It's all about balance!

Another productive day with the horses, I'm so happy with the steady improvement I am feeling in them day to day, this is exactly why, no matter what the level rider, it is so important to take the time to get routine help.  Every rider needs eyes on the ground and these few months of intense training during the year are so productive, I really found it made such a huge difference this last year and am finding it even more so this year.  Today the focus with Nico was to test out that things worked on the mark, in other words not trying to prepare everything to death before actually riding the movements but creating a set up and ride it marker to marker scenario.  Dressage is one of those perfectionist sports where it is so easy to obsess over the smallest detail and trying to make everything impeccable, often times we end up over-preparing and over-riding everything, I know this is something I am definitely guilty of and have made a conscious effort to be better about it and although I still find myself getting sucked back into that mentality at times I think I'm definitely getting much better about it.  Not to say that focusing on the small details and preparing things is wrong, it's definitely not, but it can be taken too far, to the point where we find ourselves setting up a transition for 20 circles before we actually do it, or constantly starting and stopping to correct and then starting again and not seeing the bigger picture of things, at the end of the day we have to be able to set up a movement in a reasonable amount of time and then execute it and a horse who is truly on the aids will do this with ease.  Basically what I am saying is that the one thing I find myself constantly learning in dressage (and maybe life in general?!) is that nothing done to the extreme is ever good, it's doesn't work to not prepare movements and it doesn't work to overprepare movements, we must simply prepare them in a reasonable time and then the aids have to go through and work, sounds so simple in print!!  I've found a lot of the work and exercises we have been using with Nico are beneficial to Roz as well and feel her more and more on my aids, she's a great little horse to work with, once she understands something she is keen to please and doesn't hold back, I think that characteristic is going to serve her very well in her career.  That's all for tonight, posted some fun reading below that I swiped off facebook for everyone to enjoy!

This might have been a retired English teacher who was bored, but
they're usually considered "boring." It must have been a wordsmith
with a lot of time on his or her hands. Anyhow, here it is. I've published
them both a few years ago (Helen Senhauser sent that version in.
If you're interested in these anomalies of spelling pronounciation, etc/.
let me know and I'll try to dig 'em out for you. Then, you too can learn
to sound like a bored/boring retired English teacher -- or Pathologist.

1) The bandage was wound around the wound.
2) The farm was used to produce produce.
3) The dump was so full that it had to refuse more refuse.
4) We must polish the Polish furniture.
5) He could lead if he would get the lead out.
6) The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert.
7) Since there is no time like the present, he thought it was time to present the present.
8) A bass was painted on the head of the bass drum.
9) When shot at, the dove dove into the bushes.
10) I did not object to the object.
11) The insurance was invalid for the invalid.
12) There was a row among the oarsmen about how to row.
13) They were too close to the door to close it.
14) The buck does funny things when the does are present.
15) A seamstress and a sewer fell down into a sewer line.
16) To help with planting, the farmer taught his sow to sow.
17) The wind was too strong to wind the sail.
18) Upon seeing the tear in the painting I shed a tear..
19) I had to subject the subject to a series of tests.
20) How can I intimate this to my most intimate friend?
Let's face it - English is a crazy language.
There is no egg in eggplant, nor ham in hamburger. and neither apple nor pine in pineapple.
English muffins weren't invented in England or French fries in France .
Sweetmeats are candies while sweetbreads, which aren't sweet, are meat.
We take English for granted. But if we explore its paradoxes, we find that quicksand can work slowly, boxing rings are square and a guinea pig is neither from Guinea nor is it a pig..
And why is it that writers write but fingers don't fing, grocers don't groce and hammers don't ham?
If the plural of tooth is teeth, why isn't the plural of booth, beeth?
One goose, 2 geese. So one moose, 2 meese? One index, 2 indices?
Doesn't it seem crazy that you can make amends but not one amend?
If you have a bunch of odds and ends and get rid of all but one of them, what do you call it?

If teachers taught, why didn't preachers praught?
If a vegetarian eats vegetables, what does a humanitarian eat?
Sometimes I think all the English speakers should be committed to an asylum for the verbally insane.
In what language do people recite at a play and play at a recital?
Ship by truck and send cargo by ship?
Have noses that run and feet that smell?

How can a slim chance and a fat chance be the same, while a wise man and a wise guy are opposites?
You have to marvel at the unique lunacy of a language in which your house can burn up as it burns down, in which you fill in a form by filling it out and in which, an alarm goes off by going on.

English was invented by people, not computers, and it reflects the creativity of the human race, which, of course, is not a race at all.
That is why, when the stars are out, they are visible, but when the lights are out, they are invisible.

PS. - Why doesn't 'Buick' rhyme with 'quick ?

You lovers of the English language might enjoy this ...
There is a two-letter word that perhaps has more meanings than any other two-letter word, and that is 'UP.'

It's easy to understand UP, meaning toward the sky or at the top of the list, but when we awaken in the morning, why do we wake UP ?
At a meeting, why does a topic come UP?
Why do we speak UP and why are the officers UP for election and why is it UP to the secretary to write UP a report?
We call UP our friends.
And we use it to brighten UP a room, polish UP the silver; we warm UP the leftovers and clean UP the kitchen.
We lock UP the house and some guys fix UP the old car.
At other times the little word has real special meaning.
People stir UP trouble, line UP for tickets, work UP an appetite and think UP excuses.
To be dressed is one thing, but to be dressed UP is special.
A drain must be opened UP because it is stopped UP.
We open UP a store in the morning but we close it UP at night.

We seem to be pretty mixed UP about UP!
To be knowledgeable about the proper uses of UP, look the word UP in the dictionary.
In a desk-sized dictionary, it takes UP almost 1/4th of the page and can add UP to about thirty definitions.
If you are UP to it, you might try building UP a list of the many ways UP is used to one-up your friends.
It will take UP a lot of your time, but if you don't give UP, you may wind UP with a hundred or more.
When it threatens to rain, we say it is clouding UP.
When the sun comes out we say it is clearing UP.
When it rains, it wets the earth and often messes things UP.
When it doesn't rain for awhile, things dry UP.
One could go on and on, but I'll wrap it UP,
for now my time is UP, so........it is time to shut UP!
Now it's UP to you what you do with this email.


Oh yes, one more. A grammarian refused to end
a sentence with a preposition. He said,

"That is something up with which I will not put."

Then, there's the Britisher who relates a story with "so I UPs
to him and I says."