Exciting News!

Last Monday night after class, Din Thomas promoted me to blue belt! It was completely unexpected, which made it all the more exciting. 

The last I had heard was that Master Din would hold promotion nights twice a year. I had to miss the last promotional night because of family obligations, so I was resigned to at least another six months of green. Which is fine, because I don't always feel worthy of blue anyway.

So it's an exciting time. Now I have the blue, I'd better start living up to it!

Photo credit: Ray Camp

Show Time

The beginning of this year has been crazy busy! I've got another horse show tomorrow, and I only have a couple more before the season is over. Then it's time to decide if I want to find a summer series to show in. 

But first, I think I'm going to talk to my vet about giving Chica an all-over evaluation.  As she gets older I want to make sure I'm doing what I can to maintain her good health and soundness. It's easy enough to push myself past pain and tiredness, but since my horse doesn't have a voice of her own I feel a big responsibility to keep her happy.

After tomorrow's show I have to get together with my sister so we can start planning some of the stuff we want to do while we're in New Zealand! It will probably be my last big trip for a little while. I need to start investing more in my riding/training/showing career. I need some better show clothes, a better fitting saddle, and it might be time to start looking at horse trailers. But all things in their time. 

IEA Show Regionals: Baby, It's Cold Outside

This year I have been the schooling rider for the Oak Haven Farm Interscholastic Equestrian Association team. In practical terms, this means that I warm-up and school horses before the shows.

When the students go to the show, each team brings their own school horses to compete. Before the show begins, the show management take all the horses' names, put them in a hat, and draw out a random horse for each kid to ride. Because of this procedure, the kid in question may or may not get a horse he knows to compete for any particular class.

To keep everything as fair as possible, competitors are not allowed to warm up or school the horses before the show. This is where I come in. Each team needs a schooling rider to warm up the horses their team brought before the show. 

It's pretty straightforward, and a fun way to spend a weekend: all the excitement of a horse show with none of the pressure. And less work, since the competitors help with the care of their team's horses. 

The only drawback this particular weekend is the fact that I had to school at 6:00am when the temperature at the show grounds was 46F.

Retiree Tales

Evening Routine

For most of the year I live by myself. But during the winter months, I get some housemates in the form of the retiree snowbirds who own my house and their dog, Kubota.

Every evening, Fred turns on the Hallmark Hall of Fame channel because, "Penny likes to watch a movie in the evening." So she stands at the table and works on her puzzle and he sits and reads, and at the end of the movie when the star-crossed lovers finally have their epiphany and get together, Fred sits and pretends to cry. 

Big fake happy crying. 

It drives Penny crazy. 

And it's funny every time!

Little Things In Life

My hair is (kinda) long enough to braid again! We'll see how long it lasts before I get annoyed with it and chop it short again.

All I Do Is Win

Show Results

First Level Test 1: Second place (62.2%)
First Level Test 2: First place (68.28%)

For my 68.28% I also received the High Point of the Day trophy!

Practice to Perform

Photo credit: Ruth Buchanan

This blog will be about the general happenings in my life. Mostly it will be about my riding career and life at the barn. Sometimes it will be about jiu jitsu and life at the gym. Occasionally it may be about family and life in general.

I hope all of it will be interesting enough to read.

Current News

The big news in life is that I am showing my horse today. I'll be taking her to a local schooling show, and it will be our first show of 2015. It will also be our first show moving up to First Level.

Thankfully, I don't tend to get nervous during a competition except for while I'm driving to he venue. I think part of the reason for that is because I'm usually pretty well prepared and another big part is because my philosophy of competition.

Philosophy of Competition

Some people I've seen seem to have the mindset of "I'm going to compete so I'd better train really hard these two weeks before hand so I'm REALLY GOOD for the competition.

Now don't get me wrong. I know there is a process of training so you make sure you're in peak condition for the event. But in general, this is how I tend to approach the situation: "This is how I ride and today I just happen to have a judge watching and evaluating me."

"Practice the way you want to perform" is the way one choir director always phrased it.

I think this can apply to a lot of things in life. If you manage an office or a restaurant and your boss' boss is coming to visit, it will be a lot less stressful if your employees already do things according to policy. If you build buildings you won't have to stress about the inspector coming to the site because you know you and your team always build everything to code.

So when my horse steps into the ring today, I know we'll be ready to do our best!

But for right now I'd better go study my tests.