Yesterday was slow bareback day. \u00a0I can’t take slow on a daily basis. \u00a0Today, my insides were churning with a small fire called “Go Fast”. \u00a0Yes, I can go out of control. \u00a0We are in our last days of Fancy training with Erin Patterson, world renown Missouri Fox Trotter champion and trainer. \u00a0I decided that today would be a good day for Erin to ride Fancy before I rode. \u00a0Fancy was quite relaxed during our ground session and games. \u00a0I figured Erin could get Fancy going. When I rode, she would be ready for gaited speed and cantering. \u00a0Oh yes she was. \u00a0We had no argument about going forward when it became my turn to ride. \u00a0It was heaven. \u00a0We gaited around the arena both ways. \u00a0We did her flat foot walk and fox trot. \u00a0My shoulders, belly button and legs seemed to be doing a much better job at telling Fancy the path wanted to be on. I thank the bareback riding for that! \u00a0My legs and feet \u00a0improved their directional ability and Fancy responded. \u00a0We didn’t light up the arena, but it might have glowed!<\/p>\n
The canter is in my infant stages. \u00a0Fancy takes off and goes at what my brain thinks is warp speed. My body tenses up and I start bouncing. \u00a0I try to bend my knees to help relax. \u00a0This is difficult when zooming. \u00a0Fancy also takes short cuts. \u00a0She cuts through the arena before getting to the end. \u00a0She goes into a pace gallop on the end of the arena which have her legs more lateral with a four beat gate. \u00a0It is not relaxing. \u00a0When we come to the end of the arena, sometimes her front legs get stiff as she slows down to make the turn. This bounces my body out of the saddle before we make the turn. \u00a0I feel like I’m bounced about a foot or cloud high out of the saddle. \u00a0I’ve seen a video of me when she bounces me but you can’t tell that my body left the saddle. \u00a0hmmmm<\/p>\n
I’ve learned that I must use the outside rein. \u00a0She doesn’t respond to my legs or inside rein when I tell her to leg yield around the corners, not cut through. \u00a0I’ve learned that I must keep her cantering. \u00a0She occasionally changes gait to a very fast fox trot. \u00a0Scream! \u00a0I’ve learned that we must canter until I can breathe and possibly think. \u00a0I discovered that my focus is down, looking at her head or the track in the arena where she will turn and fall (but she won’t). \u00a0She doesn’t respond to my rein request to slow down.<\/p>\n
Fancy and I must keep cantering until<\/p>\n
And then we have to do it the other direction.<\/p>\n
We cantered the second direction until I noticed my cell phone in the arena dirt. \u00a0We were at a good stopping place too.<\/p>\n
We must get back to seven consequtive rides on the chosen pattern and the bareback riding is excellent for that. \u00a0My thoughts about cantering Fancy riding bareback are currently a “no go scream”.<\/p>\n
I love my life with Fancy!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Yesterday was slow bareback day. \u00a0I can’t take slow on a daily basis. \u00a0Today, my insides were churning with a small fire called “Go Fast”. \u00a0Yes, I can go out of control. \u00a0We are in our last days of Fancy training with Erin Patterson, world renown Missouri Fox Trotter champion and trainer. \u00a0I decided that today would be a good day for Erin to ride Fancy before I rode. \u00a0Fancy was quite relaxed during our ground session and games. \u00a0I figured Erin could get Fancy going. When I rode, she…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[114],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fancy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5342"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5342\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5351,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5342\/revisions\/5351"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mofoxtrot.com\/viewpoint\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}