There was a point to this story but it has temporarily escaped my mind...

So this *might* be long and rather random. Don't know yet, haven't typed it, but suspect as much. hahaha consider yourself forwarned!

Ok gotta admit I've been feeling a little homesick the last few days -- I'm fitter now, so not exhausted when I come home from work and miss having people I can call up to go out for dinner or gossip or whatever. Sobeit -- not tragic, just a little blah. So this afternoon I was heading back from the stallion paddocks, which meant passing in front of the Emerson's house, when I hear "Hey Lauren!" turn around and Denny's coming towards me w/ a box. I'm figuring he wants me to take it to the main barn... But no -- it was address to ME!!! Yup that's right, just as I'm starting to feel a little down I get a care package from my Mum filled with.... Can you guess? MARS BARS!!!!! Woohoo!!!! Of all different sizes :) hahaha I definitely had one for dinner. So yeah that entirely made my day. And I realize it has nothing whatsoever to do w/ horses, but this is my blog so I can write what I want :) You WERE warned >;-P

Lesson today was application of Sally Swift. Nothing new cause, well, I read the books too :) But was def a good review and a smooth transition from yesterday's detailed body-awareness. Did have to laugh though cause some of today's seemed contraditory to some of what I was told the first week -- and today's was much more *right* in my mind. @ the end of the lesson I put my leg where I tried all spring/summer to make it go and asked outright "is this right?" -- Yes, exactly. hahaha so evidently it's only in jumping when the leg should be crazy forward. If the weather's decent we're supposed to jump tomorrow, so I'll find out. We were stuck inside today.

Theory analogy of the day: "the eyes are the nails". What, you mean that doesn't make sense? Sheesh! Hahaha ok think of the old "for want of a nail..." poem (here for those who don't know what I'm talking about: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/For_Want_of_a_Nail ) -- now the eyes are the nail... If the eyes go down, the chin and head go down;
when the chin and head go down, the shoulders curl over,
when the shoulders curl, the ribs collapse,
when the ribs collapse, you lean forward and your balance is off,
when you lean forward, your leg goes back,
when your leg goes back, it doesn't function
and basically you're now riding like a blob
all cause you let your eyes drop :)

Sometimes the weirdest analogies are the best :) This was particularly entertaining w/ Denny demonstrating on the ground >;-P


We also had "eventers have to be figure skaters and hockey players" -- this is a prob as I can't skate >;-P hahaha no, this one was in the mental aspects of the sport. For dressage you have to be very calm, very focused, and very precise -- figure skating. For XC you have to be very agressive and arguably less focused on form. And stad is somewhere between the two. The trick is that those two mindsets are somewhat contradictory and to get both of them to work, sometimes w/in an hour of each other, is a bit of an art. And of course *most* eventers lean more naturally toward the hockey player/xc side of things and have to train themselves to focus on the details for the figure-skating side. Cause really, the other two phases (dressage and stad) are sports in themselves and if that's all you really wanted to do, that's what you'd be doing. IMHO, this is why most DQs don't like working w/ eventers (or the more tolerant ones are just rather bemused by them) >;-P "Are you going to do a *real* warmup or just go gallop around?" -- sound familiar anybody? hahaha

Also chatted for a while about coaching theory and how to effectively teach the various learning styles (audio, visual, kinesthetic) and appropriate use of video and/or demonstrations. Nothing new, I just appreciated that he's willing to help me to evolve my coaching.

Ok well I think that's enough random babble for today :)