![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Nice Weather
Mar. 9th, 2009 12:45 amWow..talk about a nice couple of days.
Saturday my father was working on the new water feature thing we ar eputting in the garden and he was wearing shorts. My mom even got a sunburn from working in the garden all day.
I rode these past two days trying to get ready for the show season that starts the first weekend in April. It is hard to get used to it starting so early when in New York the first show we every really went to was at the end of May. I haven't riden since November though so both me and Zip are in need of some major exercising in order to get ready.
it got me thinking about riding and how little I did it when I worked at Joanns. I think Hollins kind of ruined me and that continued through until I left Joanns. I had all these grand plans about having a career that would let me ride and own a barn and train horses...and then I went to Hollins in the full belief that I would become a better rider and take part of the collegiate team and win all sorts of things.
I think I was spoiled by 4-H. I remember one of my last 4-H shows. It was intercounty and I was in an English Equitation class with about 90 other people. I was riding Zippy and in the end we placed 3rd and I remember how awesome I felt. I used to be one hell of a rider...or at least I thought so. I would go into English Equitation classes (which judged how well the rider rode) and would come out with win after win...I could do those classes blind folded with my feet out of the stirrups. It made me confident in my ability.
And then I went to Hollins. Thinking I was a shoo in for the riding team I went there with my head held high. When they didn't put me on the team I think it slowly killed my desire to ride. Even going to the 2 lessons a week seemed like too much effort. Maybe it was the fact that they focused on jumping, something I had never done much of with Western horses sitting in the barn back home. Maybe it was just the crushing of so many dreams I had once had about competing at nationals. I still showed at the Hollins shows, and I won several year end awards there...but it wasn't the same. And when I left school I barely rode at all those first three years I was down here.
I often wonder what would have happened had I gone to a school in New York, or gone to a school with Western riding as well as English. Maybe my desire would have stayed strong. Who knows what would have happened. Do I regret my time at Hollins? No, but you do have to wonder...
Last year was the most I have riden in a long time. Maybe it was because I wasn't working because of the chemo. Maybe I just finally have that desire to do so again. But now it is almost too late. I am out of shape. I am no longer the rider I once was. My legs swing, my once to the ground heel is barely past parallel with the stirrup, and my back is always angled instead of straight. I have a lot of work to do to get back to where I once was...and maybe I never will be that rider again. Who knows, only time will tell. And it means I have to find that drive to win I once had. That desire to get out there and ride every day that I had when I was in high school.
Heh...i guess sitting in the western saddle just gives me a little too much time to think.
Saturday my father was working on the new water feature thing we ar eputting in the garden and he was wearing shorts. My mom even got a sunburn from working in the garden all day.
I rode these past two days trying to get ready for the show season that starts the first weekend in April. It is hard to get used to it starting so early when in New York the first show we every really went to was at the end of May. I haven't riden since November though so both me and Zip are in need of some major exercising in order to get ready.
it got me thinking about riding and how little I did it when I worked at Joanns. I think Hollins kind of ruined me and that continued through until I left Joanns. I had all these grand plans about having a career that would let me ride and own a barn and train horses...and then I went to Hollins in the full belief that I would become a better rider and take part of the collegiate team and win all sorts of things.
I think I was spoiled by 4-H. I remember one of my last 4-H shows. It was intercounty and I was in an English Equitation class with about 90 other people. I was riding Zippy and in the end we placed 3rd and I remember how awesome I felt. I used to be one hell of a rider...or at least I thought so. I would go into English Equitation classes (which judged how well the rider rode) and would come out with win after win...I could do those classes blind folded with my feet out of the stirrups. It made me confident in my ability.
And then I went to Hollins. Thinking I was a shoo in for the riding team I went there with my head held high. When they didn't put me on the team I think it slowly killed my desire to ride. Even going to the 2 lessons a week seemed like too much effort. Maybe it was the fact that they focused on jumping, something I had never done much of with Western horses sitting in the barn back home. Maybe it was just the crushing of so many dreams I had once had about competing at nationals. I still showed at the Hollins shows, and I won several year end awards there...but it wasn't the same. And when I left school I barely rode at all those first three years I was down here.
I often wonder what would have happened had I gone to a school in New York, or gone to a school with Western riding as well as English. Maybe my desire would have stayed strong. Who knows what would have happened. Do I regret my time at Hollins? No, but you do have to wonder...
Last year was the most I have riden in a long time. Maybe it was because I wasn't working because of the chemo. Maybe I just finally have that desire to do so again. But now it is almost too late. I am out of shape. I am no longer the rider I once was. My legs swing, my once to the ground heel is barely past parallel with the stirrup, and my back is always angled instead of straight. I have a lot of work to do to get back to where I once was...and maybe I never will be that rider again. Who knows, only time will tell. And it means I have to find that drive to win I once had. That desire to get out there and ride every day that I had when I was in high school.
Heh...i guess sitting in the western saddle just gives me a little too much time to think.
