A lesson in which I cannot steer

Last Thursday my mom happened to be in town for my lesson, which would be my last jumping lesson before our CT last weekend. An 8am lesson unfortunately meant a 5:45am wakeup, but she was a good sport and I bribed her with Starbucks and we were off. Of course, despite all the days surrounding being gorgeous, it was misty and grey out. I’m basically the nicest daughter ever.

Quick warmup, Doc felt really good, and other than being told to get my leg forward like 4543 times per usual, everything went pretty swimmingly.

Our course was still up from the week before, so we had real jumps to go jump too! First couple warm up jumps went well and then she made up a course for me to go jump.

Fun fact: I’m terrible at remembering things told to me. If I can see it on paper, I’m good. Just hearing it? In one ear, right out the other. You can imagine how fun this makes having courses told to me during lessons. It usually involves my reciting it back about 7 times and still getting lost the first time.

This rang very true on Thursday. I got lost on my rollback (..twice?), got lost from the oxer to the yellow (um, every time?) and generally just needed additional caffeine apparently.

I also had an inability to jump the oxer straight. Left drifts are my thing I guess?

Then you get guide poles to make you jump straight

The best part of this lesson was directly influenced by said inabilities to jump straight and remember where you’re going:

Yeah, genius over here jumped crooked, got lost, couldn’t decide which way to go, decided the answer was “put all your weight in your outside stirrup and lean” and add a loose girth… No Hollys or Docs were injured in the making of this film.

We eventually got it (sortof mostly) together, but it definitely lit up some issues that carried forward into this weekend and that are on our winter to-do list. Like… jumping straight? Weird.

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10 Comments

  1. Ugh I feel you on the jumping straight (SO HARD) and the have to ‘see it’ to remember it. I often write stuff down just so I can see it so I can possibly remember it (including courses). it does not get better as you age, I am warning you. Looks like it was a great lesson though and your mom is a trooper for getting up so early to go! HA

    1. Oh man, it took me like six rounds in this lesson until my trainer was like, um go to the LEFT of the lattice and come back around to the oxer? Because for some reason that just… never occurred to me.

  2. I feel ya with the memory thing. My trainer has learned the hard way that 2 courses per day is my max. Otherwise he may or may not get run over when I got lost in the middle of the 3rd one. Your mom is awesome for getting up that early!

    1. It’s not on these videos, but there’s one round my trainer literally stood in front of the oxer and was like DON’T RUN ME OVER. Still jumped crooked.

  3. Oh man! I saw that video on Instagram, and had to watch it like three times to figure out why you fell off! Glad you’re ok, and sorry, but I’m also glad you have video of that!
    Sounds like a productive lesson though! Props to mom for getting up so early!

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