 Loser's Limp is the the thing that we always go back to to just kind of make an excuse and make it okay for us not to progress or whatever It's very easy to do that But there's workarounds in life and you can figure out ways to make it work to make it happen You all might know I have a online horse fair and When I was initially doing the online horse fair I I Had a lot of learning on the computer to do and I was like living on the computer. I also for whatever reason Decided to set a goal for myself of riding my Apollosa pre-saint George and Time-wise I did not have a lot of time to be focusing on riding him and and and Getting everything just so The other thing that I had going on During that time is I was trying to kind of write my book a little bit And then I was also doing a little teaching and training as well and taking some students to shows Dec took took over the majority of her business at that point I was like I said on the computer a lot and my horse was an apollosa is a downhill mover he kind of on his own goes around like a wedge And riding him in the arena to practice my dressage was not a practical thing to do And I didn't have time to be riding other horses to be practicing that particular Test and therefore I had to get creative and figure out a way that I could maximize my time being at my desk But also progress my riding as I was on my computer because the time spent with my horse I had to get exuberant movement and we're going to be talking about that when we're working with our horses But that comes from their mind. So when the horse is mentally engaged and they're interested You can get an uphill balance. You can get really good movement Well, this apollosa if I his name is gimley So gimley if I would have ridden him in the arena and been practicing sand circles I would have developed the wrong patterns and habits in his body because he would have been very disinterested So I had to do my training for the movements out on the trail Up and down hills to develop that balance that self-carriage all of those things that was necessary for the test And and therefore I needed to figure out a way to work on myself. So I started by sitting on a balance board And just figuring out my middle And then what I started doing from there is I started watching a gal by the name of charlotte deserdan who is a International dressage rider that really does a nice job. It's really fun to watch her So I would watch her do her tests and as I was on the balance board I would ride to that test and I'd watch her pelvis I'd watch her aids and I'd figure out how she did the lead changes How many strides out of a corner so I was really learning to count and watch What's cool and the tools that we have nowadays we can slow things down And we can really analyze and see and what I realized is holy smokes She rides, you know, we talk about riding transitions and transitions within the gate and we're going to talk about that as we're riding here today, but She rides transitions Like every step or two She was doing a little mini half halts little transition here here and it was so interesting to see how much came from this area So as I'm doing this and working on my lead changes and, you know Figuring out how many steps it is and riding these tests with her and I'd take, you know, like 10 minutes Every hour or two to do this and then I'd go back to work But I started realizing boy like I this lead change is going to be hard because I can't follow what she's doing And I'm because I'm on my balance board. So it makes it very obvious, right? And so then I started doing a pelvic clock find the neutral position that we just found And when you find that neutral position, the board stays very stable underneath you And then what we're going to do is we're going to go 12 o'clock Back to neutral and we're always coming back to neutral because when we ride We we've got to deal with constant motion underneath us And that constant motion Puts us in a position, but then we've got to always be able to come back to center back to neutral So we're going to go one o'clock and I'm going to pass these around as we're doing this But you can do it here. Just just sitting there is fine And then you're going to come back then one o'clock back to neutral two o'clock Back to neutral and you're going to find there's going to be certain areas Back to neutral that are going to now four o'clock back to neutral five o'clock Back to neutral Six o'clock there's going to be certain movements that feel very easy And then there's going to be certain movements that don't feel easy if you look at me Hopefully If you look at me if I go to let's say like nine o'clock here My upper body is not doing that So it's important that it's just coming from here So we're not leaning to go to those positions It's only in the pelvis and initially The movement in your pelvis might be very small. You might not be able to do you know like a huge movement and stay tall That's okay Just do the small movement and stay tall and then we develop that that's just like our horses, right? We want a little bits and pieces of accuracy of good good things and then we can build on that But if we develop bad patterns now, we've got to deal with a whole lot more and that's just it's too much work You want to have to erase all those again that we're talking a lot about finding feel And feel is something that we develop. It's something that we can we can learn and You're going to notice there's going to be some days that are better than others There's going to be maybe you injure yourself and you'll notice some things show up differently Um, I know you know, I've had some injuries and arthritis throughout the years and it's so interesting You'll have patterns that come through your body that are very beneficial when you have that injury You know, they they help you out. You kind of need to be in that pattern in order to make it through But then afterwards You've got to reorganize things and try to find That that more symmetrical movement in your body once again And that's what this is going to hopefully help you with is finding symmetry in your pelvis If I look at people's saddles or even like You can think about your car seat at rosemary. You've got how many miles on your car. Did you say? 220 so I bet if we looked at rosemary's car seat We would notice that there is a seat bone that she puts more weight in than the other And I know I feel that in my car seats, you know, I could tell where I put my weight And saddles are the same way I can see and if somebody's had a saddle for a long time I can see what stirrup they've been You know waiting because of how their their leg pattern shows up on the on the side of the saddle I can take a look at the seat of the saddle. I can see what seat bone Are they sitting more to one side of the saddle than the other? And it's just natural. I mean, we're not going to be perfect. That's where our horses come in. They're wonderful They fill in for us but We can strive to get better and we can strive to be more aware Do it where I just ride the outside, you know and ride the rim and do like a little hula motion Because that loosens things up and if you do just a little bit of this Like if you get yourself a balance board and you get to the barn and you do just a little bit of this before you ride Like for you, Jenny It's going to be real helpful because it'll loosen you up And get things get muscles and and your body firing in a way that's going to be able to receive the horse's motion Rather than having it get in a protective mode You know when we find a sticky spot, what do we do about that? Well, first we become aware of it, right? Then we experiment. So let's say Well, let's say this is my three o'clock here. So let's say three o'clock is sticky every time I go to three It's not quite working But two o'clock feels pretty easy, right and maybe four o'clock feels pretty easy Well, what I might do is I might go two neutral two 15 neutral two 15 and then I might go to two 20 And I just try to work around that area Without going to it because when we go to it sometimes it fires off that guarding pattern And we don't want to do that But we experiment around it and then we work on the other side of it, right? So between four And three and then I eventually I can go to that and like jack was was mentioning And I hadn't really mentioned with the the dressage is I would watch her ride that actual test So at our farm we didn't have a standard dressage arena to ride in We had, you know, kind of like a big arena and so what I did is Because I was riding to charlotte one of the, you know, best international riders in the world Which I never would have been able to ride with her other than via youtube But but I was able to take regular lessons from her riding the exact same test I was counting the strides, right? I knew how many strides her corners took I knew how many strides it took for her for her to come out of the corner and start doing the tempi changes How many strides it was before she did her canner pirouette So then when I rode in our arena that didn't have sides and was too big and I was able to ride a fairly accurate test in that arena because I knew how many strides everything was So actually the first time I rode in an actual standard dressage arena to that test with this horse Was at the horse show and it was the day before schooling And I had a video camera was called a solo shot. My mom's familiar with that And this video camera tracks your movements. So you wear a little thing and it, you know, follows you around Yeah, pretty cool And So I videotaped my ride because I had to train myself at the show and I had some students too that I had to Get ready and so it was it was a, you know Videotape it and then that night I watched it in our horse trailer We have a living quarter. So I got to sleep on the ground. So I watched it in there And I figured out, you know, what little areas I wanted to tweak and then the next day I was able to go out I think I got a 63 on on one of the tests on the following day I think I got a 64 and that qualified me for regionals, which was what my goal It was two separate shows in one weekend But that was my goal and I was pretty excited to be able to do that on on my nondressage horse, you know But but that's that's another thing that I think is really important It's very easy for us to think of all the ways we can't do things Well, I can't because I've got this going on or You know, I'm just I'm sore today So I'm not going to ride or and I've had some injuries in my life and I have some arthritis and and It doesn't it it doesn't take much To have that, you know, you've heard of like a loser loser's limp Loser's limp is the the thing that we always go back to to just kind of make an excuse and make it okay for us Not to progress or whatever It's very easy to do that But there's workarounds in life and you can figure out ways to make it work to make it happen And yeah, like this is not ideal. I don't know very many people or any actually that have Prepared for their dressage tests in this in this manner, but I had to figure it out. I had a goal I needed to get there What were the steps that I needed? I needed a horse with much better movement couldn't ride the test with him I needed to figure out how to ride the test So I could ride with the best international rider in the world and it probably turned out better than if I would have done it A different way, um, or maybe not. I mean who knows but it worked So yeah, that's it. Yeah. Yeah, so So things work you just play around you experiment you try different things and you have fun Right, that's the important part. Have fun