Surcingle #2, still stayed on!

I rode in the surcingle again yesterday, this time on Garrette, who is MUCH taller than Chi, so getting on was a bit of a climb vs just stepping over. 🤣

T had me start off with a lap of walk in each direction. I felt a lot more balanced sitting up there, whereas last week, it took me a few minutes to find my center even at the walk. I immediately started focusing on trying to keep my legs loose and relaxed, from the hips down. She would much rather my legs swing and move around a lot than be super stiff, because it's easier to increase the tension than to loosen them up.

Anyway, T asked what I wanted to work on, and I actually got to use my "Staying on!" joke. She laughed and said ok, what else? I said, sitting more on my seat bones and trying to keep my hips relaxed. She then asked if I wanted to try working on the box (riding straight lines at the quarter line with corners instead of on the rail) or if I wanted to be on the line. I wasn't sure, so I said, let's try the box and see how it goes.

We ended up doing several figures and then did some trot work, too. To the left, I felt fairly balanced, and although I did reach for the handle, again I didn't feel like I had a death grip on it. And, she had me work toward sitting deeper and letting go, placing my left hand on my thigh instead. I had a little bit of trouble keeping G going because I kept holding my breath and every time I would tip forward, he would slow down or go back to a walk to make sure he wasn't going to lose me. So considerate 😊

Garrette was probably thinking the same thing, Gordon

When we switched directions, it felt like G was going much faster and was much bouncier. She had me stop and she was like, he isn't actually bouncier in this direction, do you know why he feels that way? I said because my right side is tight and I feel like I'm sliding off to the left. Yup. But also, when I start to feel insecure, my right knee starts to come up and my right shoulder starts to go forward and toward my knee, so I'm basically curling into the fetal position, rather than allowing my left side to do it's job. Ugh. She told me to stretch my right leg down from the hip and re-center my body on his back. Then she had me lift my right arm straight up, with my thumb pointing behind me and go back to the trot. Eek. The struggle to breathe, steer, keep my body relaxed, etc all that the same time was very real.

She had me stop again and asked if the feeling of coming off was something I was feeling in the pit of my stomach. I said no, I don't think so. I think it's more that I don't trust my body to do the right thing even though if I could get out of my head for a minute and trust it, it most likely would step up and do it's job. She said ok, and then put me on the lunge line so I could focus on stretching my right side without the added difficulty of steering.

At the end, we talked more about how a lot of my insecurity and lack of confidence is coming from my right side being dominant and not wanting to let my left side do it’s job…but she says even though I feel like I’m going to slide off the left side, I’m actually not moving at all, and my seat is a lot better and more secure without the saddle than with — that was really nice to hear. So, we are going to keep doing more of the same, trying to dive deeper into resetting my body's GPS and getting my right side to stop taking over. 

On a brighter note, I noticed that my communication with G is getting a lot better -- the first time I rode him, I could barely do a 20m circle, and yesterday we were doing diagonals, and medium circles, and decent square corners on the box. I am starting to feel almost immediately when I have too much weight in my right seat bone because he starts to drift left and over bend around my right leg. All of these things are HUGE steps in the right direction!