Don't let it slip away

How often are you in a lesson and you don't quite understand something your trainer says? For fun, the next time I am auditing a lesson, I'm going to try to count the number of coaching tips the coach gives the rider. Wait, maybe not. I'll just say... a lot! What that means is, in the heat of a lesson, oftentimes, several coaching tips will slip through the cracks without the rider understanding.

I hate it when something I need to understand slips through the cracks. But in a lesson, we can't always stop and ask because often there is something just ahead we have to try to understand and work on. You have to learn to say, "Okay, tip number three-hundred and fifty two, I'll come back for you later." Furthermore, life and learning gets so busy that its easy to forget to ask for clarification in the next lesson.

However, the ideal state of studentry is connecting. For the sake of connecting, I use a training notebook after every ride and it never lets me down. It catches what slips through the cracks.

For example, two weeks ago, I came home and wrote about my lesson. There was one area that I was re-living in my mind's eye that had to do with collecting in the trot and keeping the hind legs active. I wanted to write down the details surrounding something my trainer said... "You want a piaffe-like reaction, not a passage-like reaction." I didn't quite get it in my lesson and I didn't get it at all on the pages of my notebook. Had I not had the opportunity to see that I could not write down those details, that gap of understanding between my trainer and I could have gone unattended for weeks if not months.

But fortunately, I became highly aware of the need to ask my trainer to explain and in the next lesson I got the clarification I needed. Finally, yesterday I wrote in my notebook about it, with a detailed checklist of what my trainer is really asking me to do. Take this one step further, and I'll print the list out and re-read it before my ride today.

If you would like to see my public notebook at Barnby Notes, please go to www.barnbynotes.com and sign up using our two-week trial membership. The entry this blog is referring to is "A piaffe-like reaction". In September, barnbynotes.com will offer free access to USDF members via our partnership in education.

A garden-girl equestrian

Today I experienced a benefit from keeping an equestrian training notebook that perhaps only a true garden girl can appreciate -- the harvesting of previous entries. The harvesting of one's notebook is where the accumulation of focused previous entries (goals, notes and reflections) have taken root deep inside the brain and have become strong enough to remind us to do something when we need that reminder most.

For example, over the past week, I've written in my notebook about keeping my chin up. And a month ago, I wrote down what one trainer said which was, "Ninety percent of all riders look down." Within the past year I've written several similar reminders. Today, all of these reminders harvested, ripened, broke the surface and in a powerful way, became quite helful. "Chin up, now!" my voice blurted out just a few minutes into my ride. I raised my chin immediately and from then on forward enjoyed a productive, rewarding, uphill, well-balanced ride. I was thrilled it didn't take me 20 minutes or longer to remember it, as it usually does.

What is most important to remember about an equestrian training notebook is that skills develop out of the neural network in our brains and if a rider hasn't planted the idea or the "seed(s)" about keeping the chin up, then how is he ever going to remember to do it physically, consistently and correctly?

To read my entry "Chin-up now!", posted inside my online notebook please go to barnbynotes.com and use the two week trial. It is one of many entries I make where all this talk of harvesting begins.

Contigo has to be more handy

Sometimes I use my training notebook to explore a word or phrase a trainer uses. Just yesterday, trainer Else Donnell said, "Contigo has to be more handy."

Handy? A horse, handy? I was intrigued because it's a word I typically associate with a household, not a horse. Turns out, the word choice was perfect.

Else Donnell is a USDF Bronze, Silver and Gold Medalist and "L" judge with distinction who recently moved to Gardnerville, Nevada. Yesterday was my first lesson with her.

I have a past with the word handy. My mother used to say that my dad wasn't very handy around the house and that the only thing he was handy with was the wood pile and his ability to pile five pieces of firewood at one time into his arms and bring them up the steep stairs on a cold dark night. (But she'd only say that when the kitchen drain got plugged or a lightswitch didn't work; she really did think he was handy, especially in his chosen profession -- the operating room.) Furthermore, my husband is the son of a man who taught him how to build houses, fix the plumbing, the dishwasher, the heating, the air conditioner, the washer and dryer and anything else that runs. He just does it and I don't ever have to think about asking him or bugging him for it. So, I simply haven't heard, used or even thought about that word in a very long time.

Else provided me her own definition of the word handy: Contigo needs to pick up his feet quicker, without changing the rhythm. He needs to spend less time on the ground and more time reaching under his body toward the middle of the saddle. He needs to fall with less weight on his font feet, and he needs to let her lift his shoulders and refrain from wanting to drop them. He also needs to move off the right and left leg aid faster. In essence, he needs to use his hind end to become more adjustable. Then she rode him as a masterful gymnast would, testing and developing strength, balance and agility through a random and spontaneous sequence of movements, postures and gaits. Over a short period of time, Contigo's body grew taller, his steps became lighter and he looked beautiful. Or should I say he looked beautifully handy.

So I wrote her definition down. Then I looked it up in the dictionary. It means to be within easy reach, conveniently available, accessible, skillful with the hands or dextrous (in a horse's case I guess that would mean skillful with his hind legs and supple and relaxed through his work), and easily maneuvered.

When working trainers, whether it be for the first time or the fiftieth time, I still seek to know the deeper meaning of their words. What exactly does that trainer mean when he or she uses this word or that word. In this particular phase in my learning, that word, handy, felt so practical, so achievable. I love the idea of Contigo becoming more handy. And now that I have explored it on the pages of my notebook I won't lose site of its importance.

Ah-ha!...that felt...different, it felt...right....it felt....hum, how do I describe what I just felt in the saddle?

I've heard from elite pros that it is critically important to write down my ah-ha moments. But to be perfectly honest there are times when I have an ah-ha moment that are hard to explain largely in part because I felt it, but I haven't explained it yet. But as the owner of Barnby Notes, and a specialist in keeping a notebook, I have learned that the writing process forces us to put words to our feelings which then brings more clarity to that which we have felt. The end result -- the ability to reach new depths of meaning and connection in a sport that can be quite complicated and challenging, despite its rewards.

For example, just the other day I was riding and focusing extra hard on even contact in both reins. All of a sudden, when I turned the corner, I realized that my contact remained as even in both reins during a turn as it was down the long side. It dawned on me at that very moment that during turns I don't usually feel even contact. And because Contigo, my horse, felt remarkably good during that turn, I instantly knew I had hit a sweet spot in my ride because often its during turns that he doesn't feel that good.

This sudden ah-ha moment, this sudden understanding, this sudden training breakthrough is a clue that I must pay particular attention to. It is an indication about how to proceed.

I did write in my notebook about it, which you can read by signing up at Barnby Notes with our two week trial, because I wanted to remember for the next day to aim for that same feel. You can bet I did just that and my turns felt wonderful. Furthermore, I took that same feel and applied it to my half-steps, piaffe and tempi-changes with fantastic results!