Live in the Now

I've been doing yoga for a couple of months now to compliment my riding, and in tonight's class my wonderful yoga instructor Sylvia Vitazkova said something that stuck with me. As we were twisting our bodies into some crazy pretzel shape one of my classmates remarked that she used to be able to do it. Sylvia responded that we need to forget who we used to be and focus on who we are now.

How many times have you heard someone say that they could do the splits, make a slam dunk, or win a boxing match "back in the day"? Or hear someone lamenting about how they used to be able to do blankity-blank, why can't they do that now?

While it's great to be proud of previous accomplishments, you need to remember that everyday your body changes, whether it's gaining or losing weight, muscle or flexibility, it is changing. I found this to be especially important as I am pursuing my riding education. Sure I can sit here all day and tell Allison, Karen, Holly or whoever that I have a perfect position over fences and my eye for distances is impeccable because that's what my trainer told me when I was 12. Well not only does it not matter if I can't show it, but also think of how many things have changed or happened to me in the past eight years. I certainly don't have the same body, I'm not on the same horse, and I'm jumping bigger and more technical questions. While I wish I could pick a level of muscling and hold onto it forever, or wish that height won't matter to me, my eye stays the same, that's just not true.

So next time you are struggling with something that used to be easy, just remember to focus on what you can do now, what you want to be able to do and what you can practice doing to get yourself there. 

And for sake of your sanity, leave your past self where they belong, in the past.

Change is hard to accept, but accept it we must. And reunions are always good ;)

No Rocky montage for me

So guess what happens when you hurt an internal organ? Pain, some hospital time, then a lot of nothing.
Being sentenced to time at home for most people is probably awesome. Get to miss work, catch up on tv shows and just generally lounge around. But when this happens to an athlete, an eventer specifically, it is very close to torture.
This is what I want to be doing:

But due to said internal injury, any kind of physical exercise that utilizes the abdomen or core (aka EVERYTHING) is out of the question.

So what will I be doing? Well getting very much ahead with my homework (why yes, I am still earning my degree through online school), cleaning the house to a point of absurdity, and cooking fattening food for my roommates so I feel better about the death of my muscles.
But basically this is what I'm doing:

Auf Wiedersehen friends!!

Teach Me How, Dougie

For about the past year, I have started encouraging my friends immediately before they do a dressage test, run cross country, or show jump by loudly insisting that they "teach me how to dougie". I don't really know why but I find that song and the dance highly entertaining, especially when I try to teach it to people *cough* David and Karen at the 2011 winter O'Connor camp *cough*. Also I feel that it conveys a better message than the usual "good luck" or "kick butt". It tells the person I feel they are capable of great things that I can only inspire to replicate and that they should do it at the moment, because the moment is theirs. So I have naturally adopted it as my own version of "break a leg". 

This weekend, Millbrook Horse Trials is going on in New York. As I have several friends competing I have been watching the scores, checking Facebook/twitter and reading commentary on Eventing Nation. Now what do I see today, but Doug Payne scored a ohmygoodness15.2  in prelim.

I'm just saying, this brings a whole new relevancy and meaning to my, much more implemented, phrase.

A Game of Catch Up

Wow, can’t believe I haven’t written in a year. Well let me try to catch up with everything:

            -in September I went to Georgia to compete in the American Eventing Championships in the Preliminary Amateur division, after a not so hot dressage test we jumped clear to finish in 6^th and win a variety of fun prizes

            -We then drove straight up to Middleburg, Va to get settled in at the O’Connors

            -After two months of priceless training, in October Karen fell at Morven Park on Veronica. While Karen is thankfully fine now, she was sidelined for quite some time. I had to make the tough decision to move on to a new system completely because of the fact that I knew I was not at a point in my career that I could be training myself and succeeding. This fact was what caused me to stop attending college full time in the first place. So with help from some irreplaceable friends I contacted Allison Springer about working for her, and luckily she needed a working student at the same time.

            -After the fall Virginia Horse Trials I followed Allison back home to the beautiful Beverly Equestrian where ASE is based out of.

            -So far it has been nine months of amazing training and experiences. I am so lucky and blessed that the stars aligned and connected me with such a talented trainer and instructor.

            -Apollo and I were all set to represent Area 2 at the North American Junior Young Rider Championships in Lexington, KY at the 2* level, but due to a injury were unable to go

            We will make our come back in the fall!

I will try to keep up with the blog more, so stay tuned!