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Healthy exercise!
It's a lovely day! Such a lovely day, in fact, that I thought I'd see if I could entice GB out to the woods, rather than stay in the field, even though I didn't really have time for a long ride.
We did reasonably well, other than having to pause for five minutes at the point where the route goes from being "we might just be going to have a lesson" to being "nope, we're definitely going into the woods", but he was reasonably ok. I did have to actually give him a proper smack at one point*, but we managed ok. We were only in the woods for about half an hour, but we had a few nice canters, and he did enjoy it once he was out there, other than the muddy bits. I was going to take him over the short, steep hill-with-jump that he likes, but went we rode past the top of it on the way there, I saw that someone has added to the jump (a pile of loose branches in a dip, easy to swerve safely around and anyway likely to fall apart if something goes wrong): there's now an entire (admittedly fairly slender) tree entirely over the path, about a foot off the ground. Er, no, I think I'll pass on that. Bah.
* I hit my horse all the time with the whip. 90% of the time, it's a tiny tap of the order of tapping someone on the shoulder: he can barely feel it. 9.999999% of the time, it's something that would make a person go "ow!" and for him is like, well, being tapped on the shoulder and told "oi!". The rest of the time is like today. Then, of course, there are the times when I hit him with my hand. That's mostly when he's just tried to bite me, though, so....
It's such a lovely day that I almost put him back in the field without his rug on, but I was in a rush and I didn't have time to canvas opinion around the yard. I need to get on with getting him a non-stuffed waterproof rug for dreary summer days, as it would have been ideal for today as well. Ah well.
Why was I in a rush? I had a slightly-inconveniently-times pilates class. I was a little worried about this: I hadn't realised, when they booked me onto it as a fill-in until I can join the one I wanted to be on, that it was "mixed ability" rather than "beginner". Their website says that you have to do a beginner or intermediate class for six months before you join a mixed ability one, which was slightly concerning. Also concerning was the instructor (not the one I had my assessment with) saying "you've done lots of pilates before, yes?" when I arrived and wasn't on her list. More relaxing was the instructor saying "oh, yes, I heard about you" when I said I'd just had my assessment, and the sight of the rest of the people in the class: mostly over fifty, by the looks of things, other than a couple of people who were just generally unfit looking for other reasons.
(To be fair, this isn't that surprising for a class at noon on a week day! I shall be a little concerned if this is the sort of level of the beginner class I'm actually going to be doing, though. I know it's not competitive, but that kind of thing does affect the level of the exercises generally. The class was much less hard work than my assessment was!)
Anyway, class went well. Other than showing me what I was actually supposed to be doing in a couple of unfamiliar exercises, she seemed happy with what I was doing. We'll see how it goes, and in particular whether the traffic will actually let me get there for the class I'm signed up for!
(Bah: I was supposed to be going out for booze'n'tapas this evening, but I've been cancelled on! I suppose I'll have to spend the evening with my beloved husband instead.)
We did reasonably well, other than having to pause for five minutes at the point where the route goes from being "we might just be going to have a lesson" to being "nope, we're definitely going into the woods", but he was reasonably ok. I did have to actually give him a proper smack at one point*, but we managed ok. We were only in the woods for about half an hour, but we had a few nice canters, and he did enjoy it once he was out there, other than the muddy bits. I was going to take him over the short, steep hill-with-jump that he likes, but went we rode past the top of it on the way there, I saw that someone has added to the jump (a pile of loose branches in a dip, easy to swerve safely around and anyway likely to fall apart if something goes wrong): there's now an entire (admittedly fairly slender) tree entirely over the path, about a foot off the ground. Er, no, I think I'll pass on that. Bah.
* I hit my horse all the time with the whip. 90% of the time, it's a tiny tap of the order of tapping someone on the shoulder: he can barely feel it. 9.999999% of the time, it's something that would make a person go "ow!" and for him is like, well, being tapped on the shoulder and told "oi!". The rest of the time is like today. Then, of course, there are the times when I hit him with my hand. That's mostly when he's just tried to bite me, though, so....
It's such a lovely day that I almost put him back in the field without his rug on, but I was in a rush and I didn't have time to canvas opinion around the yard. I need to get on with getting him a non-stuffed waterproof rug for dreary summer days, as it would have been ideal for today as well. Ah well.
Why was I in a rush? I had a slightly-inconveniently-times pilates class. I was a little worried about this: I hadn't realised, when they booked me onto it as a fill-in until I can join the one I wanted to be on, that it was "mixed ability" rather than "beginner". Their website says that you have to do a beginner or intermediate class for six months before you join a mixed ability one, which was slightly concerning. Also concerning was the instructor (not the one I had my assessment with) saying "you've done lots of pilates before, yes?" when I arrived and wasn't on her list. More relaxing was the instructor saying "oh, yes, I heard about you" when I said I'd just had my assessment, and the sight of the rest of the people in the class: mostly over fifty, by the looks of things, other than a couple of people who were just generally unfit looking for other reasons.
(To be fair, this isn't that surprising for a class at noon on a week day! I shall be a little concerned if this is the sort of level of the beginner class I'm actually going to be doing, though. I know it's not competitive, but that kind of thing does affect the level of the exercises generally. The class was much less hard work than my assessment was!)
Anyway, class went well. Other than showing me what I was actually supposed to be doing in a couple of unfamiliar exercises, she seemed happy with what I was doing. We'll see how it goes, and in particular whether the traffic will actually let me get there for the class I'm signed up for!
(Bah: I was supposed to be going out for booze'n'tapas this evening, but I've been cancelled on! I suppose I'll have to spend the evening with my beloved husband instead.)