Ride the line

[glenatron]

So there I am having problems with my shoulders on a large circle, first they drop in, then they wobble out and as they drop in I pick them up and put them back on the right line and then as they pop out again I sort out our alignment again and still the circles aren't consistently round and most importantly for me, it's not getting better which is usually a pretty good sign I need to change what I'm doing.

And I think about someone saying "ride the line", which is one of those great enigmatic horse trainer phrases that can mean almost whatever you want it to, but at that moment for me it meant "stop thinking about the horse and think about the circle instead." Then I wasn't micromanaging where each foot went or worrying about changing the bend, I was just riding in a circle. And because I was concentrating on where the circle was, I was correcting the moment we started to stray rather than after the event. It wasn't instantly magically perfect, but it was a heck of a lot better.

I think this may mean I'm finally starting to get to the point where I don't need to be thinking about everything - some of the things that I've been trying to do for so long are starting to work better when I don't think about them and just do them.

Comments

[penella22.livejournal.com]

:-)

Ahhh, this is so much where I am with riding right now. Sometimes I need to just. stop. thinking!!

Well done.

[dancing-crow.livejournal.com]

My instructor tells me to think twenty minutes ahead of myself on the circle - thinking of it as a clock face, think about the mark roughly one third of the way from where you are now, and ride to that.

It is very true that a lot of later riding advice sounds more like zen koans!

[evil-c.livejournal.com]

Have you thought about giving pilates a try? It might help you. I did my first session last night... whilst at work... between trains lol

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

I haven't really got time for anything new, so mucking out will be my exercise regime for the next few months...

When I talk about my shoulders dropping out, I really mean Zorro's shoulders, which I kind of regard as mine when we're riding...

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

If you watch a Ray Hunt DVD all he does is come out with these little one-liners. I love them.

[glenatron.livejournal.com]

It's amazing how easy it can be to not try and to just allow things to happen once you have spent enough time trying that you don't have to think about what you're doing...