Its been awhile...

Haven't posted on here for awhile, which isn't to say that there haven't been new developments (not all good)

Lets start out with the riding first. 

When we left off, Arwen was being so so, I believe. Well, for about a week or so after it started going seriously down hill. Not listening to me, charging down the lines, etc etc. Just like before. I, of course, had a bit of a mini meltdown because where I had been feeling like "man, I can finally ride my horse!" I was suddenly back at square one after a years worth of pretty hard work.

But then I got to really thinking about it.

How much did I *really* do to work on changing how I rode? Sure, I started working out which helped a ton. But, other than that I think during the last year its been more about me learning "feel". And then maybe slightly changing my ride (learning to sit back more, be more tactful, react quicker, etc). But now, this year I REALLY need to work on changing the way I ride. Releasing a lot of the tension I hold in my back and hips, making sure my leg stays on, making sure I'M doing the right things to keep Arwen engaged and listening to the fences. I had some eye opening lessons these past few days where really consciously thinking about some of these things made a pretty big difference in the way Arwen went. I mean in a span of ONE lesson, she was rushing to responsive to rushing, depending on how much I ACTIVELY thought about my ride. Pretty interesting stuff, right? So I'm going to my goals for 2012. I want to just really work on being a more active participant, instead of a passenger. Because I think that is where a lot of my issues start. For some reason, I have an expectation that Arwen will help out a lot more than she should. And that makes her uncomfortable. She wants to be told what she should be doing, and if she isn't, her decision is obviously going to be "well, I'm going to do whatever is easier for ME" which is getting flat and strung out and rushing around a course. So at this point, I don't care about fence height or showing or anything. I just really want to spend the year drilling down how to ride my horse to the best of our abilities every time. And yes, there will still be bad/hard rides in there, but I think there are A LOT of tools that have been given to me over the past year to be able to deal with it. I KNOW how I'm supposed to be riding her. I just need to spend a lot of time developing the muscle memory to do it.

Some of the things I really need to work on:
1) upper body. I feel like I'm sitting back and up, but I still tend to lean forward a lot. I don't think its a strength thing, but it could be. So I'm going to ramp up the core work.

2)getting Arwen engaged at all times. I've been struggling with this for awhile, but because at this point in time she's not wanting to carry herself, we really need to work on her using herself, especially on the flat. Because that translates to how she is going to jump, and also, developing MY feel for when she's getting a little flat/strung out

3) timing of my aids. I really need to work on not taking my leg off, or softening too much at inappropriate times. This for me, means lots of transition work and ground poles on my own.

I'm also planning to take a couple of dressage lessons to shake things up a bit. I did a lot of flatwork stuff in my lesson yesterday and man...I really do enjoy flatwork. So I think not only will it help with my sense of feel and getting Arwen engaged, it will be something different to do just for a little while.

On the fitness/health front:

I've actually been pretty good about hitting up the gym! In the past month I've been able to go pretty consistently 2-3 times a week (3 times more often than not). Feeling really good again which is nice. I've also started to really rein in the eating because it definitely affects my performance at the gym. So until the end of March, hubs and I are doing a strict Paleo diet (will write more about this later). So far, so good. It hasn't been super hard to give up a lot of the stuff we were eating and I think I've actually been more creative with our menu planning in advance. So hopefully will this not only affect our waistlines and fitness, but our wallets! Its nice to be able to bring my lunch to work instead of eating out a couple times a week because I didn't cook anything for dinner.

The major win is I hadn't weighed myself for two months and when I stepped on the scale yesterday (after a week of strict paleo) I was down 6 lbs from the point I had been at two months prior! Pretty awesome. However, I made a vow that the scale isn't what I'm concerned about. What I'm more concerned about is how I'm feeling and performing at the gym (and on a daily basis-am I still crashing around 2 because of my blood sugar? Not lately!). So I'm not going to weigh myself again until the 30 days are up. I don't want to be a slave to the numbers (because really, the whole CrossFit thing was never really about losing weight, it was about getting healthy. And I don't want to lose that focus)

And other things...

Learned how to ride a motorcycle this weekend! Hubs and I did the motorcycle safety class that is done by the CHP. It was pretty basic, but a good course for both of us. I was the only one in the entire class who had never sat on a bike as the driver and I think I did a pretty good job! Had some trouble at first with stalling (letting go of the clutch too fast, not enough gas) but got the hang of it pretty quickly. Second day I started having an issue with braking and revving the engine, which I think will take some time on a bike to resolve. But, all in all a very good experience. Now I just have to go to the DMV to take my written test and will then be an officially licensed motorcycle AND car driver! I honestly don't think I'm going to ride much, but its nice to have.