Slightly more than Mid-August check in

Jimmy's all "hey gurrrlll"

I have ridden Jimmy twice, both times to leap about a jump course because he was being difficult for a student. 

I had a client put spurs on Bert to practice turns on the forehand, and I think it helped? I'll still need to get on him to confirm. Especially as my goal was four times this month... and at this point we're still at zero. Oops.

Tango is... mostly cantering quietly. He's given a few lessons at this point, but he went into racehorse mode for a little while yesterday:

I'm having a grand ol' time with Camou, although I disocovered that my unfolding at the knee problem is worse than previously thought. I also figured out that he'll pick up the correct lead if you counterflex him headed to the left. This was a difficult thing, but hopefully we'll get it more consistent and he'll improve.

A working student longed Harley in the Chambon yesterday and he started to relax a bit... he'll need a lot more work before he actually starts to come over his back. I'll try to take the time this week to massage him and see if that helps a bit.

Danny hasn't been properly worked... at all. Shhhh summer camp is so hard to work around.

And there's my check-in!

Soccer coaching for riding coaches

I read pretty much anything I can get my hands on. I am an avid reader, I believe it would be fair to say.

I work part-time as a nanny to fill in the gaps left behind by, you know, being a horse trainer... so when I spotted the AYSO Coaching Guide hanging out, I read it because I had pretty much nothing else to read. Yay! So here are some notes, as loosely interpreted for riding/not translated to riding at all for your reading pleasure:

"Prioritizing development over winning does not reduce competition."

-focus on performance rather than outcome, which is not 100% under the rider's control.
-Coaches are: leaders, motivating, conscientious, fair and honest, dress smartly, knowledgeable, enthusiastic, communicators, observant, humorous, personable, confident.
-Successful coaches:
1) possess a wealth of soccer knowledge
2) prioritize athlete's well-being
3) have an ability to communicate knowledge to player
4) ability to observe, evaluate, and correct (in a positive manner) apparent faults

-Always prepare with a written training plan
-Set up your area prior to players and parents arriving - this sets tone and builds confidence
-Plan a smooth transition from exercise to exercise
-Find appropriate time to step in and avoid lengthy speeches
-Instructions should be concise, accurate, relevant, and demonstrated when possible.
-Ask factual (what), conceptual (how), and stimulating (why) questions

1) Say (explain skill/technique)
2) show (demonstrate)
3) do (player practice)
4) Review

Post-session: concise discussion (postivie comment/constructive feedback), review the training plan, and allow for coach evaluation.

"Coaching involves observing and evaluating player and team performance to determine what needs to be worked on in order to maximize development."

Training components (psychosocial, physical, technical, tactical) are then incorporated into a training session to improve player.

Organize to coach: sessions are composed (free play); warmup; activities 1 & 2; small-sided matches; cool down.
(Grooming/on ground handling; warmup; activities 1&2; dressage test/basic obstacles/jump course; cool down.)
-Principles of play should be considered and applied throughout
-Coach using sound methodology (say show do review)

"Youth players need to practice in a match-like environment, which provides numerous opportunities to practice and repeat a skill."

-Mistakes are markers for improvement
-progress from simple to complex and unopposed to opposed
-Players must first be successful with a technique before the activity is progressed
-Repetition is a key component to skill development; don't bombard players with multiple topics per lesson
-Encourage free-play as it will remind players of the fun and intrinsic benefit of practicing freely
-Don't spend time running laps because you don't run laps  in a game
-Eliminate activities that involved players waiting for their turn to play
-Keep communication positive, brief, and to the point

10-20 minutes before start, players should drink 7-10 fl oz of water
Break every 10-15 minutes
"Ask players to work on their own self improvement."
Develop a team goal
Develop a coaching philosophy

Reading through this it sort of would work for kids as well as horses. I typed this all on my phone so I apologize for any typos.

Here's to a fitness... plan?

I rode Tango yesterday for approximately 15 minutes. It was hard to incorporate everything I'd learned with him because he's a freight train when he gets going and it's hard to cyle all the thoughts through my head in order to organize my body properly. So that was rough.

I'm ordering an appropriately sized yoga ball to start practicing Erika Prockl's exercises on. I'd not only like to more thoroughly review her work, but I think pretty much anything has gotta help me get my abs on.

I have more books on how to be fit laying around than I like to think about, so I'm going to focus on just trying to actually work out off-the-horse more than once or twice a week. And not just running, although that's good for me too. I'd like to build some muscle, and the best way to do that is weightlifting and bodyweight exercises, right? Ugh.

So here's a goal: sweat (not from riding or standing around in the sun teaching) 4 times a week. At least ten minutes at a time.

Biomechanics Lesson #1

I took a lesson with Anne Howard today and it was delightful! I learned a lot and worked reasonably hard and came away with the following notes for myself:

• Keep my head balanced over my shoulders by focusing on the alignment of my chin and sternum. She recommended focusing on the horse's fascinating poll for a while, at least until my habit isn't to turn my head so dramatically all the time. 
• Imagine pressing my whole upper body against a sliding glass door -- I tend to suck back in my belly and lean forward through my shoulders, so this helps the alignment so my core can work more effectively.
• Some things to remember that won't make any sense to anyone else: 1) Hip flexion
  2) Internal rotation at the hip
  3) Abduction
  4) Knee&toe up
• Focus on keeping my internal rotation solid and posting off the front of the knee knobble
• Post with more oomph up and land more softly
• My bearing down has holes in it. Harrumph. I need to 'exercise'.
• Keep my thigh narrow all the way up from my knee. 
• I need to practice finding my seat bones, especially the back edge and the left and right edges.
• Take a little more contact with my horse (yup... heard that before)
• Focus on the feel of the horse's back underneath me. 

One thing I really liked was the question "so what's happening now?" because it really turned my focus internally and allowed me to 'see' things that I normally would ignore.

Tango's had three days off. But I turned him into an alien:

 Camou had a week of being a camp pony. But he loved it:

 Jimmy got ridden on the trails (not by me.) and then I showed off his 3' jumping skills for the camp kids. We also turned him into an alien.

 Danny was solely ridden on the trails. 

I'm not having a great week in terms of exercising/training my ponies. 

On a very good note, TANGO GAVE A DRESSAGE LESSON ON THURSDAY. Oh yes. And she worked on her leg yield. Boom. 

I'm aiming to take Tango and either Danny or Camou to JK Presents at the end of September. Training level for Tango, and First for Danny. If Camou goes, it'd be all on the hunter end.

That's a reasonable goal, right?

Hmm. First I have to exercise my core a little more. Off to the gym! (not. More like off to do thirty half-hearted seconds of planking before googling various core workout routines. I'm actually terrible at fitness.)

August Goals

So what it's the 4th? I have plenty of August left to work on my goals. I think in the future I'd really like to do goals for more of my students, but for now I'll include just the one I co-own a horse with.

On the horse front...

Tango:

 

-Develop a quiet canter. As in... Every time I ask, I get a quiet canter. Not half the time, like today.
-Slow the trot, shorten the trot, relax his back.

Danny:

-Work on lengthening and shortening the trot
-soften and develop better leg yields through spirals and other various exercises
-Get a real walk-canter down
-Maybe improve the shoulders-in? I have a mental block about that exercise, so we'll see.

Camou:

-Introduce leg yields, because he has no understanding of moving off the leg... At all.
-Improve the lead issue
-Introduce the indirect rein as a method of turning

Jimmy:

-Fix the go problem. His accelerator broke with all the kids riding him. I'd like to tackle this by training the crop independent of the leg as a go aid, then reinforce the leg using the newly trained crop aid.
-Alllll the leg yields.

Bert:

What are brakes?

I mentioned in an earlier post that Tango and I have a bit of an issue with brakes.

Tango'd rather charge about, stick his head on his chest, and fight the halt. 'Persistence,' some might say, 'just keep executing regular transitions.'

Others might say 'if he can't be controlled at the canter, only trot him for a while!'

Excellent advice. I mean that, it's very good advice. He's only been on the property for a week. Patience and transitions might really be the key.

Except for my ego. Brakes and trailers. I'd be lying to you if I said I had talent at much else. I can install brakes in pretty much anything in usually one ride, and it takes me 20 minutes to get the worst horse onto a trailer. It's what I've built my empire (hehehe) on. So six rides later and my douche canoe is still racing about like a NASCAR pony? Nope.

 This is where we'll recall that I have spent my fair share of time dabbling in natural horsemanship. Not parelli, no, one dangerous horse early in my career cured me of that. Mostly Clinton Anderson. He's so tall and attractive anyhow that watching his DVDs was a nice little rest in my day.

Enter: Cruising. Are CA's exercises progressive? Yup. Can you pick one at random and just see how it goes? CA might have a heart attack. But we did it anyhow.

Cruising involves letting the horse take over direction and all that, and the only thing you insist upon is that they maintain their gait. So with a few (four) transitions from the trot to the walk to check if we had any brakes at all, off we went a-galloping.

I wish I'd asked someone to tape it.

He RACED around that arena for what Em swears was thirty minutes while he heaved and his shoes clacked occasionally and I just hoped we didn't trip or pull a shoe. We think he ran 8 miles before he got tired and slowed down. At which point my out-of-shape self had quaking knees and a serious thirst to get out of horses.

Then we changed direction.

Eiiiiiii anyhow brakes were pretty decent after he was foaming over his entire body.

Check out the improved canter:

Silly kids and their vertical videos. I'm pretty pleased with the result, despite how hard it was on him. He's sound today, so that's a plus. He's going to get the day off anyhow. I am, too!

Another character for the show

I now own 1.4 Californian horses. The 0.4 horse comes in the style of Camou, for whom I have no pictures yet. I do have an incredibly crummy video. Camou is 6, 15.2hh, and dark bay. He's also sweet and quiet and super in your pocket. He strikes me as the quintessential surfer dude, just packaged in a thoroughbreds body.

He really is a thoroughbred, despite how he looks.

Have a video!