Finding Our Carrying Power

It was a truly enlightening and enjoyable weekend.  The volunteers that worked so hard to put on the 2013 edition of the Heritage Park Horse Trials out did themselves again this year.  The event ran like clockwork and I heard very few complaints.

Personally we had a lovely weekend.  Nothing we did was outstanding, but we were consistently better in all three phases.  It may not be showing up in our score or placing yet, but I can feel our hard work paying off and the discerning observer can see the subtle changes.

I never thought I’d say it, but dressage might have been the highlight of the weekend.  It wasn’t an earth shattering test and honestly after our first canter trot transition it all fell to pieces, but for the first time I had a ridable canter.  I didn’t feel like I was on an unbalanced runaway freight train.  I was riding a bendable fairly balanced horse!  It was a huge mental victory for us.

We are still a little slow across country, but we’re getting close to the pace and fitness we need.  I didn’t ride Nutmeg in as uphill of balance as I should have, but we got around safely.  Actually, apart from a hairy near stop looking into the backwards trakenher, Nutmeg galloped around like a pro.  She wasn’t super bold into the water, but it was a heck of a lot better than then skidding plop we made last year.  She pulled up with less sweat than many of the lower level horses and her breathing returned to normal quickly.

 

We put in our first double clear show jumping round.  Another big victory!  We tapped the first fence significantly when I pushed for long, but got a chip.  The rails amazingly stayed up and it served as a great wakeup call that helped us put it together for the rest of the course.  I couldn’t be more pleased with Nutmeg’s effort over the weekend.

That being said, it was a challenging weekend for me mentally.  My husband and super groom let slip that some people are expecting us to keep climbing the ladder.  I feel like we’re struggling to just safely compete at our current level.  I ticked off the numerous reasons we can’t even consider moving up - ever.  I don’t know if he voiced those concerns to others or if life just has a way of telling you what you need to hear but the next day I was handed our road map.

Right now, we are missing our carrying power.  However, we are on the road to finding it.  Like playing Sorry, we just have to keep drawing cards and moving spaces.  Sometimes we will move forward.  Sometimes we have to choose to move backward in order to put ourselves in a better position for future forward movement.  We are going to spend the winter doing transition.  Forward, back, forward, back.  Each transition will help build the muscles which will allow us to lift upward.  Upward is where we are headed one twenty to thirty minute night time ride at a time.

I really struggle with wanting to do it all, but realizing the life I’ve chosen won’t let me.   This weekend I was reminded that I can excel at what I choose to do.  So, from the weekend my Fresh Perspective is to find a finer focus.  We can accomplish more in thirty minutes of concentrated practice then in a hour of unstructured recreating.   When you don’t have much time, you have to make every second count. 

 

100 Reasons We Play the Game

“This is ten percent luck, twenty percent skill, fifteen percent concentrated power of will.  Five percent pleasure.  Fifty percent pain and a hundred percent reason to remember the name.”
                                                                                                                 - Fort Minor
                                                                     

Eventing is hard work.  A rider will spend weeks if not months of their life practicing the basics and honing their skills.  Even more time is spent maintaining the horse’s welfare through grooming, feeding, mucking etc.  There is time spent on tack.  Time spent on the facility and other equipment.  Eventers are invested in their passion.

Yet no matter how much time and money is sunk into the pursuit, lady luck has her say.  There are too many variables for anything to ever be a given.  A horse can go lame, slip in the stabling, or just have a bad day.  You can forget a movement, skip a fence, even stay up to late cleaning tack.

The wind might blow.  The skies may open up and pour or even snow, but Eventers ride on.  The post office has nothing on what Eventers will endure.  What keeps us going?

It isn’t something that can be put into words.  The partnership, the bond, the accomplishment, the progress, the adrenalin, the comradery, the peace, the fun, the heartbreak, the hope, the knowledge that you can always do it a little bit better but knowing what you did today is enough.  There are a hundred reasons we play this game.

We’re headed to our final event of the season this weekend.  It’s going to be cold.  It’s been hard to ride in the wet, chili, dark rain of the past couple of weeks.  Regardless, the trailer is packed, the tack is cleaned (well it will be before Saturday morning), and Nutmeg and I are eagerly awaiting our Friday departure.  We’d love to see you there.  They always need volunteers!

 

 

All Kinds of Kinds

Imagine a world where we are judged only for our actions, not for our affiliations.  Better yet, imagine a world without affiliations or stereotypes.   A world that requires time spent for the opinions gained.  It isn’t a world for the lazy.

I am so frustrated with our country, my friends, my neighbors, my family, and even myself.  In an effort to speed along to our pleasures, we have given up the art of debate, replacing it with name calling and finger pointing.  We have become so ensconced in fitting into the little boxes we have created; we are no longer able to see from someone else’s shoes.

What happened to our statesmen?  Defined as “a usually wise, skilled and respected government leader, one versed in the principles or art of government, one actively engaged in conducting the business of a government or in shaping its policies.”  We are all called to be statesmen because we live in a democracy, but somewhere along the line it became too difficult.  It is so much easier to name ourselves as Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative and then let that party tell us what we believe.  Trouble is, sometimes we don’t quite agree with some overarching belief, but we’ve been labeled and there is no room for gray in a black and white barcode.

And we really like our barcodes and labels.  A Thoroughbred is fast and hot.  A Warmblood is slow and dumb.  A Quarter Horse is good for moving cows, but a bit thick.  An Arab is flighty.  Ponies are ornery.  Not a horse person?  Pitbulls are aggressive.  Cats are aloof.  Family people drive minivans.  Motorcycle riders like leather and my Facebook status can tell you anything you need to know about me.

Why are we so stuck on our labels?  When something challenges one of our self-given labels we attack and defend as if our vary identity was at stake.  In a way it is.  We no longer take the time to cultivate who we truly are and what we truly believe.  Instead we go grocery shopping… “Oh, I like spaghetti, bananas, freedom of choice, big government that can protect me, low taxes…”  But even that takes time and thought, so “Just give me the value bundle.”  I might not like everything that’s included, but who cares, you’re bound to get some bad with the good, right?

If you walk up to someone on the street and ask them what they think of stereotypes, they will probably tell you they are horrible.  But if you include them in a stereotype that they find favorable, they probably wouldn’t even consider it a stereotype, just an affiliation they are proud to promote.  That said, personally, I’d much rather have dinner with you, then give you the opportunity to judge me by a sign in my front yard.

That’s the heart of the matter.  We love to judge.  We love to judge others and we love to judge ourselves against others.  I realize this entire rant is judgmental.  I just ask that you seek a Fresh Perspective, a deeper perspective.  We’ve been taught not to judge a book by the cover, but we’re all too happy to let others judge us by our “Likes”, our statuses, our hash tags, and our affiliations.  Because when we feel like we have been judged unfairly, we can retort with, “They were stereotyping me.”  However, it is only unfair, if it’s untrue.  Are you more than your label?  Can you stand without your barcode backing you up?

Miranda Lambert has a beautiful song out called All Kinds of Kinds.  The chorus claims, “Ever since the beginning, to keep the world spinning, it takes all kinds of kinds.”  It’s just as true today as it was the day this country was founded.  None of us have all the answers.  Brainstorming works best with a diverse and unhampered group.  The answers are there, we just have to peel off all our labels to find them.