to leg yield or not to leg yield - interesting article

I've been reading over the past six months about the finer points of using the leg yield - or not using it, as the case may be - and when several blogs I read had leg yielding info this morning, I decided to look for something that concisely addresses the controversy over the movement, which many classical dressage riders feel should never have been put into the first level tests in the United States.

A quick Google search found an article that does a great job looking at the leg yield and outlining its benefits and its disadvantages - GO HERE TO READ.

You'll need to scroll down to get to the article itself, and once you've read that one, there just happens to be another article below it about the older rider - written by a dressage rider who is also an MD. Interesting material and recommendations for those of us "riders of a certain age." :)

Over the past few years I have gradually stopped using leg yield when riding Keil Bay. He much prefers shoulder-in as a suppling exercise and the immediate benefits are glaringly apparent in whatever exercise we move on to in that ride.  I get the best canters from him when we do shoulder-in first, and I also sometimes use shoulder-in as a "go-to" exercise if he is being spooky towards any particular part of the arena or any object - especially if the object is known to him.

With Cody (although it's been ages since I rode him - daughter keeps him working well!) I used to do spiraling circles using the leg yield, which seems to balance him and get him using his hind end in a more engaged way. However, the last time I watched daughter do spiraling circles on him, I made a note that it's beyond time to teach him shoulder-in (I'm actually not sure if he's ever done it or not) and see what the benefits are for him. There are only so many spiraling circles one can do in a given ride, and that exercise is not one I'd drill over and over again.

I'd love to hear folks' thoughts on the leg yield, and what your experiences are using it, or if you don't use it, what you do instead that works well.

the last part of the wonderland series

 I had these last few photos of the remaining structure of the Wonderland left and wanted to finish off this series. These two with the huge stone fireplace are shots of the dance hall. In the second photo you can see the raised stage where the bands played.

There's something about this room that particularly takes me back in time. Standing there, you almost hear music, and I felt a definite sense of motion - dancing couples and all the little dramas that most certainly played out.

One of the main characters in my third novel, Signs That Might Be Omens, is very attached to this place. In a brief scene he lays out a fantasy that he and Claire might have lived back in the time of Elkmont's boom years. It occurred to me today as I uploaded these photos - the character Bingham basically gifted me with a novel. He laid it out so beautifully it would be easy to take the idea and run with it. A sort of "past lives" novel. In the past minute or so this little germ appeared and then grew to the point that it is now being written down in my black Moleskine notebook.

This is why when writers tell me they're blocked, I suggest they get out into the world and walk around, open their eyes and all their senses, take photographs, find interesting places and people to watch and soak in. At some point bits of ideas will begin to float up and will push at you until you pay attention to them. For some of us, it happens almost too much - and the task is holding the ideas at bay long enough to finish other things already in progress!

My head is full of books.

 

The above is a small structure near the back of the hotel. It may have been a cottage for staff, or an extra kitchen. It, too, seems occupied, although as you can see, it's long been empty. Part of the appeal of these structures is that with the camera and a zoom lens, you can ratchet in close and get a sense of the emptiness - and also of the ghostliness of the place. Often, in all these photos, when I click and get the biggest image possible, I see things I didn't even know were there.

 

This is a view of one of the remaining fireplaces, looking back toward the site of the hotel.

I was struck with nearly every shot at how much life there still is in the place. And without all the fencing keeping us out, there was a sense of peace there too.

happy thanksgiving 2010

Here's hoping that everyone has a "zen horse" day! I'm thankful for a wonderful family of humans and animals, a home we love, and the best friends (in person and online) anyone could hope to have.

Happy Thanksgiving to everyone!

a few photos from the writing retreat week, and a brief essay on small towns

 

This was the view out the writers' kitchen door. The golden leaves were especially brilliant in the late afternoon sun, and each time I came down to the kitchen I felt the illumination surround me. 

One afternoon I took a drive to a neighboring small town where I actually rented an office for about a year while working on my first novel. I used to drive there one afternoon a week and used the office to write. Somehow, in all that time, and in subsequent visits to the little downtown, I never noticed this street name, but this trip, with the subject matter of my new novel fully blooming,  it seemed like a huge omen.

The same evening, as I walked from the bookstore across the train tracks to a coffee shop, I glanced up and noticed this little scene. It seemed like the opening line to a novel. Maybe the next one? Since I generally have to have one germ of an idea securely in place at all times, and since my previous germ is now a fully-bloomed idea with a first page, this might have been my subconscious trying to get me back in my fully loaded writer mode. I admit, there is a vague germ forming in my mind even as I type this.

The Brief Essay:

Pushing your religious views onto an entire email list of high school classmates is inappropriate and offensive, even if done "with love."  Getting angry when someone (me) speaks up and points this out is intolerant and a pretty good sign that instead of praying for ME to be saved, you might need to do a little more work on your own character.

Gossiping with other classmates about it off the list, posting about it on your Facebook page, and then defriending someone (me) is just about the exact thing I remember happening not only all through the early years of school in a small southern town, but in Sunday school classes taught by similarly-gossip-prone mothers - one of the reasons I stopped going to church when I was young - even at that delicate pre-adolescent age, I recognized hypocrisy in action. Some things just never change.

Other things do change: when one of the quietest members of a high school class grows up, leaves the small southern town, and blooms, she (me) gets a lot of private support and thanks for being willing to speak up about something that apparently drives a lot of folks nuts.

Moral of this story: be really careful what you say and do when you start up an email list for old classmates and then act out your lack of growth as a human being. Be even more careful when you do it and the quiet one (me) has a memory like an elephant and is now a writer of novels, especially one whose mother (mine) has been trying to talk her (me) into writing a novel about this little town for years and years.

Considering the little town started out as Hinton's Quarters (my ancestors from England) and ended up like Peyton Place, you just never know. While my interest in writing about the small-minded people in a small southern town is just about zero, I've always been one who rises to the challenge when there are under-dogs involved. And goodness, to come home from a week of writing bliss, sans germ, and stumble into this ripe with drama material. Ripe with drama, maybe, but not all that appealing.

And yet, in the same small town there were folks like this. He and his family were neighbors for many years and one of his daughters a friend. The contrast in the range of humans in that tiny town was (and still is) staggering. Not unusual, but I think more noticeable because of the smallness of the community. I encountered the extremes on a daily, even hourly, basis. On some level, as both a person and a writer, I'm still trying to resolve the things I loved about living in a small town with the things that pushed me to leave it as soon as I could. It's that struggle, if I could write it, that would make the story a meaningful one.

back on the hill just in time for the full/blue moon

I'm home again after a nice, productive, magical writing retreat, and now have to make that flying leap from living with no responsibility except to my characters back to the very full life with a big family, a small mountain of laundry, and a SCHEDULE. (it's the lack of schedule on writing retreat that lends to such amazing productivity)

It was great to get home and see cats, dogs, horses, donkeys, teens (one who has now completed his driving education course in full and is awaiting one document before getting his driving permit) and husband. We were all supposed to go see the Harry Potter movie tonight but I sent them on without me, as I started feeling like I just needed to lie down on my own bed and relax for awhile tonight - the real return to daily routines begins tomorrow morning, and I want to be well-rested as I make that leap.

I have a few photos to share but at the moment am too lazy to go unpack the camera cord, so I'll save them for tomorrow.

Savoring the full moon (it really does look blue right now) and looking forward to a quiet Thanksgiving with the entire November Hill gang.