The transition to Zen. Mick. The Olive Garden. What to do with a nervous date.

Time for a long overdue blog post. (The "overdue" forshadows the fact that this post will meantion the lovely Mick aka Past Due) A lot has happened since I made cookies without cream of tartar. For instance, when I ran out of chocolate chips recently, I made Milky Way cookies. I've had a lot I've wanted to write about, mainly stuff I think about while driving but 1. Its not safe to blog and drive and 2. I'm too busy texting. Mick and Henry have both been out competing. What is it like to ride Mick you might ask? Riding Mick has been one of the best experiences of my life. That sentence makes me feel like someone is forcing me to write some kind of 500 words or less essay on "an important experience in your life," but no one is, I am delighted to write all about him and his adorable face, the kind of face that sees me and knickers fondly as he trots up to the gate, excitedly waiting for me to catch him. Except that one of the "special" things about Mick is that when he actually sees me he runs to the end of the field, sometimes attempting to hide behind a tree or his best pony friend, Patch, in the hopes that I will not catch him and will not do dressage again. Aside from catching Mick, I love everything about him. Aside from trying to keep his tail on the white rather than dingy yellow side of the color scale. (some people will just never be satisfied) At our last event, Poplar, Mick ran in the intermediate. When I say ran, I literally mean that Mick would be happy to flat out run the whole thing, straight through the dressage ring extended canter maybe throwing in some flying changes, jumping the judges booth, and galloping on to cross country. This go get'em desire is countered by my desire to get as low a score as possible in dressage, and avoid the single comment in the collective marks "good luck on cross country" which really means: I sure hope he jumps well because you aren't about to get a remotely good score here. Mick and I have come to a sort of understanding about dressage, which I think deep down he really likes, he just doesn't know how to express it. The thing about Mick's brain is that it goes very quickly, sending neurotransmitters very quickly to his legs which attempt to move as quickly as possible in whatever direction or directions he thinks we are meant to go in. Therefore it is imperative to transition from this state to a state of more zenlike movement. With some horses this means simply giving the aid for zenlike, fluid, lovely movement and bam, you have it. Or if you don't, you give a firm reminder until things improve. With Mick you have to spend a good deal of time forming a relationship and settling his mind, a process that requires a very specific set of skills and as you can see from my skillfull explanation of how the brain works, my degree in neuroscience really helps this process. By "relationship" I mean establishing a system for warming him up and settling him in. This is like having a nervous girflriend who only relaxes after 20 or 30 dates at the Olive Garden, ordering the same meal every single time. For Mick, the Olive Garden is a place called the 20 meter circle. Every day we start off together on this path, round and round slow and stretching at the trot and canter, using up a good 10-20 minutes and ending up in exactly the same place we started. But hopefully also ending up with a relaxed and happy Mick who will remember this beginning as he enters the world of shoulder in, counter canter and more recently flying changes. Unfortunately, in the dressage ring there are no free bread sticks and salad to ease the process. The challenge with Mick is to remain calm at all times, and to accept however slowly the working-in process takes. With some horses, for instance Inet, you have to say "No you may not look at the cows anymore or grab a bite of grass while cantering, even if you did manage to do it while staying in balance and not tripping, you MUST listen NOW...or at least stop with the grass eating there will be a snack break at the end of the ride" With Mick, a command sends him into all sorts of panic modes. Even with please and thank you, Mick can react dramatically. What I do instead is prepare and ask a little and prepare even more and let a change of direction happen so quietly and easily he doesn't even know what hit him, at least until he gets to the other long side and realizes now he has to shoulder in the whole way down again and probably again after that the other way. In my opinion, the worst thing you can do with a horse like this is have a rigid plan of what you need to accomplish in a given ride. This doesn't mean I don't have goals and things I want to achieve, it just means if things aren't as good as I want them to be (and I'm a perfectionist, things are never as good as I want them to be) I don't let it get to me. Mick can read emotions as fast as a basset hound can pick up a scent (for example, I have a basset hound named Wilbur, ask me about him sometime if you want to have about an hour conversation centered around long ears and droopy eyes and true love) and if you get frustrated and tense during a ride believe me Mick will be as nervous as a basset hound about to... nevermind basset hounds don't get nervous. If I were writing a blog about normal every day life I would probably say something like, when I get frustrated I yell at the driver cutting me off or going 5 miles under the speed limit, instead I was about to say, when I get frustrated my arms tense up and my horse tenses his back and then its back to the 20 meter circle of zen until zen is restored or at least neared. Having blabbered on about Mick for a good while, I'll wait until next time to tell y'all about Baby Henry and Inet and other florida adventures, for instance my increasing use of y'all.