Driving Thursday
The plan was to use Greg’s SSF driving lesson as a photo shoot to practice my long-neglected camera skills.
Not so much.
Turns out I can either take pictures or observe. Not both. Am I looking at light and photo angles or am I looking at the horse’s attitude and the driver’s thumb position? So, I put down the camera and paid attention.
Watching reinforced the idea that tiny changes on the part of horse or human can have a big impact on overall impression. Posh would go from fancy to flat and back to fancy in a few strides. No obvious flinging of head or gnashing of teeth, just yup, yup, nope, yup.
My riding is in a similar place. I’ve taken care of most of the gross errors (most of the time), such as position, control, and so on. Now, I’m trying to pull it all together and sell it to the judge. In dressage, this would be interpretation and artistic expression. Hunters ditto. In jumpers, it would be shaving that extra second off the inside turn. In eventing, keeping the ideal, bouncy canter through the combination to the skinny. In any discipline, it’s the different between blue and not-blue.
Railbirding is some of the best learning available.
Thank you for reading,
Katherine Walcott
Virtual Brush Box 