Firn's Blog Post # 14

Release, Relax, Recite

My habit of riding for more or less 40 hours a week is both a blessing and a curse. Obviously the hours upon hours of practice is extremely beneficial in many ways, and I wouldn't have it any other way, but it does make it that much easier to pick up a bad habit. With the amount of time I spend in the saddle, a habit can be learnt, practiced, and solidified in less than a week. Proportionately, I also have fewer lessons than most amateur riders; while your average ammy's lessons make up 50-100% of their riding time, mine take up about 5% of my riding time, even though I have two hours of lessons a week.

Hence, despite an outstanding instructor, I now find myself desperately trying to unlearn a deeply ingrained bad habit that refuses to push off: the habit of tightening the reins at the base of a fence. It is hard to tell where exactly I get this from - sometimes I think Arwen naturally prefers a stronger contact, and sometimes I think I accidentally taught her to rely on a stronger contact - but I think it is in very large part due to my nervousness. It's a subconscious, instinctual response to hold on tighter when you think you might be about to topple off. And if I only ever rode Arwen I would probably never even notice that I do it and never stop doing it.

Luckily for my riding, I don't only ride Arwen - I have Magic. And Magic *detests* having his face grabbed right before a fence. *DETESTS*. While he is now mature enough not to throw his trademark head-tossing, overjumping tantrum about it, he still most understandably cannot jump well when I'm snatching at his mouth. Thankfully, I don't jerk at him, and when he takes off I do manage to release - it's just that last stride of the approach that I instinctively tighten the rein. I at least don't abuse the poor thing. I just hinder him, and that's bad enough. It leads to poor distances and even poorer jumps, and someday I shall get myself killed on cross-country doing it.

It's obvious that I have to unlearn it, and it's simple enough to do, right? I mean, all I have to do is keep my contact consistent and soft and elastic, the way it is 90% of the time. Should be easy, right?

Ha! Wrong.

On Friday I found myself once again taking rails and getting stops like it was going out of fashion, while poor Magic pinned his little ears into his mane and earned a medal for not bucking me off there and then. I was tense, he was tense, the jump was magically getting bigger and bigger in my head, and my nerve was packing its bags, so I almost automatically began to recite. I often do, to give myself courage. "The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want." Make a big circle, steady the canter, set up for the turn. "He maketh me to lie down in green pastures; he leadeth me beside the still waters." Turn for the jump, approach. "He restoreth my soul." And lo and behold, a good distance happened, my hand stayed steady, Magic stayed relaxed and we drifted over the jump like a hunter and its princess.

It was no fluke. I continued to recite and Magic continued to jump like a superstar because my hands continued to stay calm. But why? Well, apart from the obvious spiritual benefits of my beloved old Scripture, I'm sure that the act of talking calmly out loud had physical benefits.

The most simple one is that when you talk you have to breathe. Because I known Psalm 23 off by heart, I subconsciously felt compelled to finish it, so I kept talking and kept breathing. People breathe for a reason. Who knew, right? Now that my poor brain had enough O2, I could think more clearly. The act of breathing also forced my chest and back to relax instead of locking up, and when your chest locks up so do your arms, and when they lock up your hands are harder to move. Hence, when you breathe, your hands are softer.

Talking also helped for relaxation by loosening up my jaw, which I know I grit when I'm nervous, and that also has a ripple effect of relaxing the neck and shoulders. Magic could, of course, feel the new relaxation in my body, and that helped him to relax and think instead of reverting into tense, reactive flight mode.

Lastly, Magic is an extremely auditory horse, by which I mean that he responds to sound more than most horses do. He spooks more easily at noises, but is also soothed more easily by my voice. Hearing me speaking calmly, confidently, and rhythmically helped him to settle down, and that helped me to settle down.

So maybe next time your horse is bouncing around with its face in the air and suddenly that 2' 9" vertical looks like a Puissance wall, relax, release, and recite. And if you see a skinny chick on a grey horse blasting around the showjumping arena to the sound of Psalm 23, don't be too concerned. It's just me, and I'm not dangerously insane.

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