Shoulders and Core

In place of my normal lesson on Tuesday, I had an "off the horse" lesson that really reinforced and took further what I started working on with NK last week.

One thing I intentionally left out of my NK lesson recap was that she told me me shoulders are tense.   I really didn't know what to make of that at first.  Now, I've spent much of my life fighting the "slump", so this completely surprised me that I've taken it too far in the opposite direction.  My shoulder muscles are also getting strong for the first time in my life, after I realized during CrossFit last winter I've effectively neutralized them my entire life.

My shoulders were still pretty weak when I did one of the longer CrossFit workouts in May (Murph), so I switched grip regularly throughout it on pull-ups to give them a break.

NK told me to "let go" and when that didn't work, to "have a soft, gooey back".  My regular trainer identified the same thing on Tuesday when she had me sit in my saddle on a saddle stand and she stood in front of me holding the reins as if she was the horse's mouth.

It was interesting, because that exercise on the ground made it very clear that the difference between him pulling me forward and not is very subtle - just a couple of degrees difference in my pelvis.

Or, you know, many degrees difference in my pelvis 😂
August 2014, Leg Up
PC: Connor's breeder

And WHERE I resist the pulling makes a gigantic difference in the contact.  I can resist it in multiple places - my shoulders, my lower core, my elbows - but anything except the right resistance makes the contact feel harsher and less following.

I also felt the different degrees of lower core engagement in the ground exercise too.  I think up to this point I've thought of it as "on" or "off", not with degrees of engagement.  But I put that into practice in my ride last night and:

In the past when his canter has been that controlled, his throatlatch would be closed and his head would be nodding because I was creating it through holding him with my hands.  But I got that canter in the GIF through just my core, which is mind blowing for someone who literally cannot figure out the aids to put him together in the canter (which you guys know because I've asked!).  It ain't perfect, but it's progress, and that's all I want.

When I was on my own last night, I thought about not letting my pubic bone touch the front of the saddle, because every time he pulled me forward, that's what happened, and it was a clear boundary I could set for myself in the absence of a trainer.

It's going to take a long time to change something like this, but it's clear it makes a difference and I'm committed to internalizing it!