Down the Rabbit Hole

Horse-minded Vernacular

30 Day Blogging Challenge
PROMPT January 5th
Write about a time you learned something new. Use and highlight at least 3 words in your entry that are not part of your normal vocabulary and provide your readers with definitions for those words.

My daughter has recently taken up horseback riding. It has been an education for me, horses and horsemanship has always resided squarely in my little sister's wheelhouse. Since my daughter is only nine, I have become an active participant in her new hobby and as such, I have learned a lot about something I once believed was "simple", is really about much more than just jumping on the back of a horse and grabbing the reins. It is about balance and posterior, about confidence and connecting with your horse. In order to learn, my daughter has to listen with more than just her ears, she has to be more intuitive and aware at all times. She has to be thinking about steering and about the messages she is sending her horse by the position of her legs, and movement of her hands. I have learned that the "half seat" is the posture riders adopt for jumping but also to allow their mounts to rest by temporarily relieving the weight of their riders bodies at regular intervals. Her instructor is always telling her to "put him in the corners", referring to the far reaches of the ring, getting her horse to use the full area of the arena during the lesson. I can tell from her face that she is always concentrating now, especially when they are working the patterns like Serpentines, figure eight patterns that weave between poles or cones, in preparation for the shows. I think part of the appeal of the sport is that she gets to engage her mind as well as her heart doing something she loves.