Getting Out of My Own Way

I am a very positive person, pretty much all of the time. I like to keep my head in the clouds.... The view from up here is quite nice! My glass is always half full. Every disappointment is a chance to only make myself better next time... Anyway, you get the picture. There are situations though that can start to weigh on me. I wanted to write a blog about the "other" piece of my riding I am working on, the mental side.

I like to analyze things, all things really. I am a very reflective person because that is what my job as a school teacher forces me to do. I look at all types of data and determine, from that data, what the next steps need to be. I am constantly reflecting and planning. With riding, I am no different.

I make plans- a lot of them! Some of them are completely unrealistic but fun to think about nonetheless. Then, I talk those plans over with Megan, Jenn, Andrea, and Emily on Monday nights over Mexican food. Some of my plans they like some of them they hate! I am ok with both. I am just glad that we can all be honest with each other. I respect all of their opinions for sure. The biggest difference, I feel, between us all is that they are professionals so they get to set their calendar around important shows, etc. I try to do the same but also have to take into account my work calendar. I tend to panic when my plans don't materialize! I AM however, a firm believer that everything happens for a reason. So for example, when I didn’t get to go to the jumper show cause of the weather, I just said, "I just saved over $100 and she's been jumping really well so I don't feel like I NEED to go but it would have been fun!" I have had to train my way of thinking though and it is not always that easy!

As I have said in earlier blogs, Craig Shegog, my show jumping coach, is both my jumping coach and what I'd call the closest thing to a life coach I have ever had. Not the kind of life coach that wants to discuss the ins and outs of my crazy life! He knows I am a school teacher (or that I have a job with summers off), he's met Tom and seen him a few times, and he knows I teach a few clients but that's probably about all he knows about me personally. However, when it comes to my riding, he knows more about my thought process than I do. He knows what I am going to think about a riding situation before I do and often how I will react. He knows and calls me on it when I am not being mentally tough. He knows that sometimes I bring up mistakes I have made in lessons YEARS ago, and that I can have 100 good jumps and one "bad" one and the one bad one stays with me longer than the 100 good ones! He knows Frankie is a different horse from her left side to her right side, and he know that mentally, I can get in my own way by overthinking everything.

We have really been working on demising the ability that I have to get in my own way, but it a daily task. He never dismisses any of my thoughts or makes me feel stupid for asking questions or making a statement and he always addresses my "concerns." We start every lesson with a brief discussion about what Frankie has done the previous days, how she was or what I felt, and what needs to happen the following week. Another thing he has been doing since very early on is recommending sports psychology books for me to read. He has read many himself and says with a library card, it's the cheapest coaching I can get because I have the tools and ability, I just have to put it all together.

I have found that many of the books written for the game of golf, can pertain to riding. The last book I read was Life is not a Game of Perfect by Dr. Bob Rotella. It had several good points about working hard and not selling yourself short and about how to train your thinking to reach your full potential. Here are just two pages that I found interesting about thinking you "did you best."

 

I found this interesting even as a teacher because I wonder how many times I have given work back to students and lead them to believe they have done the best they can? And if I have done that, have I limited them in the future. Have I limited myself at times? I highlighted many parts in the book and will skim through them from time to time for sure.

I am now reading this book. If nothing else, reading fills my mind with other thoughts.







 

If you have any good books you have read and would like to share them with me, I'd love to read them!  Until next time, think you are awesome and believe in your dreams!



Summer Plans?!?!

Being a school teacher means SUMMER BREAK and it is finally approaching! Now, it is not as long as most people think, and we do have mandatory professional developments to attend over the summer, but never the less, I have about eight weeks where I don't have to write lesson plans and be responsible for several little humans’ education. Teachers’ time off is basically dictated but I try to fit in as much as I can during the school year, however it seems like the few plans I tried to put into motion this year, for one reason or another, did not play out as I had hoped. Some things were work related while others were just bad timing. Up to this point, I have put together (mentally), about 50 plans for my summer break and none of them seemed to sit well as I mulled over them in my head.

First I thought about going to an adult camp. I am not sure if they offer those for the OI/Adv level but maybe? Then I thought about going to several different well- known riders/ coaches/ trainers for a week or longer and sent some emails pertaining to that. Then I thought about going to Florida. You get my drift….

I have talked to and downright bugged several (very busy) people asking for advice on what to do and who to ride with over the summer. Of course, money and traveling distance play a huge role in things as well as riding with someone who might be accessible to me in the future for a tune up before a big competition, so I have to take that into consideration. I can't just do whatever I want for my eight weeks of summer break but I wanted to have a plan of action for Frankie and me.

Frankie and I ran January and February Poplar and from there we have just been doing our homework. I have packed the double bridle away in my trailer to force myself to work on making her better in the snaffle. I have continued my jump lessons with Craig on a weekly basis, even when the money was a little low, so that I did not get out of the routine of jumping 4'. I have been able to work with Megan Moore and we have made some huge, positive changes in my XC riding. Now that Frankie is trained and ridable, I have really had to change the way I ride her. She is not the same type of ride, thank goodness... lol, that she was even three years ago. And finally, I have been riding Cathy Wieschhoff's very nice, young, sale horses and her prelim horse, Slew Boy, while she recovers from shoulder surgery. In the three weeks I've been riding them, I have already learned a ton and mainly about myself.

I have learned that by riding only one horse consistently for the last eight years, that I have become very use to ONE way of going. I seem to have lost, ummm, maybe resiliency is the word I am looking for? Meaning when Frankie strays from "normal," I don't react soon enough with the tools I have in my toolbox because they have perhaps gotten rusty?! The baby horses and even the prelim horse are helping me sharpen my tools. They have been there all along, just had gotten a little rusty.

So that leaves me still with the question of what to do this summer! There are some clinics coming to town which would eliminate the travel and extended hotel stays for me. I enjoyed the Joe Meyer clinic and he was very complimentary of us as a team. I rode well that weekend and seemed to not make any silly mistakes. It is hard to explain my "issues" to a person that only sees a snapshot of my riding. This is why Megan has been so instrumental in making immediate changes to my riding. Even before she started helping me, and teaching me, (which I am sure can be exhausting because I ask a lot of questions when in a comfortable situation, think A LOT about my previous lessons/ shows, and future goals, and want to discuss all of this, sometimes at random) she had seen me compete a lot. She has been at all of my Advanced and has even seen glimpses of us other places. She already had several things she wanted to work on by the time she started helping me. It was great in lesson #1, which we schooled XC, to have her say, "Ok. This is what we are going to do today." She didn't need any time to get to know us. Sometimes I feel clinics are tough because the clinician needs to have some sort of baseline for your riding but I think this summer instead of skipping town for an extended period of time, I will try a few clinics and see what I think of them. Good or bad…. It will be a two- day experience. I will make myself go and if nothing else, I will have that pressure of riding in front of others, on myself.

With the opportunities I have here in Lexington to keep working with people who really know me and care about my progress, getting to ride other horses, and teaching my own clients and pony clubbers, I think by participating in a couple of clinics this summer, I will provide myself with a good education.

We head to Greater Dayton in two weeks, which almost looks like it is shaping up to be a Team CEO division of prelim, then Jenn O’Neil and I will go to Lost Hounds in June. I have a summer/ fall show schedule taking shape but as we all know, plans are ever changing. I’ll let Frankie help me plan the rest.

 

Don't shy away from opportunity. It may be disguising its self as work!

Opportunity does not always come knocking and sometimes when it does, that opportunity can disguise its self as hard work. My plate is as full as everyone else's but when Cathy Wieschhoff presented me with the opportunity to do some riding for her while she recovers from shoulder surgery, I knew it was something I needed to do and accepted the opportunity. My first thought was how can I possibly add three horses to my plate? I have a husband, a full-time teaching job, my own horse to ride, and lessons to teach. At this time of the year, school becomes extremely busy with several after school meetings, state testing trainings, and district writing meetings because I am also the writing leader for my elementary school. All of this on top of the regular demands of my job which is to teach.... I have lesson plans due each week and grading papers that often require extensive teacher comments on writing pieces so the students get timely feedback on their work in order to apply it to their next writing piece. Top all that off with being married to a wonderful and supportive husband who travels all week and would really like to see me for at least a few hours on the weekends! I really did not know how I was going to add this to my plate to say the least but knew I could not let this opportunity get away!

I felt so strongly about trying to figure out how to get these new horses worked in to my schedule because I have had many people say to me, “It’s a shame you don't have other horses to practice on." I have come to realize that even though I love riding Frankie more than any other horse I have ever sat on, #1 it puts a lot of pressure on us both to give 100% every day and #2, having ridden her now for almost 9 years, I am use to a very certain type of ride so when things change, I only have a tool box that I've developed with Frankie instead of a tool box with all types of tools, even if I will never use those tools with her.

The two sale horses of Cathy’s I am riding are both youngsters and very different rides. Yacht is a chestnut mare that immediately found her way into my heart. She is so brave and really wants to please! Then there is Benny, a very flashy bay gelding that has a lofty trot and very balanced canter, something that is foreign to me!  I will begin adding Cathy's preliminary horse in the mix, as the person that has been riding him will no longer be available. He will provide me with the opportunity to work on my dressage and jumping so this will be an awesome experience. Cathy has been very helpful in the process of riding these young horses.  She has given me time to get to know them ad jump them by myself, and this weekend, she came down to the arena, arm in a sling, and watched me jump them.  It was very helpful and I received great feedback on both horses.  These two horses are quite nice for sure.  This endeavor is really pushing me outside of my box and she is award of that since she's know me since I was 13 years old and I have only ever had one horse on my plate at a time so I have been able to adjust my riding style to fit the needs of the horse.  We had a good discussion this weekend about how this is the best thing I can do for my own riding right now.   I take it as a huge compliment that I am trusted to ride these horses until she is back riding again.  I have been reluctant for a long time to take on other horses, mostly due to the time factor and my love for riding Frankie, but am really glad I did not make excuses for myself and walk away from this opportunity!  It would have been so easy for me to say, “I’m too busy.”  I AM too busy, that is true, but I must keep getting better and I have to keep learning in order to be better for Frankie.

 

As for my Super Mare, she's doing great! We went to January and February Poplar and from those two shows, I came back with some homework. I just didn't feel taking her to more shows is what she needed to do at the moment. She knows what horse shows are all about! We have continued our weekly jump lessons, with the focus on the canter, and I am LOVING her willingness to work on the flat. She can be so fancy when she relaxes through her back!

With my work schedule being what it is, I can't get to the May, Chatt Hills, or run around the prelim at Maydaze even because it is our last day of school and 5th grade graduation.... I have decided to take her to Dayton and let her quietly jump around the prelim. It is closer in distance than Chatt Hills and I can leave after work on Friday to get there. Chatt Hills presented several challenges in relation to work, so I opted to go with Megan Moore and her team to Dayton! It will be a fun trip for sure! Megan and I had a wonderful, foot perfect xc school last weekend. We and I are working very hard on identifying the different canters needed on xc and helping Frankie and me be comfortable in those canters! At the xc schooling, it all came together!

Megan has been a great help. She really understands Frankie and has seen the “other” me that can show up at horse shows! I don't know what I'd do without our Monday night "meeting of the minds" dinner with her, Jenn, Andrea, and Emily! It is a “say anything meeting and expect an honest answer” kind of group and I really enjoy these much needed dinners.

Before Dayton HT, Frankie and I will head to Split Rock to continue practicing our show jumping and will be meeting up with Joe Meyer to school XC while he is in town for Rolex. I plan each day the night before because I can't get too far ahead of myself! So far, somehow, it is all working! SO here’s to all of you that have very busy schedules, children even, and somehow manage to get it all done! 

Never Stop Learning

Thank goodness I decided to get started with my eventing season in January!  People always think I am crazy to get going so soon but I am glad I did!  It seems I have some wrinkles to smooth out this year! I am just thrilled though to be starting yet another eventing season with Frankie.  I know I am fortunate to be able to have the same partner for so many years.  And trust me I AM STILL LEARNING! 

Frankie and I started with the first two Poplars and I have been very pleased with her Dressage...  YES.... I said DRESSAGE, and quite pleased with her show jumping.  The first show jumping track was very tight and twisty and the second track was wide open in the grass with both the triple and the double downhill.  Each course presented different challenges at the Intermediate height.  Carving a good turn, landing and organizing the canter, and finishing my lines from the jumps are all becoming second nature for me.  I am still working on not making a quick decision, supporting my decision with my leg, and not second guessing myself in front of the jump and staying taller in the air. 

Now I am forced to evaluate the way I ride XC.  This is brand new territory for us.  After a mishap this past summer, Frankie is requiring me to sit up, keep my butt down, and get my hands off her neck. She is not letting me get away with the same mistakes I have made in the past which I think is really good.  In the end, this will keep us safe and as her Mom and rider, I appreciate that!  I need to be more accountable for my part of the ride and more accountable I will be.  It is a slow process of course, changing the way I ride XC but I am not discouraged because I feel like I am learning....  I changed the way I show jumped about three years ago so I am confident I can also change the way I ride XC.  I LOVE learning and I really feel like I am PART of the ride- not just the person steering her.  Now, at February Poplar I proved to be the part that made a mistake two jumps from home.... but I only made one mistake around that entire course that day.  Old habits die hard that's for sure.  Frankie is more trained than she was a couple of years ago so I need to ride her like she is trained.  Like Craig said, "The good news is she's careful and smart and the bad news is she's careful and smart."  I actually appreciate that quality about her! 

She galloped happily, in her SNAFFEL, at the second Poplar.  I decided to try my snaffle because now that she is so much more ridable, I sometimes feel that she would bounce off the contact and slip behind my leg.  I was really happy with her in the snaffle.... she has not been swimming or galloping long sets like she did for the 2* or the Adv so that may be something I have to play by ear but she always has plenty of gas in the tank and not once did she blow me off.  I changed the balance early, sat down, and kept my hands off her neck.... oh, except once when I did the opposite and she stopped.  When we reapproached, I was correct and she was happy to jump.  Here is the video of the mistake I made and my second approach. 

http://youtu.be/ts4pN5w4bcM

We finished 3rd but placing never matters to me really.  I've seen bad rounds win and FABULOUS rounds place out of the ribbons!  It is all about being able to put all three phases together!

I have teamed up with Megan Moore and team CEO for some help.  Megan has produced Advnaced horses of her own and can ride anything so she hasa TON of ideas!  Her suggestions have proved to be spot on what Frankie needs from me right now.  We had a FABULOUS XC school at Masterson last weekend and I will meet up with her in Aiken for a weekend of training in March.  I am also excited to participate in the Joe Meyer clinic te first weekend in March and of course we will continue jumping with Craig Shegog. 

Hope you are all having a wonderful winter and learning lots!

Suzie