoughts; it’s about observing them as they go by and then letting the next one drift in after it. I like the metaphor of watching cars drive by, not chasing them. As I return to a more diligent meditation schedule, I can do so with confidence that I’ll learn to manage my mental state at the barn, and then, one day, even on show property. The change will be gradual and likely only visible to myself, but I’m still worth changing for. 

Is Your Horse a Ravenclaw?

Now that I’ve started reading more riding and training books, I’m fascinated by the genre and am loving the opportunity to discuss with fellow equestrians (now via Zoom). I’ve just finished When Two Spines Align by Beth Baumert and Training Horses the Ingrid Klimke Way by (duh) Ingrid Klimke. Both were fantastic reads with lots of great pointers and perspectives I’m sure I’ll write about in greater detail later, but I’m going to hone in today on one section from Ingrid’s book. 

At the beginning of her book, she spends a bit of time discussing the importance of building a good relationship with your horse and learning to empower their personality. She writes:

Each horse has an entirely individual personality, just as we humans do. One personality type appeals to me more, another less. After some years, I know as a rider which types of horses I prefer, and which less so. I look for those that are a good fit for me.  

She goes on to say that while horses often have quirks and characteristics she may not prefer, she always tries to have a positive influence on her horses’ personalities. I’d like to linger a bit on the idea of a horse’s personality. 

Initially, I thought about how I've been blessed over the years to ride some horses with very strong personalities, but then realized that the horses I thought of as having a strong personality were simply the ones I spent the most time with, slowly uncovering their nature. The horses I think of as having less personality are the ones I spent less time with.

Assessing Equine Personalities

As someone who exclusively rides other people’s horses, I’m often told what the horse’s personality is like. “He likes to test his riders” or “she’s quite reserved until she trusts you” are all good things to know as you’re getting ready to ride something new, but for me it doesn’t mean much until I experience it myself. One of the great joys of riding is the opportunity to peel away a horse’s personality and understand how it relates to your own.

Understanding a horse’s personality is also tricky, because it can easily walk the line of anthropomorphizing behavior, which is another issue for another day. In fact, understanding anyone’s personality can be tricky because personalities change over time and in different situations. However, the more self-aware you are, the easier it can be to assess your horse’s personality and to think about the nature you want in a horse. For Harry Potter fans who were excited by my headline, you might be a Ravenclaw (like me!), but do you prefer to train a Slytherin? Do you want a Gryffyndor on Gryffindor situation?

What equine personality fits your ideal? Thinking about it from a nature vs nurture perspective, what do you want nature to bring to the table? How well can you anticipate your horse’s behavior based on what you know about his personality? The more I thought about these questions, the more I was driven to measure pony personalities. A cursory Google search shows that one way of measuring (human) personality is through what psychologists call the Big Five: 

1. Openness

2. Conscientiousness

3. Extraversion

4. Agreeableness

5. Neuroticism

Think about where you and your horse (or your dream horse) fall on these scales. Remember, personality is a spectrum, so you may be in the middle with some and feel more extreme with others. There’s also no right or wrong answer, mostly because this isn’t a test and also because feelings aren’t inherently good or bad (but, like anthropomorphism, that’s another issue for another day).

Openness

Openness is one where I fall right in the middle. I love routines in my daily life but also constantly drive to new towns and look for new adventures. This is an important one to consider for horses because, depending on what you do as a rider, you may ask your horse to often go new places and try new things. Ask yourself, does your horse typically thrive at a new show venue or does he shine at home in your favorite schooling ring? If you asked your dressage horse to go for a long trail ride, would he enjoy the change of scenery or feel nervous by the unexpected situation? 

Conscientiousness

People who are conscientious are organized, disciplined, and have a strong sense of duty. Think of the stereotypical business person or a military leader. If you like to set and reach goals, you’re likely a strong conscientious personality (hi). And although horses don’t necessarily have a sense of duty (though it would be funny if they did), some do like to have a certain set of rules, boundaries, and routines. I’ve known horses who are cranky when ridden at a different time of day or are put in a different field than the one they’re used to, while others couldn’t care less. Does your horse thrive in a set routine or are they happy to go with the flow? If they’re fresh after time off, is it because of stored energy or discontent at a change in their routine? If you usually warm up in the ring and then ride in the field, what happens when you warm up in the field and then ride in the ring? There’s a myriad of reasons your horse might not like this, but his level of conscientiousness might be one of them. 

Extroversion

Introversion and extroversion gets a lot of attention and it’s important to understand that introverts can enjoy spending time with others and that extroverts can enjoy a quiet night in. The difference is where you get energy. As an extrovert, I know I can get so energized by meeting new people that I have to remind myself to take slow, deep breaths and settle down so I don’t come off as a hyperactive nut to my new friends. My introverted husband, on the other hand, prioritizes having alone time to recharge after spending time with people before starting a new activity. Horses are herd animals and typically don’t like to be alone, but some are much more social than others and understanding how your horse fits into herd dynamics is a key component to understanding their personality. Some enjoy being stalled near the cross ties where they can see all the comings and goings and others are happier in a stall on the end, where it’s a little quieter. I’ve even known some horses who cannot tolerate being boarded at small facilities, while others are very overwhelmed by a busy training barn. 

Agreeableness

Agreeableness is likely something you’ve already thought about in terms of your horse’s personality. Do they like to test you or are they likely to comply without much hesitation? You might find yourself being more or less agreeable depending on where you are and who you’re with (at work as opposed to in your friend group, for example) and it’s fun to think about your horse in the same way. Are they agreeable on the ground but not under saddle? Is that because of their personality or a training issue (or a saddle fit issue or a bit issue or a vet issue...the list goes on, which is the best/worst thing about this sport!)

Neuroticism 

Neuroticism is my favorite of the Big Five because my high school psychology teacher once used me as an example of a highly neurotic personality type and made me feel special. She wasn’t wrong; I’m anxious, obsessive, and prone to dramatics. Like people, horses can be high or low on the neurotic scale, though it manifests differently. Does your horse have non-medically explained tics like pawing, licking, or pacing? Does he insist on being the first one in the trailer or the leader of a trail group? They may just be a little neurotic. Understanding what is usual neurotic behavior for your individual horse and what is not not only helps you work as a stronger team, but also helps you recognize signs of stress or discomfort. 

Whether you’re horse shopping, trying to get to know your existing horse better, or looking to understand a gap in your horse’s abilities, taking the time to deeply and seriously assess their personality can be as useful as it is fun. Like your own personality, it will likely change over time, but getting to watch your partner’s nature evolve is part of the rewarding friendship we enter with our horses.  

3 Small Steps to Big Riding Gains

This winter, I began training for a triathlon. My mother, who knows I can’t swim and don’t own a bike, warily asked when I was planning to complete that triathlon. “Oh, don’t worry,” I said, “I’m aiming to get that done before 2040.” 

I’m the queen of baby steps and playing the long game. Breaking big goals into the smallest possible steps with milestones I get to celebrate motivates me, so it’s no surprise that when I set out to better myself as an equestrian, I established small, but meaningful, changes to my routine that have truly bettered my riding. 

Check my watch. Maybe it’s my inner neurotic, but wearing a digital watch every ride has been one of the biggest game changers. I’m not great at estimating time and can easily fall into thinking “yeah, that was a 10 minute walk warm up!” after only 4 minutes or “man, I’ve been schooling that half pass for half an hour!” after a mere 12 minutes of trying. By checking the time, or sometimes even setting timers on my watch, I can organize my ride and be sure not to short-change my warm up or cool down. It’s also helpful for re-framing the way I think about challenges; I didn’t spend a month working on a tricky movement, I spent a cumulative hour over the course of a month. Suddenly it doesn’t feel like I’ve lost time or am stuck where I was three months ago. 

Listen to the force. You know how you know things like “steady the outside rein” but then fail to do it until your trainer shows up and reminds you for the umpteenth time? I realized the trick for me is hearing these reminders out loud. I’ve started giving myself verbal reminders of small, but crucial equitation tips like, “lift your hands,” or “let your chin be parallel to the ground.” By speaking this aloud, I’m more likely to make the correction and find myself being more mindful of my position when I ride. Even though I’m just parroting back to myself what I’ve been told a million times, hearing it spoken aloud makes all the difference. 

Drink more water! Here’s where I put on my older sister pants. The (sad) truth is, we’re all usually dehydrated, especially in the hotter months and double especially when you’ve been moving around at the barn for hours. I’ve started drinking one bottle of water per horse I’m riding that day, plus refilling so I have another bottle for the drive home. It sounds like a lot, but trust me, as someone who drank a cumulative 100 oz of water for the first half of my 20s, I’ve learned the hard way that 1) human bodies do actually need a lot of water to function and 2) a hydrated mind is a sharp mind, making all the difference in training sessions. I’ve formed the habit of taking a drink before I start grooming, when I’ve finished putting on the saddle while I get myself ready, and then bringing my water with me to the arena. I also take a drink after I’ve finished our warm up and take another before cool down. Before you know it, the water is gone and your body thanks you. 

Growth of any kind is a marathon, not a sprint. Improving ourselves as riders and horse people can feel both endless and thankless, but by making small, everyday changes over time, you’ve set yourself up to obtain measurable improvement that you can feel good about! 

Horseless horse friends

“I’m definitely going to list Duncan for sale.”

When Saskia, my best friend and longtime barn buddy finally said out loud what I’d nervously anticipated for a few weeks, I did my best to say all the right things. I wish I’d been shocked; after all, our entire friendship revolved around horses--carpooling to the barn in college, bunking together at horse shows, and taking a million photos of each other and our ponies, capturing every moment of this sport we were lucky lucky lucky to do. So when Saskia told me she was formally hanging up her spurs for the foreseeable future, I mourned her loss of a passion, yes, but I also surprised myself by thinking, “finally.”

The reality was, Sas and I weren’t in college any more. We had both moved out of state in the last few years, her to Michigan for grad school and me to Nebraska for my husband’s career. Our relationship had matured beyond just riding and selfies and we remained long distance bffs, her supporting me as I navigated the seemingly impossible task of riding without my childhood trainers and me offering the best advice I could as Saskia became less and less enthusiastic about riding. The financial and existential reality of adulthood set in and for her, it was time to step away. It hurt me to know we wouldn’t have this in common anymore, but it had hurt even more to see her unhappy as she slowly fell out of love with the demanding lifestyle horses put on us. I was relieved that she’d come to terms with the flickering flame and steeled myself to help her extinguish it. 

Overdone cliche as it is, Duncan the horse is as close to a unicorn as any of us have ever known. Not just in his looks--though his dapples and silver mane make Halloween easy--but he is honestly the perfect intersection of steady and talent. Duncan has the uncanny ability to win junior dressage championships one day, spend 10 days hanging at home, and then go bop around a cross country course without blinking an eye. Since the day she brought him home, I’d been a reasonable amount of jealous that Saskia had found a literal dream horse. 

So why sell what seemed like the best thing on four hooves? What I came to see, through hours of carefully listening to my best friend, was that you could love something very much and still know when it’s time to walk away. Selling Duncan to the next little girl to adore him (and that’s how this story ends, it’s a very happy beginning for Duncan and an adorable junior rider) means Saskia has a level of maturity I couldn’t have imagined was buried deep in the 18 year old I’d befriended six years ago. 

Our friendship was unlikely at best. I’m an energetic eventer who can be loud, bossy, quick to judge, and demands a lot of attention. Saskia, especially when we first met, was reserved, almost reverently polite, and an endless font of compassion with a quiet obsession for the precision of dressage. You wouldn’t expect the loudest girl at the barn and the quietest girl in the state to become inseparable. But of course, opposites attract and the more we talked, the more we discovered in common as two overgrown barn rats navigating college, showing, and working multiple jobs to afford us both luxuries. Saskia was the first friend I had who understood exactly what I meant when I said I’d do anything to ride and that commonality became the foundation for a resilient friendship, enduring over distance and differences.

And now, six years and a whole lot of growing up later, it became clear that my job was to understand. If I were Saskia, would I have sold Duncan? No, but if I were Saskia I wouldn’t be so forgiving toward my loud and pushy best friend (honestly I wouldn’t even have a loud friend). It wasn’t about making all the same choices and being joined at the hip anymore, it was about understanding that she was doing the best she could for this horse who she loved very much, a horse who loved and thrived in consistent work and showing--two things Saskia couldn’t offer him. 

Though we are both fiercely competitive, goal-oriented people, Saskia and I are very different when it comes to how we reach those goals. We both were determined to take as many college classes as possible, but she expected herself to get straight-As, whereas I expected myself to do as best I could while still having fun at the barn every night and hanging with my boyfriend all weekend. Saskia is a perfectionist, going full into the work she does, whereas I am one of the few Type A people happy to live with “good enough,” always figuring that done is better than perfect. (This is probably why Sas is a much better dressage rider than I’ll ever be!) When faced with the adulthood dilemma of cutting back on riding, not taking lessons, and not showing, I saw my friend lose her spark for the sport that used to set her face alight with enjoyment. She needed those goals to work toward in order for her perfectionist nature to have something to perfect.  

And unicorn as he was, Duncan just wasn’t happy being in light work--he must take after Saskia. He dropped a bit of weight, developed persistent ulcers, and became generally unhappy and more difficult to ride, dropping behind the leg and balking at exercises which he’d previously enjoyed. His new owner, an ambitious junior, reports none of these issues; Duncan is back to his happy self in a consistent training schedule. Saskia and I both let out a sigh of relief seeing him thrive in his new home; the right decision had been made. 

But before his new best friend came along, we faced the final hurdle to selling Duncan, helping the 13 year old inside her forgive the decision to stop riding that 24 year old Saskia was making. Even from a thousand miles away, I felt the resentment from teenage Saskia radiating through the phone. She was hurt and confused and furious. How could you do this to us, that teenager said, through the quiet tones of my adult friend. Teenage Mel, of course, agreed ferociously, because we promised we’d ride forever, no matter what...right? 

Little Saskia (and Little Mel) were right about a lot of things. They were right to love horses with fearless abandon and they were right to learn the value of hard work and what it means to put an animal’s well-being ahead of our own. But, no matter how wise they might be for their age, we don’t let 13 year olds make lifelong decisions for a reason. And strange as it may seem, as adult amateurs we’re under no obligation to stay with this hobby forever. Despite the unspoken implications and problematic jokes about being “addicted for life” we’re allowed to stop riding horses, whether that be for 3 months while you recover from mental illness or 3 years while you have small children or 30 years while you pursue the career of your dreams. We both had to learn that lesson, for me it meant cutting back my time at the barn after my move and for her it means cutting it out entirely. 

Teenage Saskia thought she’d build her life around horses. But teenage Saskia also thought she’d never fall in love or pursue a graduate degree or be a mother. Teenagers are notoriously short-sighted; they can’t legally get married because even though they might love really hard and believe it to be forever, forever isn’t the same when you’re in the real world. And sometimes horses aren’t forever--or they’re forever but with an intermission somewhere in the middle. Balancing horses and family demands compromise, and sometimes that compromise becomes choosing to let go of the life your 13 year old self thought you’d have and live the life your 25 year old self faces. 

And while it’s nice to accumulate a savings account or have money for the down payment on a house, if this was just about money I know Saskia’s decision would be vastly different. This is about the chance to do what we never did as obsessive teenagers, the chance to put down the pitchfork and see what else is out there. The chance to let a new side of our personalities blossom, the chance to spend summers traveling for fun instead of for ribbons. Both are great ways to spend a summer, but we’d already done one and were ready to see what the other felt like. 

It was a long journey to realize that Duncan might always be in her heart, but not in her name. I didn’t love that part of being Saskia’s friend meant helping her end a chapter in her life, especially because it was a chapter I helped to write, a chapter I played a very prominent role in. But friendship, the really tough kind, means trying really hard to understand, and always supporting a carefully-made decision, even if it isn’t one we’d make for ourselves. The pain of being an adult ammy is that sometimes we can do horses a lot, sometimes we can do horses a little, and sometimes we can’t do horses at all. 

I’m just glad I get to be the kind of friend who gets to be around for the horse stuff and the non-horse stuff, the fun stuff, and the tough stuff. Because if growing up in a barn taught me anything it’s that horse girls, with or without horses, make the very best kinds of friends. 

Thanks for being a great source of love and friendship, Duncan and Zoe

Reflecting on Reflections on Equestrian Art Part I

About a month ago, our fabulous local dressage trainer posted something on Facebook about starting an equestrian book club. “Talking about the Saddle Club books with friends?” I thought, “I’m so in!” It took about 4 seconds for me to realize that, being adults, we’d be discussing training and horsemanship books, but my excitement didn’t waver, especially when mention of snacks and wine came up.

Here’s where I confess to being a terrible horse girl: I’ve never really read proper nonfiction books on horses. This might sound crazy, being both an avid reader and a passionate equestrian, but I remember picking up a few as a young teen outgrowing her childhood horse books and feeling completely overwhelmed and then never really trying again (sadly very on brand for me). So when Amazon delivered Nuno Oliveria’s Reflections on Equestrian Art I felt equally apprehensive and excited. Would it be over my head? How pretentious could this book be? Will it be helpful or will it say things like “one should be able to perfectly balance a glass of ‘44 merlot on the back of a warmblood and if you cannot you should simply give up now, peasant”? 

To my great delight, Oilveria made his bread and butter on rather inexpensive horses, believing firmly that with patience and tact any horse can be a dressage horse. For context, Oilveria was a Portugese trainer who (somewhat liberally) followed the French School of Dressage. This favors smaller, lighter horses than the Germans I’m accustomed to, which should excite anyone who doesn’t ride a handsomely thick warmblood. (As I’ve yet to find a dressage school that favors 14 hand chonky ponies, I’ll remain neutral.) Though Oilveria died in 1989 (I guess the world couldn’t handle having both him and Taylor Swift alive at the same time) his students are alive and well and vocal about his teachings and philosophies on harmony and perfection. Read more about him here. 

What is Equestrian Art?

I will confess again to being incredibly stupid; when I saw the title of the book I thought we’d be discussing classic oil paintings of horses and the long artistic history of man capturing the beauty of our noble equine partners. To be fair, the cover of the book does feature what I originally thought was a drawing of horse and rider but is actually a very old photograph. Duh. Then I got a few sentences in and learned that “equestrian art” refers instead of Oilveria’s philosophies. According to him:

Equestrian art is the perfect understanding between the rider and his horse. This harmony allows the horse to work without any contraction in his joints or in his muscles, permitting him to carry out all movements with mental and physical enjoyment, as well as with suppleness and rhythm. The horse is then a partner, rather than a slave who is enforced to obey a rigid master by constraint.  

To me, this is like the nirvana of dressage, our ultimate goal and state of final perfection. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve felt perfect understanding with my horse in the last 5 years, and maybe that’s a reflection of my ability or maybe it’s a reflection of how difficult this can be to achieve. (I really hope I’m not the only one who struggles with this.) I love the idea of reaching this harmonious dressage nirvana, because of course I want my horse to be my partner (and really do think of Dizzy and all my pony pals as my partners) but find the demand of obtaining this more than a little overwhelming.

To be an Oilveria Equestrian Artist, you must be both technically knowledgeable and precise in your riding and deeply in tune with your horse’s ability. Which, duh, that’s very important, but this is also really hard. Maybe it’s because I’m not consistently riding with a trainer, but I find myself spending a lot of time analyzing Dizzy’s ability and mental state. It’s very easy to slip into overthinking and self-doubt in these times, so I also try not to do it too much...and then the existentialism kicks into high gear. How much thinking about dressage is too much thinking about dressage? At what point does it become destructive and the “shut up and ride” needs to come back? For the sake of writing a blog about a book that is about thinking about dressage, we’ll say for now “no such thing!” even though there certainly is such a thing.

Tactful Equestrians

One of the most important qualities an equestrian can possess, according to Oliveria, is tact. He urges riders to be tactful with their hands, seat, and (my favorite) head. Since it’s my favorite, let’s start with the tactful mind. Riders should reward their horse at the slightest indication of obedience, embodying Captain Beudant’s words, “ask for much, be content with little, and reward often.” Put simply, by tactfully asking your horse only for what he can do, your horse will never tire of your requests. 

Only a rider who knows exactly what her horse is capable of can do this, which is easy to say and hard to do. You need to really know your horse and your discipline to confidently know where your horse draws the line on a movement. Is your horse balking at a half pass because your saddle doesn’t fit correctly and blocks his shoulder or because he hasn’t built the muscle yet or because you’re not asking correctly? I love the idea of being fully aware of your horses’s capabilities, but since they can change on a daily basis, I think it’s important for us to not get too frustrated if this is harder than anticipated. 

Reading further, we got to my favorite part of the book so far, where Oliveria says that at his Portugese school, he had a horse who “did over 500 flying changes at every stride without being tired.” This is both wildly impressive and wildly horrifying to me, much like the grid exercises I see that consist of 50 bounce fences in a row except amplified by 100. 

Oliveria believes that skill without tact is useless, which reminds me of the da Vinci quote “vision without execution is hallucination” mostly because of the similar sentence structure but also partly because it’s so easy to only have half an equation for success. Tact can only be obtained by the people who truly love horses and do their best to understand them. 

I’ll pause here to say that, in my opinion, we can never fully know our horses, just the same way we can never fully know our partners or children or selves. This doesn’t mean we should ever stop trying to understand them as best we can, but when dealing with a living being who is the cumulation of their own experiences you’re setting yourself up to fail if you think you can only be an equestrian if you fully understand your horse. But if you pursue your riding with the mindset of always trying to know them better, to let your horse show you how they’re thinking and feeling within every situation, you’re a tactful equestrian in my book. 

Luckily for the non-philosophical reader, obtaining a tactful seat and hands is much more literal. This is where lightness plays in, where a rider has an independent seat and giving hands that move with the horse in every exercise. I do appreciate that Oliveria makes a distinction between lightness and passivity, because the riders who sit very still and do nothing to help their horse can be technically light but also are fairly useless in dressage. I’m calling myself out here because I have a strange and terrible habit of abandoning my horse in a movement (or even over a fence) if I think I’m getting in the way. Oliveria wants to see an active horse and an engaged, light rider, which I see in some of our international dressage riders today, but sadly not enough of them. An engaged horse, he points out, is not one that is robotically completing the movements, but instead is active and through the entire body during a dressage test.  

Of course, this great master presented us with a hundred other ideas, and maybe they’ll produce a hundred other blog posts, but I’ll leave this one with the question our dressage trainer posed and I’ve still been thinking about: “Can you have too much tact?” My initial reaction was to say that yes, you can. Working in an office I often struggle to find the best way to communicate, looking for a balance between that which is polite and professional and that which clearly and efficiently gets my point across. With horses, can we face the same challenge? I’m inclined to say yes, but would love to hear your takes!

Riding Retrospective

Taking notes on each ride isn’t always convenient, but it’s a habit I can’t recommend enough. It helps me see where I came from, remember exercises that do or don’t work, track stiffness, and look for patterns. Plus, it gave me the opportunity to write you all a nice fat 2019 wrap-up blog! 

I thought writing this would be easy, because I thought I’d taken notes on each ride I’d had this year, but it turns out I’d only started doing that again in June (I used to do this all the time with Zoe and Phoebe but apparently quit). However, June was when I realized I felt ready to get my ducks in a row, to take my riding a little more seriously, and to try a little harder to make each ride count, so June was when my notes began.

In the spirit of a TLDR (because this is a long one), I’ll lead with my conclusion: when you put the effort into taking notes on your riding, do yourself a favor and read those notes often. The biggest trend I noticed in reading the last 6 months of riding notes was a consistent re-discovery of the same breakthroughs! If I’d taken the time to re-read my own notes, I think I would have had a much more productive year.

That said, I’m proud that throughout the year Dizzy’s gaits developed enough that I was able to introduce more lateral dressage into our work. No longer are we working to obtain a merely controlled trot, I’m excited to be thinking about the quality of that trot. While “harmony” will never be our highest score on a dressage test, it’s come a long way in 2019 and I expect to see that continue to develop in 2020. (And hopefully a real dressage judge scores us on that harmony in 2020!)

January-May

I spent the early months of 2019 grounded from a shoulder injury, a time I spent free lunging and grooming and (apparently) not taking notes for the future. I traveled a good bit that spring, riding sporadically and whenever was convenient. Let’s assume I was spending that time doing something vaguely productive and jump ahead. 

June

I introduced the running martingale to our jumping and found it to be incredibly beneficial. This training tool both helps keep both the zoomies and the head-flipping arguments to a minimum. I rarely use supplemental tack, but it should surprise no one that as an eventer, the first piece I grab is a running martingale. I personally like running martingales as they don’t interfere much with a horse’s natural way of going and are difficult to use dangerously.

As part of my summer resolution to take riding more seriously, June also marked my first lesson with Jane, a wonderful trainer who owns and operates a dressage barn near my house. She reminded me to tuck my tailbone underneath my own ass (said more delicately), to hold my outside rein in the leg yield (oh, yeah), and to give the inside rein in the canter (this will come up again later) and I made a note to ride with her as often as possible.

In typical Mel fashion, I celebrated taking riding more seriously by literally hacking around bareback for the rest of June, reinforcing my habit of skipping saddles in the heat of summer. 

July

I returned to saddles with a vengeance on the Fourth of July, using small lateral movement in the canter to help Dizzy lift her back. We had some great jump schools, discovering that ground poles are great training tools and I need to remember to drag those out more often. 

July also introduced the thought of collection at the canter, because that’s her most confident gait. It proved to be a fleeting and difficult thought that will pop up here and there for the rest of the year.

August

Serpentine Summer continued in August, though a newfound difficulty with the left lead canter emerged. With some trial and error, I found a right-flexing exercise that helped strengthen her enough to work through this, though it would continue to be an issue through the fall.

The great win of August was the discovery that Dizzy excels when it comes to square pole exercises. I wish I’d done these more, as they were a great confidence-builder for both of us. 

We also had a lesson with Terri in August, where she noticed that I put too much weight in my right stirrup over fences and that while it’s great I can canter Dizzy in the two-point, I must also be able to trot the pony off her back. In hindsight, this was my best lesson with Terri in 2019, and the only one we had outside, reminding me that even in a lesson, Dizzy is so much happier outside over the indoor. 

September

September 1 started the month right and marked my first off-property experience with Dizzy, and my first real trail ride. Discovering that Dizzy looks to me when she’s uncertain about something made me feel like both a great trainer and partner to this mare, and put my mind at ease for future excursions. 

I also introduced shoulder-in over September, noticing her strength to the left over the right. This would be consistent throughout the month, though has since gotten a lot better, especially at the walk.

Realistically, my September highlight was our flower crown photo shoot because how could it not??

October

October brought another Terri lesson, this time with more focus on flat work, since we still struggled with stiffness. I came away with homework to practice counter-flexing on a circle, being more spontaneous in my aids to help keep her from anticipating the canter, and working on lateral work in the canter. (In one of my favorite memories of the year, Dizzy later protested this by attempting to impale herself on a jump standard, a dramatic evasion for the history books.)

I also experimented briefly with an eggbutt snaffle in October, but decided, after Dizzy made it abundantly clear, this was not the bit for us.

November

The first half of November was a bit of a wash, as I spent most of the rides trying to decide if Dizzy hated her new bit or me personally. Luckily, it was the bit and I switched it back before Dizzy’s first lesson with Jane. Echoing her words from June, Jane reminded me to give the inside rein in the canter, and told us to live our lives in shoulder four for the immediate future. 

Here you can see 4 very happy girls after our Jane lesson! (trust that the rest of Dizzy’s face is happy!)

I also had a telling jump lesson with Terri, finding that Dizzy’s jumping improves significantly with a placing pole to help her find her spot. I really should have remembered this from July, but alas.

December

If you’ve been following along, you know that December has been an abysmal month for my riding. I promptly lost all momentum from November, first struggling with mental illness, then with holiday chaos, then with sinus illness. I did ride a few times, all with the intent of keeping her loose in her back and movements, uncharacteristically lunging before getting on more often than not. After a mellow month, however, I’m feeling optimistic for 2020, and am excited to see what the new year brings!

Eventing Existentially

A few weeks ago I sat at a pre-clinic potluck, politely shoving chocolate into my face and trying to look like I wasn’t just crashing a barn’s dinner with Sarah Martin (I swear I didn’t realize it was a clinic thing and I did bring a dish so hopefully I wasn’t too big an imposition...). Over dinner, Sarah told us a bit about her equestrian background, which started in endurance riding, then eventing, then cutting and Arab shows, and--eventually--dressage. Though listening to Sarah taught me a lot about riding itself and the biomechanics of equestrianism, my biggest takeaway was twofold: you can do all kinds of different riding and you can change disciplines no matter how old you are.

As an Existential Eventer, I spend a lot of time worrying about my identity as an eventer. Do I have the right to use that hashtag on Instagram when I haven’t been to an event in two years and Dizzy’s never seen so much as a mini trial? And I’m not even sure if she ever will? And that for an eventer, I spent an awful amount of time showing straight dressage, doesn’t that make me a dressage rider? Could I call myself that too? Or instead? What are the rules here? Who enforces them? No one? Am I worrying for nothing? Oh no.

Ultimately, I decided to introduce myself to new friends as an eventer because nothing, not trail rides or dressage shows or a fun barrel run, makes me as happy as being at a three day event. I love that feeling of finishing dressage and knowing I have two jumping courses ahead of me. I love writing my OT on my arm and I love walking my cross country course three times (once with the trainer, once with a friend, once alone) So I figured that’s what I am in my heart.

Except... I’m not eventing. I’m not eventing because I don’t have the money to show or the confidence in Dizzy’s brakes to take her out without a good schooling day first. So if I’m banking my identity on eventing and I’m not eventing, have I lost a piece of myself?

My good friend Bailey (@joyful_dressage) recently wrote about the pressure to go down centerline, concluding:

It’s easy to get caught up in the excitement of showing. It all seems glamorous, especially with lovely show photos of well turned out horses, following scoring, ribbons and qualifications. I love the atmosphere, especially when it is supporting friends like Erin at AECs or helping at inspections. But the real work is not done in the arena. The real work is done in the training at home. My aspirations are the same, but my self-imposed expectations have shifted and continue to the longer we stay away. So, when people ask “when are you going to show again?” I’ve started responding with “when we want to,” no longer “when we’re ready.”

Bailey is wise, probably because she spends more time listening than she does talking (which is also part of what makes her such a good friend.) So I took the time to take her words to heart, to think about this idea of showing when you want to vs. when you’re ready.

My first thought was “but I’m ready now! Put me in coach, let’s do it!” But being ready means so much more than knowing we can competently navigate a dressage test or jump a mostly clear round. Being ready means being able to spend the money on show fees without feeling incredibly guilty and it also means knowing I’ve set Dizzy up for success. If there’s one way my former trainers rubbed off on me, it’s an extremely conservative attitude in the show ring. This means always showing one level below what you’re schooling at home. This means not taking Dizzy out for intro dressage until she’s comfortable with training dressage. There’s pros and cons to this approach, but I can say all my worst shows happened when I was showing at the highest level at which I could ride. So I stick with this strategy, knowing it means staying home and waiting patiently for the stars to align and for her canter to develop. I am an eventer, I am, just...not as much right now.

So that’s how I’ve left things in my mind, my anxious little mind which really prefers to have neat labels on as many things as possible. But what does that have to do with Sarah Martin?

Sarah didn’t start riding dressage seriously until she was an adult. It wasn’t until then that she found her love within a love, her passion for the longevity of dressage. This also means she spent many years calling herself all kinds of different types of rider and diving into what she had available. I’ve done that a bit with my adventures in barrel racing (soon to be off hiatus!) but could never imagine calling myself a barrel racer. But what if I did? What if I embraced the time and place I’m experiencing now and let myself be a different kind of rider? I’m sort of famous for saying everything is temporary, so why not take on an interim equestrian title?

Honestly, because that sounds pretty terrifying. It’s nice to go chase cans for an evening and then go back to schooling dressage the next day because I know how to do that and it’s comfortable. As I write this, I realize how easily made uncomfortable I am, how much I rely on a safe space in riding to feel confident. I’m not sure if that’s “good” or not and I don’t have much of a conclusion to this other than to thank anyone who reads this rambling spew of existentialism and to say all stories of questioning your identity as a rider are welcome. Because I know riding journeys change over time, I’m just not sure how exactly to navigate that change; it’s not exactly something equestrians like to talk about. But I hope this entry serves to help start a conversation or at least reassure any other existential equestrians that you are very much not alone.

Don’t Rage and Ride or; Why I Haven’t Ridden Since February

In January, I noticed my right shoulder hurt a little when I lifted my arm straight out to the side. Right, I won’t do that for a while and then we’ll be good as new, I said to myself, patting myself on the back for such a good medical diagnosis. But as the weeks wore on, the pain got worse and worse, until in February just reaching to adjust the music volume in my car was difficult. Dammit I said, knowing exactly what was wrong and heading off to a doctor to be told anyway.

From Wikipedia

My Acromioclavicular (AC) Joint has been at a grade three separation since summer 2014. This means the top of my right shoulder has a nifty bump where my bone juts out instead of being attached to the rest of my shoulder and also that it’s a delicate flower prone to reinjury (as I recently experienced).

The long story short is, five years ago I rode like an asshole and got what I deserved, a lifetime of a shoulder that’s not quite attached as it should be. If you stop reading here, just take away the lesson of: Do Not Ride Like A Dick. Now here’s the long story, so that any of my comrades out there may avoid my mistakes.

Seemore and his former leasee, who rode him very well and never shredded her shoulder with him

This is Seemore. He’s a lesson horse at my barn in Pittsburgh, a handsome appendix who has carried many a rider through successful dressage shows and events.

Seemore, like most lesson horses, is a Good Egg. He was never my favorite to ride, on account of being a little heavy on the hands, but is a Good Egg adored by many and I can respect we all have different tastes in horses.

In summer 2014, I’d been riding him for a few weeks and planned to take him to a mini trial at the end of June, slowly coming around to #teamSeemore. For whatever reason, I’d come to our group jump lesson that night with an Attitude. In hindsight, 2014 wasn’t my best mental health year (finding your way after college is hard even if you have a job and maybe I’ll write about that sometime as well) so who knows exactly why I was cranky that night.

Being a professional and also an adult, I’m pretty solid at putting my mood aside and riding through it, often coming out the other side in a better mood anyway (yay ponies!). But not that night. Seemore was feeling extra heavy on the forehand that night and was happily dragging my cranky ass out of the saddle after each fence. As we were schooling a small cross country fence on an even smaller slope, his heaviness felt even more pronounced than it did in the arena. It didn’t take long for your young heroine to go from cranky to downright angry.

This is the part of the story where I was a bad human. Do not do what I did, which was angrily try and solve the problem by jumping the fence at a high rate of speed. I knew better than to do this in 2014. I really know better than to do this in 2019. In fact, my jumping instructor has told me “speed kills” so many times I hear it in my sleep. But I let my emotions get the better of me, I did it anyway, and it ended exactly as you’d expect.

We flew over the fence in a fairly disorganized manner, landing horribly, pitching me head over teacups and slamming into the ground directly on my shoulder. Because I am (occasionally) a good eventer, I had my safety vest on and managed to thankfully not totally destroy my young shoulder.

I bounced up quickly, anger gone and incredibly embarrassed. My arm and shoulder hurt but it was nothing unbearable and I immediately wanted to get back on. A friend handed me Seemore’s reins and I tried to lift my arm to grab the saddle to hop back on and try again. Arm wouldn’t move.

I wish I could say my strongest memory from that night was the lessons learned or the kindness from my friends who took care of Seemore and drove me to the hospital, but it was actually the panic from realizing my brain was telling my arm to move and it just...wasn’t.

As a side bar, my biggest injury fear is a dislocated shoulder. Give me stitches, give me fractures, give me giant ugly bruises, but please keep your dislocated shoulders that get popped back into place. Even writing this is skeeving me out, so you can imagine the growing fear that I was now going to have someone pop my shoulder into place was fairly significant.

Once it was clear there would be no “getting back on the horse” that night one friend tended a very apologetic Seemore (who got apology cookies from my good hand before it headed to the hospital) while Saskia, my incredible best friend and witness to my fall, took me for xrays.

Sparing you the drama of unsympathetic tech who tried to bully my shoulder into a more easily xrayable position (spoilers, when the joint holding your bone in place is shredded, no amount of yelling at patients gives them the ability to move said shoulder) I walked away from the incident with a sling, lots of physical therapy, and a polite refusal of surgery.

But, more importantly, I walked away with a forever reminder not to ever, ever rage ride. I knew halfway through that jump lesson that my cranky pants were keeping me from having a productive ride and I stubbornly stuck with it anyway. After my accident, I do my best to leave the cranky pants in the car, to never take out a bad day on a horse. We all lose tempers and get frustrated, but I can’t stress enough the importance of doing that literally anywhere but on top of your horse. Even next to your horse while you hand graze is better than on top of the horse.

Assuming that you’re also a human with moods and emotions, you know this is easier said than done. Zoe and Dizzy both like to test my patience (actually all horses do, but I’ve ridden them most recently). Zoe is a perfectionist and doesn’t appreciate mixed messages or mistakes. Too many times, she kicked out or skipped a movement or threatened to stand up if she didn’t like the way I asked for a change or an extension or whatever. Most of the time I took these moments with grace, learning from my mistake and pressing onward to better dressage. But every so often I felt like screaming “you know what I want you to do, just do it!”

Zoe says No

But alas, her English isn’t great, so it would have just been screaming into the wind. Instead, in these moments, I stopped. We abandoned whatever we were schooling and moved to something else, usually something easy so we could both have a win. If the ride allowed, we came back to the frustrating movement later, or the next day. But I’ve found that it’s always better to abandon ship than insist you’re going to get it right no matter what and then spiral downwards.

Dizzy tests my patience as well, but in different ways. Rarely content to just walk on a loose rein, Dizzy needs constant attention to keep her focus on the task at hand. This means that even after a long schooling ride, we need to spend our cooldown changing directions or making circles or bending gently in and out. Sometimes I want hop off, look her in those lovely brown eyes, and say “please just relax and walk in a straight line, that is a very basic Horse Skill and I know you can do it.” But her English is also pretty shaky so I continue to work within her reality. Getting tense and angry with a tense horse is a literal recipe for disaster so in those moments, there’s nothing to do but take deep breaths and calmly insist we walk out the cooldown.

Spending two months this year on the ground while my shoulder re-healed wasn’t always fun, especially as the weather started to warm and the temptation to ride grew. (It was pretty easy to skip the barn in February when the midwest was getting slammed by snow!)

But I put that time to good use, grooming a very sheddy Dizzy, watching her play with her fjord friend, and free lunging. It was a nice reminder that I really do love being around horses, even without the fun of riding. And hopefully this summer, as that lovely redhead tests my patience in all her creative ways, I can remember the calm of what we achieved through groundwork. Failing that, I’ll reach over to my right shoulder, poke the bone that still sticks out a bit, and remember what happened the last time I lost my temper under saddle.

Good for You, Not for Me: A Tribute to Amy Poehler

In 2014 I graduated college, got engaged, and read Amy Poehler’s Yes Please. Obviously the life event I spend the most time contemplating was the book. Notably, a phrase she uses in her chapter about parenting: “Good for you, not for me.” Amy used the phrase in the context of making tough decisions to work or not work or have kids or adopt kids or go live on a mountain and call your 15 goats your babies. Good for you, she says to these other women’s decisions, not for me. I thankfully learned this expression at a time in my life I really needed it, but still struggle to keep it in practice, especially in the horse world.

I have to remind myself of this a lot at the barn or when scrolling social media. I’ve met people who like to hand walk their horse for a few minutes before mounting, or lunge the shit out of their horse before every ride. Sometimes I see people clean their tack obsessively or insist on entering a horse show after riding their horse twice in the last month. These are all things I don’t habitually do and can find myself puzzling after. In recent years, I’ve made a deliberate effort to approach these situations with the Pohler attitude. Lunge your horse for 30 minutes and then ride for 5? Good for you. Take your bridle apart every week? Not for me. You very likely have very good reasons for doing these things and frankly I don’t need to have time to hear all those reasons so I do my best to refrain from questioning.

I am, by nature, very good at minding my own business and like to think I’m good at resisting the urge to share unsolicited advice. So why have I spent so much time working on this mantra? It’s easy to talk (or gossip, if I’m being honest) about what other people are doing with their horses, and Instagram and Twitter make it even easier. If you’re a wild optimist (or just very naive) and don’t believe me, post a screenshot of someone else's terrible #rootd on Twitter and watch the ugliness unfold. Or a horse in draw reins or a shank bit or a fully synthetic saddle. These all things I generally don’t use because they aren’t for me. For others? Good for you.

Unless a photo or video or statement online actively demonstrates an animal (horse or human or otherwise) in danger, it’s critical for my own sanity to assume interference is unnecessary and to let them be. If I didn’t, I might have a lot more followers, but I’d also have a lot more drama and emotional labor on my hands.

Moreso than keeping me from fighting strangers on the internet, my Poehler mantra also keeps me grounded in my own reality. With a slight modification, I can tell myself “Good for you, not for me right now.” Comparison is the thief of joy, as another, much older saying than Pohler’s goes, and boy is it true. When you don’t have your own horse, and see hundreds of people online with one or three or ten ponies of their own, it’s really really really easy to be jealous, judgmental, and petty. It’s important for me to take a deep breath and remember, “good for you, not for me right now.” Some days are easier than others.

“Right now” is a tricky mentality for a millennial, I think (and probably other generations, but I can’t speak for you). A nostalgia-soaked culture keeps the past close to our hearts and minds, while the constant headlines about “why aren’t you married or a homeowner or debt free yet???” make it seem like if we aren’t living in our best present, success will never come. It’s a goal of mine to remember that just because I don’t own property or know if I want to have children yet, doesn’t mean I never will. For those who do, good for you, not for me (right now). I can live the first 30 years of my life without owning a horse and then spend the next 30 with a pony of my own--right? It’s these little words, repeated often, that make it possible for me to get through my feeds without losing my mind. If you have a mantra that keeps you sane, let me know, because it’s a ridiculous world out there and the more mantras, the saner we stay.