Today's lesson was going super well. We went outside because there was a Saddlebred show going on inside, and (one of) the outdoor arena(s) was superrrr nice. I loved being outside with Tommy. We're bonding and he's learning me like the back of his hoof (does that apply to horses??).
So we work lots on trotting -- mostly sitting trot, to two-point, to posting, repeat. This is just for my benefit. Learning where my body is supposed to be over jumps and everything, getting some sense of balance. I feel really great about it. My back is straight, my shoulders are back, I'm sitting tall and feeling awesome.
Then we go into canter transitions. Cool. Not the best, but I'm getting them. I want them to be BAM CANTER, so I'm working on that. Tommy starts pulling his head. Okay, try to fix it. Start feeling myself falling forward. More cantering, falling forward more.
Now we're cantering and acting like we're approaching a jump. I'm going into two-point (or trying to). Not working at all. I can feel my legs swinging backwards towards his butt and my top falling forward and Tommy's like "Oh we're going forward?! Cool, lemme pull my head down to help you." I'm not getting myself back enough to correct him, lose contact with my leg and he starts trotting. We're going around a turn and I know I'm not balanced and start to feel myself slipping over to the left side of the saddle. No longer posting, know I'm going off, and fall/jump out of the saddle as Tommy just decides to stop because he clearly has no idea what I'm doing anymore.
I somersault over his head and catch him looking at me on my way down kind of just like:
As I roll away, freaked out he's going to step on me. I guess I layed in shock for a while, not believing that I just fell off a horse for the first time in my entire life. I could only think of this one girl from an old stable who constantly fell off horses as I lie there, trying to figure out what the heck just happened.
After Stacy grabs Tommy who is clearly confused as to why it's now nap time, she runs over to me and my mom who ran down the arena fence to see if I was okay. I roll over to sit on my knees and it occurs to me that my left shoulder and side of my neck really hurt like I cracked it really hard, which I prolly did on my way down. I wanna cry more because of humiliation than pain, so after I get over myself and Stacy informs me that I now must make cookies (as that's the barn rule -- you fall off, you make cookies for everyone), I stand up, check myself out, don't feel like anything's wrong, so I get back on for one final trot around the arena (post, sit, two-point, repeat).
And boy, did I feel like a loser until I realized that 1) at least it wasn't on my own horse, 2) it could've been a bigger horse, 3) it could've been muddy.
Now I'm more keen to practice not freaking out when I start losing control over a canter and not try to go into a fetal position on a horse (which is basically what I was doing as I was failing getting control) and correct these school horses the minute they start giving me crap! My mom pointed out to me in front of Stacy that I never let Harry, Brie, or Nina get away with ANYTHING, so why should I let these guys? Stacy agreed and said even if I don't think I know how to correct one of them to just do something to let them know that they're being rude.
Oye vey. I've just been so worried about doing the right thing by the horse and not screwing them up since they're not mine and totally let Tommy walk all over me until I was on the ground (thankfully he didn't actually step on me). I can't wait to get back out there next week and have experienced what I want to avoid at all costs and be adamant on not ending up on the ground ever again.
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