A little bit of this...

...and a little bit of that.

First of all, I would like to say

THANK YOU
to all of you that follow my blog, and to those who leave comments.

I feel honoured by your kind interest, and I am so happy to have found new friends in other corners of the world.

You make my horse world more divers; I get new impulses and can evaluate my "truths" and believes in a different light.

Very, very interesting.

I might even get wiser.

Now, I know that I have promised a post about the Christoph Hess seminar.

It is coming, I have just been very busy lately, and I need some more time to try and sort out my unreadable notes from two full days.

In the meantime, I have been training hard.
We have had a Swedish trainer here during the weekend. She has been educated as "Bereiterin" in Germany, a four year long extensive education in dressage and jumping, handling of horses, education of the young horse, etc, etc. You name it.
C did her practice period in one of the top German dressage stables.
She arrived on Friday evening, and stayed at our house.
We were lucky to be able to lease the indoor arena for the training. Our outside arenas are very wet after much rain.
It was quite a logistic puzzle to bring the trainer back and forth, arrange lunch and squeeze in my own training in between.
On Saturday evening the whole bunch (excluding horses) went to a Thai restaurant where we had a super evening with much talk, laughs, beer and good food.
Everyone was very happy with the training, so I hope we can get C to come another time too.

Yesterday Fame and I trained late at the indoor arena with trainer A.
She is Norwegian but educated in Denmark, also as a "berider".
She wants me to work Fame in a more forward tempo.
I have noted that this seems like a trend in Denmark, and I am a bit ambiguous about it – ref. earlier post.
On the other hand, I want to improve the trot work.
Fame has a good walk and canter.
The trot however is a bit boring, with less activity than I believe my little pony actually can show.
Yesterday, A really had us working.
Fame was like a steam locomotive, and me like a rag–doll on top.

(memo to self: remember to order some more abdominal muscles)
Yes, we got those hind legs into action, but I must say that the breaks did not work equally well.
I feel out of what’s "normal” and had I been riding for myself I know I would have used more half halts to balance her and also to reduce the tempo.
But you know, to get somewhere you must also be able to push yourself out of what is comfy and normal, and accept to feel ”lost” until you again feel “at home”.
At the Hess seminar he spoke about that the horse at all times should be in front of the leg.
I am the first to confess that Fame not always is.
So I am willing to see where this leads us.
Fame is stronger now, and more balanced – maybe the time has come to get some more action into the work?
We were both sweat all through before the session was over, and I can still feel it in my body today. I don’t mind, but maybe my vacation fat does.
I compensated with a burger to lunch though.

And....

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Hope you have a wonderful birthday, with some nice things to eat too!

(but please save the mushrooms until I get home...)