So yesterday our weekly lesson was a jumping one. One I was REALLY excited about. May has been feeling great since she got her hocks injected, and I was looking forward to trying the upgrade over some fences. I even threw on May’s breastplate and neck strap because I started a new rule for myself: I cannot ask my trainer to lower fences. She sets them – I ride them.
Buuuuuuut I took a new fitness class on Monday night. My spin class instructor had recommended that my friend and I try the new piloxing class. “It’s a mix of pilates and kick boxing. You’ll love it!” In my head, this meant that it would be cycles of kickboxing to get your heart rate up, followed by sets of Pilates exercises. Right? NOPE. It was 45 minutes of NON STOP, HIGH IMPACT CARDIO… my least favorite thing in the world. We got 10 second breaks every few minutes, but the goal was to never let our heart rate come down? No clue, but half the class left mid-way through.
The result? I was damn near crippled before my lesson even started. This feeling of overall stiffness and lack of strength definitely didn’t help my confidence, but I promised myself that if I got nervous and felt myself riding backwards, I would just grab my neck strap.
The lesson started out simple enough. We just did a figure 8 over a vertical with maybe 15M circles crossing over the jump. At first, the jump was set at maybe 2’3″, but after a few reps, my trainer raised it to around BN height. It was actually significantly harder to ride at the smaller height. May just didn’t respect it and wanted to add the extra stride whenever possible. Then, the first time the height was raised, I overcompensated and pushed her really ACROSS the jump… and blew past our turn. Once we had it figured out, it ended up being the perfect exercise to get us in the right rhythm and balance for our course!
This lesson was really about building a course, so our first course ended up being the first half of our second course.
The course was over the single natural, left turn before 4A to get to the oxer (2), right turn to 3, seven strides to 4A and 4B. 4 was a one stride combination. Before my round, NT noted that since the jumps were small, I would likely get 8 strides from 3 to four. However, I was not allowed to get 2 strides in the combination. Cool.
Well – I never got straight to one, so we added an extra step there. Two rode great. My turn to 3 was a little funky, but I kept her with me and she jumped across it nicely. I kept that forward rhythm, and we got down to 4A in seven easy strides. As a result, the combination rode really well. Yay!
We caught our breath as NT raised some jumps. Our second course started with the first course. After 4B, It was a squared off left turn to 5, bending to 6, a fairly tight turn to the oxer at 7, and then a SLIGHTLY bending line to finish over 8.
How’d it go? Well check out the video below!
[wpvideo Rbar8QaU ]
Jump 1 rode better this time, despite me almost running over the dog. 2 was easy, but she felt a bit behind my leg. I moved her forward around the corner to 3 and she jumped that great. Then I kind of definitely overrode the line to 4A. After 4 strides… I realized I was in danger of doing 6 and taking a flyer into the combination. A quickly half halt and we got in on a short stride, but not a total ship or flyer. Obviously, the one stride rode great after that.
NT warned me that everyone had been messing up the corner to 5, so I made sure to square it off and ride her shoulder through the turn… Then instead of bending to 6, I rode STRAIGHT to it, resulting in an awkward chip. Oops. My turn to 7 was great, and the five strides to 8 was easy peasy.
After, we were both out of breath. May had a busy weekend going to the combined test with her half leaser (they finished on their Dressage score!), and whatever was left in my muscles had left around jump 6. So, I decided to call it a day on that.
While my body is even MORE sore today (anyone ever been woken up at 3AM by their own soreness?), I can’t help but bask in a successful jump lesson. This post is long enough, so more fun updates coming later this week!
Yay!! Look at you two!!! You look amazing
Thank you!! <3
OMG fast Corgi canter is the cutest LOL. You two look awesome out there! May is on fire for those jumps lol. Also, I am so sorry but I completely forgot to take pics of the saddle pad yesterday, so I will today lol.
Thank you! We have to be FORWARD to get the strides… but occasionally, we both get a little too enthusiastic hahaha.
No worries about the pad! 🙂
Piloxing sounds like torture.
It was torture. Definitely crossing that off my list of classes.
Awesome lesson! I couldn’t walk on Monday after three lessons on the weekend! Lol
SO EXCITED FOR YOU GUYS! You both look fabulous! Way to pull it together for an amazing lesson even though you didn’t feel 100% 🙂
Thank you! She feels just so game and ready to go out there and do the thing!
she is the cutest corgi pony in the world! love her fast moving! 🙂 SO CUTE (Sorry work got in my way of commenting on here)! Can’t wait to see what this year brings for you two!
She’s the best Corgi Pony <3 her
You two are looking great! She’s just the cutest! And also, that cardio class sounds like hell. I would die.
Thank you! It was the first class I have ever considered walking about it.
I don’t think I’d like piloxing either – plus it sounds like some sort of new drug fad lol. That course looks like so much fun and you guys were really booking it to some of those fences!
Thanks! I got a little overly enthusiastic in places and May was more than happy to kick her heels up!
Dude. You freaking rocked it for being so sore from piloxing – which, by the way, sounds like torture lol. Well done in the lesson and I’m so glad May is moving and feeling better.
Thank you! Today is the first day that I can kind of walk again hahaha. As for May, I think she was disappointed when we didn’t do more.