Addicted

Funny day weather wise today! I started teaching in a long sleeve t-shirt feeling rather hot dragging jump stands and poles around and ended up with three jumpers, a body warmer AND a coat at my 8pm lesson! 

Decided I need to spend as much time in the saddle as I possibly can so I walked all the horses and ponies to and from the arena ;) 

Had a chance to school a 4yr old 15hh pony as well that is actually a really interesting animal, very trainable and is moving well. One of my regular clients is currently riding the pony and it teaches her a lot. 

It's fantastic to ride well schooled horses who are fairly straight, fairly flexible and you can focus on more advanced work with them but I think that when we truly learn to grow as riders is when we ride those 'green', unbalanced youngsters that make us so aware of our body language and how detrimental we can be to the horse.

Those good old fellows with strong muscles and soft backs might be super to sit to but they won't tell you as well as a young horse that you have pushed too much here or there, that your contact froze for that 1/10th of a second too long blocking the movement that would otherwise have earned you 8s or 9s few years down the line.  

I loved schooling that pony. It's amazing how you can just "click" with some rides, from the very minute you sit on them. I ride a fair few horses and on some I just feel absent, there is no connection no matter how many times I ride them. 

With the others it's as if I was entering this fascinating conversation where you sometimes disagree but enjoy it nevertheless. 

And what's even more unbelievable is that the horse seem to feel the same...it's as if it *understood* with some magical-like clarity what every single cell in your body is telling it to do. 

It seems to be similar regarding human interactions. We feel completely blank about some people regardless how much time we spend with them and find others infinitely fascinating. 

With some we can't agree about the simplest of things and with others we connect almost instinctively.

So hey, horses are awesome. It blows my mind and I am happy to admit I am well and truly addicted to the feeling of this complete connection. It's my drug.

Pic.: On the left, the pony in question, enjoying the sun with a couple of little fellows.