First one's the hardest

So yes -- jumping lesson last night.   Despite any wide, teacup-shaped eyes or tiny meltdowns on my part (OMG she's tossing her head and scaring the crap out of me!), I did end up having fun.  The sort of fun where you look back on something and realize that it wasn't as bad as you thought in the moment, and yknow, you'd like to go back and do it again better.   Like the first ride on a rollercoaster.   Like that, I know the first lesson is the hardest to get through, and they'll all get easier from here.  However, rehabbing my confidence is tough.  I hated hated hated rehab for my knee, and I don't love the exercises I do for my shoulder either ... this is no different.

A little digression:  Actually, I feel like a rollercoaster is a great metaphor for my adult riding experience so far.  Clicking up the first incline is terrifying and takes a lot of energy to achieve.  The first tip over the edge to get the momentum started is also terrifying, but it's the beginning of a lot of very fun stuff if you can just let go and relax.  Then it's on to ups, downs, arounds, back to where you started, careening off in a new direction, feeling weightless, feeling extra g's, and then ... back to the clicking up again.    Also, I feel similarly about rollercoasters as I do about riding:  I love them.  But they scare me.  But I love them, and once I get past the scared part, I can laugh and enjoy the ride completely.    And then I get in line for a new one, and I think omg, do I really want to do this?  this looks scary!  well, I'm committed now, and this'll be fun, just hang in there ...  And lo and behold, it's scary, and then it's fun.

So anyway, we didn't do much of anything impressive -- cross-rails and a little 2' vertical.  Exactly what I wanted to be doing.  And working on position and soft hands.  Exactly what I know I need to be doing.  Concrete demonstrations of HNTDI - How Not To Do It -- with my hands.  See: Rev tossing her head and scaring the crap out of me.  I had the handy-dandy helpful neck strap on her, and ... totally didn't use it.  Duh!  That'll be an excellent tool, and I know it, and I'd done it a few times in practice in order to be able to do it over jumps, and ... well, I need more practice.

Practice doesn't make perfect -- perfect practice makes perfect.  Or, as a Ranger friend said, a paucity of preparation produces piss-poor performance.   Heh.   Not so much applicable in this case, but I couldn't resist the alliteration.

So yes.  Sticking with the training plan for both of us -- a zombie run for me today, and doing the poles-on-an-angle and two-point/settle/soft hands work for Reveille and me.

Oh -- and an interesting-to-me note about position: MT kept saying I need to soften my seat when I sit, find a way to settle without bouncing.  Okay, understood that that's what I need to do, but I realized finally that I have no idea how to go about doing that from a physical standpoint.  No idea what it's supposed to feel like or what changes I need to make to get there.  Turns out I arch my back without knowing it.  Granted, I have a lordosis of the spine, but apparently that can be treated with ... MORE EXERCISE!  Heh, and sigh.  ;)   So must practice keeping my lower back flat and not arched -- if it feels normal, it's arched.  If it feels all roached-y, it's right.   :)     It does feel like I round my shoulders when I flatten my lower back, but MT's comment on that was that we'll fix my back first, then deal with my shoulders.

I should probably do some work to strengthen my upper back too.   The list of "exercises I oughtta be doing" is getting long ...