My new horse!

Wow! It's great to be back on again. Moving to the new stable took a long time and organization but now we can settle down. It's too bad because just as soon as you feel like you can settle down, it's time to leave soon!

I am so excited to be here at Hof Kasselmann with my new guy. It is so nice to train here! The grounds are beautiful, the people are lovely, and there is so much to see! Last week I was able to watch the production of the PSI young horse auction videos! It was so cool. So professional too. They had a professional camera crew come in with tons of cameras and lights! It was amazing how good the horses were going past the cameras and stuff! The crew was really patient with them though so they felt comfortable. I love sitting in the arena watching all of the riders! I like to study how they ride corners, collection, and getting their horses onto the outside rein and inside leg. The riders are so good here! I am learning so much. With my new horse I have been riding under Miriam Henschke. She is such a good rider and trainer. It's really nice to train under her because she is so level in her teaching. Very calm and patient and understanding. It's very comforting. Especially when you are just learning the ropes of the small tour. She has taught me a lot of good things. She told me to breathe before every exercise you ride. That's really important for me because sometimes I tend to hold my breath. She also told me that if you don't have your horse on the outside rein, then you don't have your horse on the hindleg. That is really important. The most important thing she told me though is to relax and breathe. She is really good at getting you to focus and breathe because of her teaching method and patience. I love the feeling you have when you are so relaxed and concentrated on your work! It's a great feeling!

Tomorrow I am so excited to go and watch more riders! You can sit in the indoor for hours on end and learn so much! I love doing that! Corners are the most important thing that I watch. They are your best friends! I am having so much fun here and learning so much! It's so great and exciting! I can't wait to watch tomorrow!

Concentrating on Position

These past couple days have been all about position...how to achieve it, how to maintain it, and how to use it. This has become such an important part of my lessons. Having the right position in the movements really does get you the extra points. Not just because it looks nice, but also because when the rider is balanced and riding from the core, the horse is balanced and can maintain collection and swing. In the half passes today, I really focused on sitting in the middle of the saddle, and simply turning my head and shoulders in the direction of the half pass. This way, I am balanced in the saddle but my shoulders are following the motion of the half pass. There was a lot more swing, collection, and balance in the half pass this way, and it really helps for horses who like to fall into the half pass with the inside shoulder.

Things have been really nice here. The weather is a little cold and rainy now, but it's nice to have a break from the heat. The horses have been loving the cool weather. The only bad part is that Guffy rolled in the mud the other day out in the field, and it's too cold to give him a bath! Even though I brushed him for an hour, he is still dirty! Of course he had to roll directly in the pit of mud, right!? Oh well, that's Guffy!

Off to night check now. The boys will want their hay!

Aachen

This past weekend I went to the German Youth Championships in Aachen. The showgrounds is absolutely gorgeous....and of course the big stadiums. I walked into the big jumping stadium to watch the warm up, and I could only imagine what it must feel like to ride in a place like that. Talk about atmosphere! Saturday, we watched the pony dressage, the young rider dressage, and the junior and young rider jumping classes. For the dressage, everyone was extremely accurate in their test riding. It was amazing! The rider positions were ok. We saw a lot of riders with either slouched upper bodies or really loose and wobbly backs. However, every single rider had excellent leg positions. The jumping was great too. I watched the jumper warm up for a while and saw one rider do the most perfect walk and canter pirouettes before beginning with jumping to get his horse on the hind leg. It was really cool to see.

We went back on Sunday to watch the junior and young rider kurs, and the final jumping competition for the jumpers. There were some that were really nice. My overall impression was that the choreography was very well put together and flowed for all the riders, but the choice of music and ability to interpret it in the ring was not good for all the riders. Most of the riders were off of their music by a lot, and their choice of music was a little boring....kind of like background music. The points were won because of the great technical accuracy in the movements, definitely not artistically. It was really awesome to see rides with perfectly executed movements and no mistakes, even if the music was a little off. It rained so hard on Sunday, but the footing on the dressage rings stayed really nice. However, it was very slippery for the jumpers who had to jump on the grass in the pouring rain! There were a lot of wipeouts due to loss of balance on the wet grass. Plus, the jumps were HUGE! It was really incredible how much skill and technique there was to see there. The riders in the top placings were really good to watch because they had to keep their horses balanced between the fast turns and jumps only with their core strength. If they used their hands too much, then the horse would lose the rhythm or get behind the leg, and would end up either wiping out, refusing, or getting a rail. I learned a lot from watching that.
Overall it was a great, inspiring weekend. I can't wait until I can show there myself one day!

Personal Discovery and Exciting Weekend Plans!

Today I made the most amazing personal discovery ever. This means step aside Sir Isaac Newton! Sometimes for me, I have trouble balancing my position. Sometimes when I focus to hard on having a really straight and solid position, I lose ability to sit with the rhythm because my seat becomes hard. Or sometimes, when I think of being loose and going with the rhythm, I am not straight enough and I am not sitting up. When you don't sit up, you lose your entire core strength, and you go right to your hands to find the collection. It's all about finding the happy medium, and today I found it. It really helped me to feel like I was pushing the hind lengs down and under in the collection with my shoulders. This means that not only did I push my shoulders back, but I pushed them down too. This makes you arch your back kind of where your shoulder blades meet...or kind of like where your two wings would meet if you had them. When you arch your back here, "where your wings meet" then your shoulders are back, your neck is tucked in, your core muscles automatically go to work, and your seat becomes not hard on the back but "softly solid" so that you can still allow the back to come up. When I did this today, I had no tension in the collection, my horse was through the back and engaged behind, and I had the most straight but soft position. I have found that when your seat is too hard and forced, the back of the horse remains concave, making it impossible for the hind end to engage and for proper collection to come. When I think of pushing the hind legs down with my shoulders, and arching my back where your wings would meet, then it just comes. It is amazing how easy it was after I just did that. It was like a chain of events after I did that....my seat was quiet but solid, my hands were quiet, my legs had a soft but solid connection with the sides of my horse, and a quiet, active, and loose collection was found. Once you have this kind of collection, anything can be done. I worked canter pirouettes, half steps in trot, everything! It was really cool to have discovered that....so cool that I spent the entire day around with my back arched where my wings would meet, hoping that if I did it for long enough it would freeze that way! It's important though not to confuse this with arching your lower back. When you arch your lower back, you automatically lose your seat. It's all in the shoulders I found. The upper back. Where your wings meet! I am so excited!

Now for the exciting weekend plans! This weekend I am going to Aachen to watch the German National Championships!!! I am so stoked. I am going to watch both jumping and dressage, because there is so much to learn from everything. The best of the best Germans will be there, and it's at gorgeous Aachen! I will be sure to report back about the championships!

Tomorrow the horses are doing some cavaletti work to loosen up their backs to help with the collection and swing in their work. It's so great for them to do this work every once and a while!

jumping, more jumping, and internet

Today the ponies got a nice jumping day while Frau Endres was away in Warendorf. Guffy jumped really well. He is really getting used to the exercises. We jump on a circle to engage the hind end and quicken his reflexes for collection, and then we jump regular verticals and crosses. He has so much fun doing these exercises....especially the bounce jumps where he has to be really fast and light on his feet. Dewey and I just worked some ground poles to loosen his back. When we go voer ground poles, he really starts to loosen in his back and swing more in his body, creating more cadence and relaxation. This is good for him because his personality is a little tense, which can carry over to the concept of cadence. When he is loose, then he really grows and swings in his gaits.

I hope I will be able to get into the farm tonight! There are gaits that lock the farm at night for the safety of the horses, and last night Herr Rosendahl forgot that I was out with my mother for dinner. I needed to come back for nightcheck and then bed, because I live at the farm. We came back and all of the gates were locked! Yikes! they were big gates too. It was really hilarious, because I was trying desperately to get up the big brick wall, and I think I failed 3 times before I finally dragged myself up there using branches. Then, after getting to the top of the brick wall, I realized that my task had not yet come to an end....I still had to get down!!! And this wall was high. So I just jumped. It was crazy, but so much fun! I hope the gates are not locked tinight, because as much fun as it was...I don't think I can be as coordinated as I was last night!

Oh, and mom got internet for me! Yessss! We had to go through the entire town of Dulmen to find a mobile interent stick that worked, but we did it! Go mom!

Hello Again!

It's so nice to be blogging again! The apartment that I have been living in does not have any internet access, and I couldn't blog from my phone!!! But now that mom is here again I can go to her hotel and use the internet there. Things have been amazing here! I was on my own taking care of and riding my two ponies here in Europe. I am really really tired now, but it was amazing! The ponies have been so great. Dewey and I have really found a clear, powerful, and cadenced rhythm in the trot work. Guffy has become so powerful and quick in his hind legs than ever before. Our walk pirouettes are so good now. I have also been able to do a little jumping with Guffy also which has been a fun release from the dressage work every once and a while.

Since today is Sunday, I didn't ride the two ponies, but I still spent the day with them and making sure that they were comfortable and clean. Tomorrow I will start riding again with Frau Endres. She was also away this weekend making training sessions before the German National Championships that start next week.

A lot of exciting things have happened in the FEI pony world. The European Championships for ponies just ended two weeks ago. The Germans for the first time in 20 years were silver in the team medals instead of gold. The Dutch were just a tick more consistent this year, and consistency is key! The ponies on the German team were the same ones I competed with in Hagen, and they pretty much move like mini Totilas! They are so athletic and gorgeous. The German nationals next week will be exciting though. Will keep you posted on how those go too.

I am so happy to have internet right now because I can watch our USA selection trials and I 1 champs online from Gladstone. Definitely a place I hope to be in the future!

So, I am off to go get some dinner now before I go back to the barn for nightcheck and then to bed in my apartment. Now that I can go to my mom's hotel for a little bit, I will blog pretty much everyday! It feels so great to get back to blogging again and I can't wait to share more about my training here in Europe with all of you guys again!

-Isabelle :)

Moving In

Wow. It has been a while. Unfortunately there is no internet access in my new apartment, so I am using another computer for now. Let's see...the new apartment is nice. I am roomates with 3 lovely girls from the Turkish Pony Team. They are here for training with Frau Endres before they go off to the Europeans. I have my own room which is nice, and a little kitchen which we all share, but we eat our meals with Frau Endres and her husband. The ponies have been great! Guffy is enjoying his program of jumping at least once a week, and Dewey and I continue to develop a better tempo in the trot. The jumping has made Guffy so nice though. He is much quicker on the hind leg and it feels like he is having more fun. I like doing all of the work on my own. Even though there is a lot to do and can be stressful at times, it is always nice at the end of the day to know that everything was done exactly the way it should be. I love that feeling of accomplishment. This is the least of my problems though. What might be a problem is when I have to do my laundry. I hope that one of the staff members will be around to help me because my German does not cover washing machine settings!

Hopefully I will be able to write more often. It's just a little hard because of the internet situation, but I will figure it out! I am loving it so much here! This is so amazing! Tomorrow we are expecting a really hot day! Above 90 degrees farentheit. Hot!