What do you want to work on today? Staying on.

I haven't updated in a while, mostly because the last few lessons have been more of the same, building back my strength and stamina in the correct ways of using my body...sometimes things break, sometimes they work. All in all, it is hard, my body isn't always doing what i want it to or what it is supposed to...but I'm really enjoying the journey and I'm so glad I found T!

Last week, when I went to say goodbye to T and confirm for yesterday's lesson, she asked again if I wanted to try a surcingle lesson. I readily agreed and left feeling excited about the possibilities.

So, when I arrived yesterday and checked the board, I saw she had me on Skylar. I went to the arena to check whether I should grab a saddle or a surcingle and T said, crap, I forgot. Let's see if I can move someone around and put you on Chi (pronounced like kai). So, we went to the feed room, and she shuffled her 12:45 lesson to another horse and assigned me to Chi. After telling me where to find his surcingle, I went to get him ready.

Chi is an older grey arabian gelding. I have only heard bits and pieces of his story, but I guess he was struck by lightning several years ago. He also lost his right eye, but I'm not sure if the 2 things are related. Either way, he's a pretty unique guy! Two of the women I chat with there told me he is like riding a cloud. (He was!)

basically the set-up they use

After checking the surcingle, and attaching a lunge line, T led Chi to the mounting ramp for me and told me to just step over. 

The lesson was pretty great -- but boy is my balance shot to hell. Initially, when Chi walked off, I felt like I was going to slide off any second. At the walk! She helped me stretch my legs to open my hips a bit more so that I could really start to sit on my seat bones. But it felt like I was leaning so far back!

Eventually, most of that wiggly feeling went away, but the trot had me grabbing for the handles several times, too. Although at one point, she had me trotting around her with my right arm over his mane and my left arm out like an airplane, with my eyes closed. 

The struggle to remember to breathe was very real! I noticed that I wasn't really holding onto the handles for dear life. A lot of the time, my hand was resting there just for the extra security. I need to trust my body (and my horse) and realize that if I just relax the muscles and remember to breathe, my body knows what to do to balance and I'm not going to come flying off the side. It sounds great on paper. I think there's a lot of baggage that comes with getting back to that point in my riding!