A small hurdle, hurdled.

Tonight I flat out felt like hell in the saddle.  I’ve been working out, trying to un-do the fitness collapse my two weeks off and a bout of the flu brought.  Today, despite the fact I had a lesson, I did an awful cardio-step workout that kills my legs. Tonight was no exception.  My muscles were tired and sore.

I mounted up and we got to work – but immediately, Christy spotted something weird.  I was curling my leg back, towards Maddie’s flank, as we trotted around in two point, warming up.  She alerted me to the problem, and I tried to fix it, but it wasn’t happening.  I started to post, and that didn’t help either.

We dropped to a walk, and I kicked free of the stirrups and let my legs hang a minute, then started rotating my ankles and stretching.  Ahh.  That felt good.  After a few minutes, I put my feet back in the stirrups, and Christy gave her seal of approval.  Off we went again.

For about 15 seconds.

Clearly, things weren’t working for me tonight.  I started curling my leg again, and things still felt awful.  I dropped the stirrups again.

And then, because one of my resolutions is to just shut up and ride, I said to Christy, “Hey, I want to try something.”  I nudged Mads into a trot.  While I was too busy staying focused on the horse, I think I did hear Christy’s jaw audibly drop and hit the ground.  She’s been trying to get me to drop the stirrups for, oh, months …. maybe even years.  Mads has a trot I can ride without stirrups.   I never contemplated dropping the stirrups on Jag, who had a trot that felt like a pogo stick, it was so bouncy.

Granted, we weren’t doing much of a trot.  But we did four or five little shuffle-y circles around Christy, and called it a night.

I really want to ride more and better without stirrups.  It’s the only way to develop a truly independent seat.   And it’s sound practice and makes one a safer rider.  In particular, I’d like to be able to drop and pick up my stirrups – or adjust them when they slip – with ease.   Tonight was the first step.

So it was kind of a stupid ride tonight, but in the end, I had an important win.

Tomorrow we’ll give another lesson a shot. I’m going to do some yoga and pilates, and gobble a couple Advil before heading to the barn.  Hopefully I’ll put things together tomorrow night!