PHYSICAL BALANCE!!!

     Yay for part 3!!!

     I rode Aurora today!!!!!! Just kidding! Actually, I stood on a rock and laid across her back, only putting about 50% on my weight on her. She is such a sweet girl, she just looked at me, and lipped my fingers. She is going to be such a good girl!!! What a perfect way to start this blog! PHYSICAL! We talked about mental and emotional which to me seem harder to visualize because they are not right in front of you. You can see PHYSICAL balance, its obvious. For example, obviously Aurora is not balanced enough for me to ride, she is only a yearling! BUT, we can do other fun things to help build her balance, and then one day when she is ready, we will ride!!
    Balance is not just about age, or size, its just... physical balance. In every sort of riding, jumping, reining, endurance, or racing each horse is conditioned and worked to improve his physical balance. Just because a racing bred thoroughbred colt is of age to race does not mean a trainer is going to take him to the next derby and jump on him, that would be disastrous.  It takes time to build the strength and stamina to run a race. That cold has to be exercise, worked and finished before he can be put on the track. Same with a reining horse. I have worked with Mirka Pitts and watched her work her show reiners. She does not jump on a young quarter horse and spin the hell out of them. It is a meticulous process with so much thought and detail put into it, each one of her horses are first balanced at the walk, trot, lope, lead change, direction change ect, its not same day stuff.
     This is not just for show, for example, when I was working with Aurora to jump a barrel, I knew she was not ready,  her body was not balanced to do that when I asked her. So, we started out small, we walked over ground polls, then a small X. Then at a trot then a lope. At the X she jumped with confidence and balance, so we moved on to the barrel, after I set her up to succeed, we tried it and TA-DA!! Our first jump over a blue barrel with confidence and balance (mental, emotional, and physical).
     This goes for people too!!!!! If you have never jumped a horse are you going to go jump a 4ft wall? NO! If you have never been on a horse longer than 10 minutes, are you going to go on a 3 hour trail ride? Uhh yeah, you can, but I promise your body will be feeling it the next day!! People need to be physically balanced and in shape just as much as horses do!! I know I am not in perfect shape by far, it is something I am working on big time! There are things that I cant do, that I am working on, but its going to take some time!!! A few weeks ago, Jolee did a yoga class at Mirka's with us. I went in knowing I was not in shape and it was going to be tough! BUT HOLY COW!!!! She worked my butt off!! She was able to do things that you see in yoga books AND with a broken wrist! I was sweating like a dog and was pretty sure I was going to pass out a few times!!! BUT, 3 days later, Mirka and I practiced what we learned, it is was not nearly as hard (Dont get me wrong, it still hurt like hell!). Its a lot of work to be physically balanced to do some of the things we want to do, both with horses and without, but with enough "perfect practice" (Pat Parelli) and persistence, we are capable of doing anything!!!!

Stay warm!
Emily