JK – We Jumped

Happy New Year! It’s not too late to say that is it? I’m never sure when the happy new year period is up. There’s always that one awkward encounter mid-January with someone you don’t see very often. They say happy new year and you smile awkwardly wondering why you missed the proper holiday etiquette memo.

Life has been fairly mundane as of late. Hence the absence from the blog. The ordinary crap is not always fun to write about. I also don’t have any new media. So that’s no fun either. I’ve got to do some serious catching up on everyone’s blogs. I will.

“To sleepy for this”

I’m still waiting for my secret santa gift to fight its way through customs. My wonderful secret santa has advised that it’s on its way. I can’t wait to see what she’s picked out and tell you all about it! I’m reading a really awesome book that I’ll might review once I’m done. Spoiler it’s filled with wonderful lines like “I’VE SWALLOWED A LEPRECHAUN AND IT’S EATING ITS WAY OUT OF MY CHEST”. Pure gold I tell you! I also have some things to review from the 2pointober prizes… unfortunately or fortunately (I’m not sure which) I’ll be able to review one item from a more personal perspective. Don’t ask. You’ll hear about it soon enough.

On to the lesson recap. As you may be able to tell by the title, we jumped. Yes I know that I told you that G and I decided to do flat lessons. But my private lesson turned into a semi-private. Apparently I’m the only one that appreciates dressage work. Which in my opinion is DUMB! Where’s my damn soapbox!?!?!

However, I’m not all that upset that we jumped. Solely for the fact that Tucker got so excited when I pointed him at the colourful sticks. How do I know that? Well let me try to paint the picture. Our lessons usually go like this: J, the person that I lesson with will jump the course while Tuck and I wait. J will finish and G will give him feedback while I convince Tucker that it’s our turn. I spend a bit of time waking Tuck up and then do the course. Sometimes he doesn’t fully wake up until part way through the course.

On Sunday Tucker barely waited for J and his horse to clear the last fence before he was cantering out of our waiting spot. I don’t even know how he knew it was the last fence. So instead of doing a lap or two to wake him up I was doing laps to make sure he was paying attention. He had me laughing with his enthusiasm.

The whole purpose of the lesson was to get us to recognize contact. We spent a good amount of time on a circle working at trot and canter trying to establish the right degree of connection.

“I am done trying to kick you now.”

From there we moved on to small courses. Some bits of the course weren’t executed perfectly by me (ie. not creating the shape needed before the jump/bending gymnastic) but we made it through without any problem because I stayed connected. It felt like a hot mess because of Tucks eagerness but because of the connection I was able to trouble shoot my way through.

Takeaway: Floppy reins are bad! Connection good!

The handsomest!

I hope you all had a good New Years!