I so wish I could get through an Eric clinic without having an emotional breakdown and masses of tears.
It's not because of Eric per se. It's just that I never ride as well as I think I should be able to. And my pony, oh, my pony. So awful. The pony that is absolute awesomeness over a stadium course or XC at a competition is horrendous when we're schooling in a pressure situation.
So yeah, it's totally my fault. Because I just clench harder and harder with my legs and that just pisses Penny off more and more. When we're competing I focus on two things: 1) stay on 2) steer. At home we're adding in: quality of canter, taking off at the right time, me not jumping ahead, noodle arms, relax the butt, relax the thighs, relax the shoulders. The more I have to think of the more determined I am to do them all and I end up turning into my best impression of a marble statue trying to ride.
So, the crying. Penny, last year right after St Johns decided she need to buck when she was asked to canter. Just one buck, every time. I got her saddle refit, vet work up, the whole nine yards and at this point it's behavioral. JM had almost broken her of the habit in the last few months, but she delivered it today with gusto. So there I am, trying to be awesome with the awesome pony and she's bucking. Okay, so she's just doing it when she starts to canter, I'm not going to sweat it, we're working on the problem. After like the 10th buck though, I was starting to get frustrated. Gosh darnit! Why the hell does she do this? What am I doing? God, I suck. We jumped our line and then she threw in this huge buck for no reason at all. Well, I had it and told her so in no uncertain terms. And then I burst in to tears, declared I was done for the day, dismounted and cried into Penny's mane.
In some ways, now that I'm thinking about it, that was a big moment for the two of us. Penny doesn't generally let me hug her, she's not big on affection. But she let me cry on her for a good five minutes, big huge sobs. She didn't move.
Eric came over and I have no recollection what he said. I cried myself out and got back on. And strangely... Penny stopped bucking. I don't know if it's because she'd finally found my breaking point. It's more likely that during the cry I cried all my clenched muscles out too. I stopped asking for as much, I just wanted a nice ride. And that's what I got, including a tricky rollback that she did like the awesome pony she is. Eric asked what had happened and I said "obviously, I need to have a mental breakdown to ride well." Not far from the truth though. When you're so at the bottom the only solution is to cry and be dramatic is there anywhere to go but up? Actually, I guess there is. There are those people that are just screwed up afterwards while I, on the other hand, get it out of my system and move on.
I gave myself permission to ride with longer reins and Eric said something about he wouldn't normally advise riding with reins that long, but I seem to be able to do just fine with them and I told him the longer I ride the happier she is. She does not like to be told what to do. Short reins are a little too much control for her. Yes, she needs to get over this, but we were just trying to survive the day on a good note at that point. (Actually, I'm just fine with being able to control her with long reins, but I understand the necessity of teaching her otherwise.)
At the end we were doing really well. She was quiet, I wasn't clenching, we'd refound our balance together. I suspect we'll lose it again for part of tomorrow.
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