Work dat ass!

My horse and I are both lacking something. And I hear it is the key to all things great. When you have it, mountains move, you may even hear violins...

The result of it is a horse working from behind and you not pulling on reins like some first-day-of-lessons newbie. It's called muscles y'all. I have none and Miss Tea has none, and it sucks.

So many muscles involved--maybe I should switch to trail riding.

Lesson Monday was all about working this issue. Miss Tea is kind of like riding a plank; straight, long and rough. And then there is me; kind of like a bag of Jello, jiggling and wiggling along on said plank. My goal was to bend that darn plank and keep the Jello in the bag!

We started with exaggerated flexion at the walk, inside bend and counter-bend, and once that felt soft we moved on to trot with the same exercise. I discovered her right bend was much more of an effort for her and subsequently for me and my weak legs.

Then the canter. I am ashamed to say both Miss Tea and I can only make it about three quarters of the arena in good form and then fall apart. After two laps of canter (with most of it looking like ass) both Miss Tea and I were huffing and puffing and needed a break in the middle. This is where having a group lesson comes in supper handy--the other person goes out for a turn while you get a nice long break (collapse on your horse and die a little) before heading out for more torture much-needed practice.

We didn't get in any jumping this lesson, but really, I don't think I could have even managed to hang on over a jump by the end.

We ended the lesson with a lovely blow-dry for the girl as it was -10 outside and she was quite lathered from our workout in the heated arena (Yes, HEATED!!XOXO). She had never seen/heard a blowdryer before, but she stood beautifully for it--scared to death, but willing to be good for me--love her!

Now who thinks I will work any of those muscles again before my next lesson? Silly girls, I don't use muscles outside of lessons!