Saturday, April 05, 2008

skipping right along

I'm up to pages 149-169 this afternoon. This next section is where I'll have to make bigger changes to expand the subplot I've been researching and incorporating. So far it's working well and I've hit no stuck places.

Keil Bay is also skipping right along. In the arena yesterday, during one of our rainy day play sessions, he was doing freestyle one-tempi changes, which for those of you not obsessed with dressage movements, does look like skipping.

I am not at the level to ride one-tempi changes and to be honest, I didn't even know Keil Bay could DO them. He regularly does flying changes in the arena but this was really fun to watch and exciting to see. His previous trainer told me he could do canter pirouettes (and I've ridden exactly ONE of those on him) and now that I've seen the one-tempi steps I'm thinking he can teach me even more than I thought he could about the higher level dressage movements.

Most importantly to me, he feels good enough and moves well enough to do these things on his own. I love seeing him move so brilliantly.

If the forecast is accurate, the rain should roll out of here tonight and we'll have a number of days of sunshine this coming week, so I can actually RIDE again.

Meanwhile, I'm WRITING, imagining the words flowing in perfect one-tempi beats.

4 comments:

Rising Rainbow said...

Sounds like there's a lot he's going to be able to teach you about dressage. That's pretty cool.

billie said...

He has already taught me a lot - this one was a surprise though. He's been holding back on me!

Grey Horse Matters said...

Isn't it nice when they show you something new, it's always amazing to me how talented they are without us even knowing it. Looks like it's going to be a good week weather wise and you should get in as much riding as you can. Sounds as if you are breezing right through with your writing, great you sure have a lot of energy.

billie said...

Hopefully the forecast is accurate and we'll get some sun tomorrow. It is really mucky - we've had a lot of rain but it's all been very slow and steady and soaking in. A good thing but the ground is completely saturated.

Fortunately the arena drains well and so long as the rain stops, we can ride tomorrow. The Pony Club eventing clinic was canceled due to the saturated ground conditions at the cross country course, so suddenly the whole day is clear.

I've been coming back to this particular batch of pages several times this evening - haven't quite nailed the edit yet but if I give it some space w/o moving on in the story it should come.