Why should kids get to have all the fun???

Adult Camp is proving to be a blast :)  Participating we have Amy, Brena, Carolyn, Mieke, and Rebecca's doing half days since at least one of us has to work during the day and she's generously taken on that role *g*

Dressage Brilliance

We started day 1 with lunge lessons for all :)   Some of the riders hadn't been on a lunge line in years, if ever!  So it was with a combination of trepidation balance by giggles that they tackled the challenge.  For the first few rounds, everybody hung out in the arena, but as the temperature dropped the riders retreated to the heated viewing lounge to watch from behind the glass *g*

Carolyn and Jack

Carolyn and Mieke were focusing exclusively on developing their seat -- both equitation and how to move to sit with the horse.  Amy and Brena were taking that one step farther and adding in independent aids -- which led to some interesting dancing :)   And this status message from Amy:

hahaha - what Brena heard equally appropriate :)

Afternoon was gymnastics.  Challenge #1 - set said gymnastic.  Brena gets the gold star for being the first to rhyme off the correct distances...  Walking them, however, is still a skill in progress for most of the riders :)  However, thanks to a handy-dandy measuring tape, Brena and Carolyn had a perfect gymnastic set on the first try!  Woohoo.

Rebecca's 1st time jumping with no stirrups

Amy and Rebecca were jumping first, like absolute prostars!  Through the gymnastic, no problem.  Through the gymnastic with no reins?  Still no problem.  Ok then, how about no stirrups?  That was slightly more challenging - esp as Rebecca had never done it before.  hahaha but in the end, both did really well.  So they got their stirrups and reins back and the jump went up a bit :)  Next challenge, jumping big fences with eq as good as when they had no reins *g*

Brena and Bella

Brena, Carolyn and Mieke were next up with the same gymnastic set up.  We did some equitation work first, following up with the jumping version of the morning's exercises and then they went ahead and jumped a little higher as well.  Woohoo!

Mieke and Dixie

Somewhere in all the chaos we had a discussion about rider warm-up.  I've never understood why people warm up for every other sport in the world, but almost never for riding.  Some suggestions:
- leg lifts
- lunges
- quad stretch
- shoulder/arm stretch
- calf stretch
- jumping jack/skipping/running

All good.  Another one that my coach introduced me to that I don't entirely understand the logic behind but do find *really* works is:

Looks *really* ridiculous, but actually exceptionally effective if you're brave enough to try it!