Riding and Fighting and Weight -- oh my!
Aug. 19th, 2009 08:16 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
callistotoniAn update with 3 disparate things:
Riding: Working towards my WK EQ Champion audit is being a Learning Experiance (TM). Once again, I find riding and learning to ride (dressage, anyway) is the most humbling thing I've ever done. Maybe some of you can relate to this in your own sport of choice -- I have a vision in my head, but my execution is sorely lacking. :-/ "Just keep swimming" is not a bad mantra for me, as well as "The honor is in the attempt".
Some specifics: There is 2 parts of the competition that I really want to audit: the demo portion (which is 90 sec), and the pattern. As I've written previously, I thought it would be cool to be Concordia in the spirit of late period masques and other displays, and that it would be fitting for my riding and general attitude. And I already had a costume that would work ;-) .
Last night Marguerite came by the barn to run my music for me so Brandee and I could play with it for the demo. For the record, 90 sec is *short*; even shorter given that the arena being used for the event is *huge*. I had thought to ride in with a cornocopia and then hand it off, but that takes too much time. If I what to have any signifiers I'll need help (anyone out there want to be a nymph? You could hand out fruit to people and carrots to horses and run around in some silly chiton/nymph outfit for a few minutes ;-) ).
Surprizingly, the music I picked almost matches up with the pattern I chose to ride. The pattern goes like this:
- Ride into the arena, stop.
- Ride a straight line to the center (I chose to do this at a walk, thinking I could get Brandee through at the walk).
- At the center, change gait and ride a triangle, heading first to the left corner, down the width of the arena to the next corner, then head back to the center. I thought Brandee and I would pick up a sitting trot and do leg yields on the diagonals.
- At the center, change gait again and ride a triangle in the opposite direction. I thought we'd pick up a left-lead canter ('cause we're way better on the left lead then the right :-0 ).
- At the center, change gait and ride straight down the middle of the arena to the end. I thought we'd do a posting trot here and I'd try to get Brandee to reach -- long and low, as it were. Stop, take a few steps backwards. Finis.
Leg yields at the point are not very good. We go sideways, but I'm clearly pulling and Brandee is pulling her head up. I've *got* to get stronger with my body so that I can keep her frame and allow her to reach. In my own defence I can get a few steps of it properly before we lose it again. :-/
After a few days of practicing this pattern Brandee is mostly making the full triangle at the canter. Before she'd fall out before we got to X, but I'm sure that's mostly my fault for anticipating the change of gait too soon.
Well, like I said, it's being a challenge and giving us something different to work on. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...
Sport of Kings (i.e. Fighting): I leave this afternoon for PDX and a weekend of sweetie time! Yay! We will be packing Chris' truck and heading to the site Thursday -- we'll get there when we get there. The karmic irony of me going to an event that really-o truely-o is All About heavy fighting is not lost on me. ;-) In case you don't know, Sport of Kings is an every-other-year weekend camping colligium focused on tourney fighting hosted by An Tir. There are 2 class tracks: one that is fighting classes and another that is support to fighing (e.g. consorting, gambason making, etc.) I'm taking 4 classes: Sports nutrition using period foods, horse barding (I want to see what the An Tirians have been doing in this area :-) ), massage for fighters, and a class Graf Berek (a veteran of the Old Westermark, I'm happy to say) is teaching on fighter appreciation for non-fighters. What I'm hoping to get out of the latter is a better eye so that I can help J/S. I have a lot of trouble seeing anything when I watch fighting, I have to say. Leohtulf has told me to look not at the swords but at body movement that will project intent, but I still can't see that.
I want to support J/S as much as I can. And I'm sure he'll help me with horsie stuff, so it will all even out I'm sure. :-)
Weight: I'll say it again, maintanence is hard. I was super good after Vegas and spent a lot of last week being at the weight I want to be at. These last few days I got lazy, however, and started eating because I was bored and a bit depressed (letdown after a weekend emotional high, and lonely for my sweetie). So now I'm up almost 3 lbs. Bugger. And I'm going to wear my new Bettie Page dress to go see J/S. Well, I was up a few lbs in Vegas so it will be OK, but tighter than I was envisoning.
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etaine_pommier writes, if you journal you stay on the straight and narrow. But maintanence is continual, it's a every-day-for-the-rest-of-your-life thing.
But, on the plus side, I've learned how to come down from periods of Festive Eating. I just need to keep doing it. Yes, I am giving myself a pep-talk here.
Oh, and while we're on body image, I've been struggling with the whole getting older thing. My fat has shifted and I'm older so now I've got skin noticably hanging from my chin and neck. It depresses me that all the pretty dresses at the Bettie Page site aren't -- or won't be soon-- 'age appropriate'. Now, I'm all for flaunting what I've got (with WW I've got a high body to face ratio these days; I know that I'm doing great for being almost 50!). So struggling with what's OK for me to wear and still feel good while not inviting public ridicule. I know, it may sound weird/paranoid to you, but I am having these thoughts.
Aging -- it still beats being dead!
Riding: Working towards my WK EQ Champion audit is being a Learning Experiance (TM). Once again, I find riding and learning to ride (dressage, anyway) is the most humbling thing I've ever done. Maybe some of you can relate to this in your own sport of choice -- I have a vision in my head, but my execution is sorely lacking. :-/ "Just keep swimming" is not a bad mantra for me, as well as "The honor is in the attempt".
Some specifics: There is 2 parts of the competition that I really want to audit: the demo portion (which is 90 sec), and the pattern. As I've written previously, I thought it would be cool to be Concordia in the spirit of late period masques and other displays, and that it would be fitting for my riding and general attitude. And I already had a costume that would work ;-) .
Last night Marguerite came by the barn to run my music for me so Brandee and I could play with it for the demo. For the record, 90 sec is *short*; even shorter given that the arena being used for the event is *huge*. I had thought to ride in with a cornocopia and then hand it off, but that takes too much time. If I what to have any signifiers I'll need help (anyone out there want to be a nymph? You could hand out fruit to people and carrots to horses and run around in some silly chiton/nymph outfit for a few minutes ;-) ).
Surprizingly, the music I picked almost matches up with the pattern I chose to ride. The pattern goes like this:
- Ride into the arena, stop.
- Ride a straight line to the center (I chose to do this at a walk, thinking I could get Brandee through at the walk).
- At the center, change gait and ride a triangle, heading first to the left corner, down the width of the arena to the next corner, then head back to the center. I thought Brandee and I would pick up a sitting trot and do leg yields on the diagonals.
- At the center, change gait again and ride a triangle in the opposite direction. I thought we'd pick up a left-lead canter ('cause we're way better on the left lead then the right :-0 ).
- At the center, change gait and ride straight down the middle of the arena to the end. I thought we'd do a posting trot here and I'd try to get Brandee to reach -- long and low, as it were. Stop, take a few steps backwards. Finis.
Leg yields at the point are not very good. We go sideways, but I'm clearly pulling and Brandee is pulling her head up. I've *got* to get stronger with my body so that I can keep her frame and allow her to reach. In my own defence I can get a few steps of it properly before we lose it again. :-/
After a few days of practicing this pattern Brandee is mostly making the full triangle at the canter. Before she'd fall out before we got to X, but I'm sure that's mostly my fault for anticipating the change of gait too soon.
Well, like I said, it's being a challenge and giving us something different to work on. Just keep swimming, swimming, swimming...
Sport of Kings (i.e. Fighting): I leave this afternoon for PDX and a weekend of sweetie time! Yay! We will be packing Chris' truck and heading to the site Thursday -- we'll get there when we get there. The karmic irony of me going to an event that really-o truely-o is All About heavy fighting is not lost on me. ;-) In case you don't know, Sport of Kings is an every-other-year weekend camping colligium focused on tourney fighting hosted by An Tir. There are 2 class tracks: one that is fighting classes and another that is support to fighing (e.g. consorting, gambason making, etc.) I'm taking 4 classes: Sports nutrition using period foods, horse barding (I want to see what the An Tirians have been doing in this area :-) ), massage for fighters, and a class Graf Berek (a veteran of the Old Westermark, I'm happy to say) is teaching on fighter appreciation for non-fighters. What I'm hoping to get out of the latter is a better eye so that I can help J/S. I have a lot of trouble seeing anything when I watch fighting, I have to say. Leohtulf has told me to look not at the swords but at body movement that will project intent, but I still can't see that.
I want to support J/S as much as I can. And I'm sure he'll help me with horsie stuff, so it will all even out I'm sure. :-)
Weight: I'll say it again, maintanence is hard. I was super good after Vegas and spent a lot of last week being at the weight I want to be at. These last few days I got lazy, however, and started eating because I was bored and a bit depressed (letdown after a weekend emotional high, and lonely for my sweetie). So now I'm up almost 3 lbs. Bugger. And I'm going to wear my new Bettie Page dress to go see J/S. Well, I was up a few lbs in Vegas so it will be OK, but tighter than I was envisoning.
Like
etaine_pommier writes, if you journal you stay on the straight and narrow. But maintanence is continual, it's a every-day-for-the-rest-of-your-life thing. But, on the plus side, I've learned how to come down from periods of Festive Eating. I just need to keep doing it. Yes, I am giving myself a pep-talk here.
Oh, and while we're on body image, I've been struggling with the whole getting older thing. My fat has shifted and I'm older so now I've got skin noticably hanging from my chin and neck. It depresses me that all the pretty dresses at the Bettie Page site aren't -- or won't be soon-- 'age appropriate'. Now, I'm all for flaunting what I've got (with WW I've got a high body to face ratio these days; I know that I'm doing great for being almost 50!). So struggling with what's OK for me to wear and still feel good while not inviting public ridicule. I know, it may sound weird/paranoid to you, but I am having these thoughts.
Aging -- it still beats being dead!
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no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 06:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 07:08 pm (UTC)I guess I hope that the sub-dermal adipose tissues will even out if I ever get to my target weight. Magically. Yeah. Uh huh.
no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 08:55 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2009-08-19 10:30 pm (UTC)Can you see body dynamics when you watch another horse and rider? (Balance or lack of it? Resistance? Being with or behind the motion?) If you can do that, you can learn to see it with fighters. (I don't know if I could do it while someone was aiming a stick at my head, but I wasn't Sir Tanaka's "human video camera" for nothing.)
Yeah but,
Date: 2009-08-20 12:17 am (UTC)