Allowing Mistakes

Mistakes Happen!

By Carolyn Bahr

 It’s okay to fail. 

Mistakes can be good. 

Without fear, there is no courage.

The last was spoken to me by eventing legend, James Wofford.  I had just had the privilege to be the first and only rider to part ways with her horse on day one of a three-day clinic at Eventful Acres.  It was a spectacular fall, with my green horse, Junior, managing to duck out in a one stride gymnastic line of three oxers.  I got up, dusted myself off, mounted, and tried again.  His words help me ditch my embarrassment, self-recrimination, and yes, stage fright in riding with Mr. Wofford.

Perfection Rarely Happens

Being a closet perfectionist control freak (or not so private if you talked to fellow eTwisters), this summer was pivotal in my growth as a rider.  Discovering that perfect isn’t what it’s all cracked up to be, that sometimes, allowing mistakes can be the biggest learning experience of all.  Which was true for both my horse and me.

Most Eventers know teaching your green horse to have a “fifth” leg is necessary for both horse and rider.  The ability of your equine partner to save your ass is essential for safety and competitiveness, especially for an amateur.  But in order to achieve it, you have to be willing to give up control and allow your horse to make mistakes so he can learn.

Because, guess what?  No one is perfect, neither horse nor rider.  I really hate that.  I found that out at the clinic.  It was impossible for me not to rate Junior to the fences, especially when he came out like a fire breathing dragon.  And of course, the hotter and stupider he became, the worse I rode.  Talk about a never-ending cycle of embarrassment.  But I did learn from it.  The times I managed to shut my over-active brain down and do what Jimmy asked, Junior improved and I grew in my horsemanship.

Getting It Done

It wasn’t the weekend I was expecting, but it was probably the weekend I needed. 

The clinic was a second in my lessons learned this summer.  The first was riding my horse in his first recognized competition.  I didn’t want to do it.  I normally would have had a professional ride him first.  I was afraid I’d mess up and give my boy a horrible ride and wreck him somehow.  You know, the one ride that would ruin him forever?  It took an amazing amount of faith in my trainer, Susan Friend Le Tourneur, and fellow eTwisters, bashing me upside the head, telling me I could do this, that I sent my entry in as rider.

Learn From Our Mistakes

Did Junior place as high as he could have with a professional in the irons, most likely not.  Did my confidence shoot skyward when in a class of 16, I managed to finish in 6^th place on my dressage score and just three time penalties.  Absolutely!  By allowing myself the room to fail, I accepted a challenge and let go of some control.

Allow mistakes.  Give it a try.  It just might be good for you.

Day 3 XC Day

by Nahmi Jones

Master Instruction

Cross country is dressage at a high rate of speed.

Rushing to get ready to ride is a recurrent anxiety dream for me. I do my best to give myself plenty of time to get ready for important events, so I can tack up and warm up methodically and calmly. But the early morning beat the heat schedule on cross country morning, maximum green spot abatement and fussing with Susan's borrowed air vest for the first time and oh no!! suddenly we were late for the fun of cross country day at the Wofford clinic!! Rushing through my warm up was no way to lull the fire breathing dragon into submission.

Jimmy pointed out that my strategy of throwing my shoulders back, standing in the stirrups and hauling on the bit was probably not the most efficient way for me to put on the brakes in the inviting open spaces of Eventful Acres. He had me practice instead holding 2 point position while asking for downward transitions to the halt and all the way through the reinback, just as he describes in the current issue of Practical Horseman.

He suggested a single bridge as my fire breathing dragon is rather strong. That way Simon pulled against himself and not me. He reminded us that just like in dressage, we need to be quick to reward and release the pressure on the reins once the horse softens, even at speed.

When I stabilized my shoulder position and found better body balance, Simon was happy to oblige with more sensitive brakes and we both got a little softer between the fences. Fire breathing dragon placated for the moment.

Simon was brave and bold and definitely up for the challenge of Rod's Intro to Prelim course. The gentle progression in degree of difficulty at the bank, ditch and skinny combinations gave me confidence when we moved up to the prelim sized questions. By the time we got to the water complex we were ready to tackle the whole exercise without any rehearsal. Jimmy's comment? See how much fun Prelim can be on this horse?

I finished the weekend confident and satisfied and clear on what areas I need to improve on at home. It is rumored that Jimmy might have mentioned Simon and Kilkenney's names in the same sentence. Whoa boy, I'm really going to have to get my homework done and raise my game. The fire breathing dragon's going to extra cocky if he gets wind of that kind of nod from the master.

When we were finished, after Simon was hosed off and iced, we snuck into the perfectly manicured Stadium arena for a post XC roll. Up drove Rod in his gator. Uh oh Simon, we're busted for screwing up the footing! But no, Rod just chuckled, "Spoiling your Ferrari? Good, he deserves it!"

Thanks Rod. Good job pony. I hope we can do it again next year!

Day 2 Stadium Jumping

by Nahmi Jones

When you feel nothing....add

Jimmy's sage advice for Simon

Jimmy's lectures are free form which is cool. He opens the floor for questions about anything that is on our minds. Today's lecture led to a discussion about seeing one's distance.

To paraphrase his take on the subject: If you feel the fence leaning away from you, you're going to be long, better add leg. If you feel the fence leaning towards you, you're going to be short, better half halt. Then every once in a while, it just feels sweet and you don't have to do anything to get to the fence and its a good day.

But what if you feel nothing? Then you're on the perfect half stride kid.

Isn't it wonderful when you can take what you just learned in lecture and apply it to your riding to solidify the learning process the very same day? Yeah, grrreat.

We warmed up for stadium jumping and started to string together a course in Jimmy's ring of related distances. I was just getting over the pucker effect caused by facing a whole course of Prelim sized fences when on the approach to the second line....nothing, yup I felt nothing.

My solution to the nothing feeling was to drop my shoulders and pray--Simon, please get us out of this!--oops...no surprise...no go. And this was how I demonstrated for the class what the perfect half stride looks like. Jimmy pointed out that we get that nothing feeling because our brains can't sort out whether we're long or short on the perfect half stride and that the solution is to fill up the empty feeling with ANOTHER STRIDE. Ok, got it Jimmy, another stride, not prayer.

We went on to complete the exercise in the ring of related distances. There was a 4,5 and 6 stride line set up in a ring and we were to connect them with circles in between each line. This simple stadium course allowed us to practice asking for the correct leads over the fences, adjusting stride length in lines with related distances, and balancing in the turns (or in Simon's case, regaining some semblance of control), all the details we were going to need to have a clean, flowing stadium round.

I finished the day with the wonderful, confident feeling of staying softly connected with my horse as he stepped lightly over a series of large fences. And lots more details to add to the homework list.

Birthday Fun

by Carolyn Bahr

A few weeks ago, Marla ditched work and heading out for some cross country fun. With Reese, keeping both Sparky and Simon company in the trailer, we headed out to Shepherd Ranch for a day of Schooling.

Nahmi and Simon, rocked the course, taking most of the preliminary jumps in style. I think a move up is in their near future. They both looked amazing. And of course, we all loved the huge grin and pigtails Nahmi wore throughout the day.

Next up, Marla and Reese had their first serious cross country schooling. By the end, they were jumping smoothly and having fun. What a great way to spend your birthday.

Nahmi with Sparky started knocking off the rust tackling combos of training and preliminary jumps. Sparky certainly showed his enthusiasm being back in the field.

And me? With no room in the trailer, Junior stayed at home, but I was able to get some great videos, though risking life and limb to capture the shot. Hey Santa, how about a high definition camcorder this Christmas?

Gymnastics day: Pat the head, rub the belly

by Nahmi Jones

"Going Training, schooling Prelim" was the chorus for our one sentence intros to Jimmy this morning. Whew, maybe I'm not the only rider who foolishly said "yes" when Karen Hisken asked if I of course wanted to be in the Prelim group for the 2011 Wofford clinic at Eventful Acres. It was a great comfort to be with many of the same horse and rider combos who joined me in the training group last year. Maybe I am in the right place...

Last year on day one of the clinic, the sea of white poles in Rod's huge stadium arena intimidated me. This year, I welcomed the challenge (er...the speed bumps). Simon, the veteran, had the gymnastics game figured out as soon as he set foot in the arena and was eager to show off. Clever with his foot work and able to lengthen and compress easily, he didn't start to settle in until the exercises got more complicated. Bring on those bounces please!

Sea Of Poles

Although Simon had his job figured out, Jimmy was quick to point out that I needed some reminders of where we left off last year. Let go of the reins, ease off on the heels, don't make him anxious and flat by kicking too much. Relaxing the tension in my body came a little quicker this year thanks to all those hours this winter of doing my homework with Susan and Brian's encouragement.

The rest of the day's lesson was about focus. Ironically, focusing on riding the whole course and holding off on celebrations until the whole exercise (or round) is complete is something we've been discussing at home this year.

Jimmy's advice today was about the opposite end of the party spectrum. Focus on setting the horse up straight, let him do him job through the gymnastic, and the focus on pulling up in a controlled fashion. Only after the round is complete should you let the hyper-critical internal dialog start. If you start thinking about what you've done wrong while the horse is still in motion, then he's going to start driving. And Simon definitely likes to drive.

We finished the day with a few encouraging words from Jimmy. "Give yourself permission to be better. You are better, but you don't believe it yet."

Focus the mind, relax the body. Pat the head, rub the belly. We know what this year's homework is gonna be.

Show Jump Day at Shepherd Ranch

Finally, the last day of our show at Shepherd Ranch.  The first thing that greeted us was the spectacular prank that someone (who shall remain nameless except I think they spelled Pepperwood out in the prank) pulled on the Mill Creek gang.  All their tack trunks were placed in a very festive pile in the middle of the barn aisle.  It was pretty funny, actually.  Too bad that most of the riders, including their trainer Joe, came down with what we’ve now dubbed The Mill Creek Crud.  Food poisoning, flu bug, or nefarious activity?  Hmmm.  I’m in the clear since all of Joe’s kids already handily beat me in our class.   Or am I?  :)

As with all shows, the big boys – Nahmi and Susan riding training – went at the a** crack of dawn while the rest of us went at the end of the day, right when the sun had melted both horse and rider into submission.  I’m looking forward to both Susan and Nahmi’s move up to Preliminary in the very near future, but dread the thought of how early we’ll have to be at the show for that!  My only hope is that Carolyn and I will continue to move up the ranks (and seriously folks, I can’t really move DOWN the ranks, can I?) so we can close the gap between the rounds to something short of mind-numbingly long. 

Simon ended up taking a rail, but Sparky – as usual – tied himself up in knots to keep mummy in the clear.  It may have been the masterful job that Carolyn did hand-walking Sparky around, lecturing him on distances and speed before his go, who can say for sure. 

And then came the wait.  Yee gods, it seemed like forever.  Let me insert right here before I forget a big thank you to all the folks who kept the show running fairly smooth all weekend long.  The crew at Shepherd Ranch did a great job of keeping it together when all of us competitors were losing it.  An event like this requires an immense amount of volunteers so be sure to at least try to volunteer at the next event you compete in. 

Finally, Carolyn was at bat.  After a looooonnnnnngggg walk warm up (note to self: have someone go down and check where the show stands before getting on the horse, no matter how the math works out) they got their shot in the arena.  Other than one fence that seemed to take Junior by surprise, it was an excellent effort. 

Now it was our turn, the first show jump round Reese and I have ever done.  Would I be as slow as the day before?  By God, not if I had anything to say about it!  And considering my performance the day before, I probably don’t have as much say about it as I think I do… I have to confess to getting a little bit impatient for our round, which probably was for the best.  By the time I got in the arena I didn’t care what happened, I just wanted to be done.  After a tiny little spook at the crowd, I kicked Reese up into a canter and we were in 3^rd gear (for better or worse) the rest of the way.  After a gasp (or laugh if you’re Nahmi) inducing leap over the same fence the Junior was shocked at, we had a relatively good run for a double clear round.  Take that little children who have yet to experience puberty!  I leapt over um… one kid who was sick as a dog to raise my standings.  Doesn’t feel as satisfying when I put it that way…

The show was a terrific experience for one and all, showing us what we need to work on while letting us bask in the glow of our successes for an hour or two at least. 

Next:  The Wofford Experience!

Chip's Blog - Day One Eventful Acres

Chip & The Tres Guuiness

Hello, Chip here again. Thursday was Travel Day to Eventful Acres for the Jimmy Wofford clinic. Its was a good day. No one slept through their alarms. Like a well oiled machine, the tres hermanas rolled out of Goldspirit at 10 min till 4am, long before any sane cock would be crowing.

We flew over the grapevine, ducked the heat and landed at Eventful Acres before lunchtime.

Simon and Junior were settled into their corrals, bedrolls unfurled for the girls. Now what's for lunch? Why Guinness please...its a drink and a meal rolled into one! A great start to the summer getaway!

Simon The Likeable's likeables

After a short siesta, a light hack was in order to stretch the ponies' legs and backs after the long trailer ride. Simon and Junior got a look around the property to familiarize them with the playground at Eventful Acres. Creeks, ditches and lots of inviting green grass...pony heaven. Everyone now relaxed and ready for whatever Jimmy had in store for us.

We enjoyed a great dinner served up by Carol and whoopee (cushions :-O) rootbeer floats for dessert! Yum, but at what age does lactose intolerance set in?