Day 11 - The Drudgery of Middles

I was not into my session yesterday. I'm sure Cricket felt it.

I am not good with "middles." I may not have gotten much from the Stephanie Burns part of PNH but I did gain a better understanding of why I never finish anything. I hate middles. I hate the drudgery, the repetition, the seemingly never-ending same-ness. I love beginnings and endings are great because they often signify new beginnings. But getting from the start to the finish requires a level of commitment I don't often give.

So the real challenge of this "30 in 30" is to get through the middle and find a better appreciation for that particular part of my horsemanship endeavour.

Work has been keeping me a little busier these past few days so I've been arriving at the barn later than usual. My motivation has been fairly low so I've stuck to groundwork.

I brought Cricket out and did a quick friendly, HQ yield and FQ yield. I was pleased at her responsiveness. I set up the Figure 8 and moved on. She was all over the map - most likely a direct result of my lack of focus. Her draw was getting worse so we stopped and broke everything down. The first time took a long time to elicit a lick and chew. But each time after that, she would draw to me, look as if asking a question and then lick and chew when I indicated she'd done exactly what I wanted. We finished with a couple of good patterns. Nothing as good as previous attempts but better than we started.

I asked her for the weave pattern and we did a little bit of trotting. It wasn't spectacular but I was pleased with her responsiveness. Again, considering my focus, I'm surprised she listened to me at all!

While there was nothing super impressive about the session, I did notice she was better at coming straight to me and continuing to look at me as she processed her thoughts. Previously she's had a tendency to turn away from me. I've noticed it more, addressed it more and now it seems she's more interested in me than she has been. She also offered a canter on the F8.

Tonight the plan is to ride. We'll see how that goes.