Day Three!

Ever have one of those days where you are tired before you even get out of bed? Well, that would be me today. ACK! Having said that, it's been kind of a hard day to get anything at all accomplished. I'm usually not a very ADD kind of a girl, but when I'm tired, all bets are off. Thank goodness I rode and exercised before I did anything else or neither one would have gotten done!

So what did today's work entail? Well, first of all I have to say that I am quite proud of myself for actually having the gumption to get a work-out tape done AFTER leaving the barn yesterday, and not only going to get gas, run by the bank and the post office, but also after going to the grocery store. I felt so good afterwards, but I really had to MAKE myself work-out. Laziness in this heat seems to be the rule of thumb even for someone as Type-A as me!

Today was dressage day. I felt like I needed gills to breathe the humidity was so high! At last week's Cindy Thaxton clinic, she taught me a "clock" exercise which involves imagining the face of a clock on you saddle and then hitting the numbers 3, 6, 9, and 12 with your hips while keeping your upper body still, your calfs engaged, and your horse trotting forwardly on a twenty meter circle while staying round and within the contact. Sounds easy, right? WRONG! Talk about having to use all parts of your brain while separating body parts! That exercise was our homework until her next visit, and it's what we worked on today. Fifteen minutes of that, and I felt like I'd done an hour. It's SOOOOO good for me, but SOOOOO hard! We basically lived in that exercise on different 20 meter circles for about 30 minutes. That was enough! It can be really frustrating, but the difference it's making in my canter departs is unbelieveable!

The highlight of the day? The dressage arena is connected to a paddock with two chestnut lovebirds named Tom and Sandy. Gena, my trainer, has been leaving the gate between their paddock and the dressage arena open for them to have more room to roam. Just as I'm really about to get deep into my trot work, here they come. Each one positions himself stragically so that I can't really make any sort of circle. What comes next? Both horses, on cue, drop and roll. Hilarious! All I could do was sit and watch and laugh until they were done and the two of them casually sauntered out of the ring covered in sand. They TOTALLY did it on purpose, and I'm sure Syd was wishing he could join them instead of being forced to do the stinkin' clock exercise.

After all that fun was over, I decided to go for a walk. It was already noon and blazin' by the time I got started, so I only walked for about 30 minutes. I know the horses thought I had lost my marbles as I made loops of the pasture, and they snoozed under the trees. I just reminded them that they didn't have a national show coming up, and I did! :)