Lesson #2: "In riding, we don't work on your strengths."

WELL THAT WAS FUN.

For some reason, what I was supposed to be doing with my legs to get Gypsy to stay on the outside of the ring clicked as soon as I got on, so there was no need for me to relinquish control. :P

Back a million years ago, I had serious trouble with sitting trots. I mean serious trouble. I'd basically bounce right off the horse. But again, now that I'm older, it's just clicking! I'm not good at sitting at a trot, by any means, but I don't feel like I'm just hanging on for the ride about to be catapulted off, either. It's awesome!!

Diagonals, however, are waaaay more difficult than I remember. I mean, right from the beginning, I could feel that I wasn't posting right. And, I mean, sure I was posting wrong consistently, but I needed to flipflop the time I was up and the time I was down.

Which, uh. I am apparently very bad at. I'd get it for a couple steps and suddenly instead of "up SLAP up SLAP up SLAP up SLAP" it turned into a smooth "UP down UP down UP down". But then I'd falter and be right back to sitting down while the horse's back was coming up.

NOT. FUN. FOR. ANYONE.

It drives me insane because I can feel just how wrong I'm doing it, and even when I didn't know what I was doing wrong I knew I was doing something wrong. But I can't figure out how to fix it. I've tried counting (1 and 2 and 3 and) and sitting down an extra beat or staying up an extra beat, but then the extra beat goes by and I'm still there going SHIT I MISSED IT and, well, it just doesn't work. And I've tried paying attention to the shoulder and going up based on that, and that just fails miserably. By the end I was just going OKAY NOW SEEMS LIKE A GOOD TIME TO START POSTING and hoping I was right.

Let's not discuss my success percentage.

I ran into my first honest-to-god you're-a-fatty problem, though. My instructor is all ">:( BRING YOUR TOES IN LINE WITH THE HORSE" which is code for "TOES IN HEELS DOWN". This is hard for me because 1) I'm the opposite of pigeon-toed, and 2) my ankles don't exactly flex that well.

Anyway, whenever I force my toes to be where they're supposed to be, my inside ankle rolls on me and I fall back into the saddle. I mean, it holds up for a good four minutes, but then WHOOMP I'm down for good.

Rinse, repeat.

By the time I got done with my lesson (by way of going "Dude, I can not trot anymore, my ankle keeps giving out") and dismounted, I had a very pronounced limp on that side. This is going to be a problem.

Thankfully, I've supposedly graduated to being allowed to ride in the outdoor ring. Just in bloody time, too. That ride kicked up so much dust that I had to stop at one point and hang off the horse to cough a lung out. A couple days later (aka, long enough for my sinuses to realize just how impacted with dust they are), I was down for the count with an epic sinus infection. I'm hoping that I'll magically be back to 100% tomorrow.

Lesson #1: We Like to Eat

After a ten year "hiatus", I'm back riding again. Today, I had my first lesson.

Being an epic lol fatty, I searched around for a barn that had horses big enough to carry my weight. Read: a barn with draft crosses. After calling around a lot and going "Hi, this is how much I weigh, can I take riding lessons at your barn?" over and over and over again, I finally found one that was like "Oh, sure, how's Wednedsays at 7:30 work for you?"

So, of course, this place is an hour away from home. And an hour away from work. Which, during rush hour, translates to an hour and a half.

After lurking around a bit, because I'm too shy and self-conscious to actually go up at anyone and go "Hi! I have a lesson tonight, what am I supposed to be doing!", and watching the instructor shout very very loudly at some guy in German, I got collected. Enter Gypsy, a gorgeous Friesian cross. *____*

I CAN NOT EVEN DESCRIBE HOW PRETTY AND NICE THIS HORSE IS.

And also how huge. Huuuuuge. Tall. And wide. And oh my god her head is the size of my entire torso. I am maybe exaggerating, but only by a bit.

Anyway, I managed to get up and on her without crying. Which is A+ amazingly wonderful. My actual mounting skills, however, are F- horrifyingly terrible. I mean, hello, out of shape fatty. My ability to jump up and push myself up the rest of the way is approximately -38. On a scale of 1 to 10. My ability to get halfway there and just struggle the rest of the way on in an incredibly undignified way, in a manner that probably should've sent that horse out of there, is a nice round 10.

MAN MY BALANCE SUCKS.

Seriously, not swishing all over the place was insanely hard. I COULD FEEL EVERY STEP MAN. AND EVERY STEP SENT MY BODY GOING IN A DIFFERENT DIRECTION. At which point whatshisface (look, I don't do names. I know Gypsy's name because I sneakily wrote it on my hand when I was left alone. STFU, it's totally logical.) gave me a rousing speech about how I am a lol fatty, which is good when you're on a huge horse, and I should be using my weight to my advantage. And also that Germans are a big people who love to eat.

:D I LIKE THIS GUY. This is the first time in a while someone's mentioned my weight in a non-derogatory manner.

Also, apparently everything I learned 10 years ago was wrong. Jeez. I'm not even sure how the stuff he was telling me to do works now that I'm able to think about it without also worrying I'm gonna fall off. Like, okay. Why would a horse move into your leg? And not away from it? IDEK.

ALSO WHAT KIND OF SICK FREAK MAKES SOMEONE TROT THEIR FIRST LESSON?? OH GOD THE BOUNCING, THE BOUNCING. I need a better bra.

Things I was told to do:
Push out my stomach and open my chest
Suck in my stomach when stopping
HEELS DOWN TOES OUT >:(

You guys, my ankles feel like someone replaced them with, I dunno, air. I can't feel them. This was pretty horrible when I had to dismount, because let me tell you, landing on feet connected to ankles that don't exist? NOT EASY. But I didn't fall! And next week, he's just going to run me and whichever horse I get put on around in circles on a longe line so that I can work on my ~balance~. I'M PRETTY SURE I'M GOING TO DIE.

Also, I reek of horse.