A Blog about A Blog …
When I started this blog just over a year ago I had the very splendid vision that I would be able to take you through my journey from an ambitious, frustrated, slightly out of shape dressage enthusiast with a distinct lack of clarity in my thinking culminating in my qualification for regional finals with my training approach “The Crystal System” complete and proven.
How very adolescent I feel about my lack of foresight, knowing then, as I did that with horses you have to take the rough with the smooth; to accept that you will have set backs and they will, inevitably come.
I sustained an injury in November from a fall which took me out of action for 2 months. I think I may have fractured my pelvis but I never got round to getting it X-rayed! As for my horse (A.K.) she has feigned some sort of impairment with intermittent lameness on and off all year. It has cursed my progress and left me more than a little miffed. Does she not know that I am writing a book and need to ride?
So, this weekend I was thinking, whilst mucking out for the third time; A.K. munching carelessly recycling the haylage (she’s on box rest) completely unaware that my aspirations are not to be a first-rate ‘mucker-outer’! Hey ho. I digress; I was thinking that as I am on the fifth chapter of the book, having already committed to paper (metaphorically as it’s all on my PC) loads of fascinating stuff about motivation, purpose, fitness, rider assessment and training exercises you guys might be interested in following the run up to the book launch in a series of blogs about the blog, or more specifically a personal, honest and hopefully humorous look at how I will get to the point of launch of The Crystal System Book.
Let’s say today is day one. I have a gazillion ideas rumbling around in my head and whilst I had hoped to take off for half a day, go sit in a peaceful place, maybe in the woods next to my yard, get everything out into some sort of order, organise my brain maybe – this did not happen. Friends turned up and put paid to that idea. I’d provisionally spoken to Mark (my partner and mentor) about my idea to go in the woods, find a nice spot and sit down, with the sun shining through the trees whilst I fervently scribbled all my ideas and got them out of my head. He thought it was a great idea and I was pleased.
W
hen our friends arrived, I looked at him with a hopeless, sappy look on my face. He knew what I was thinking, so took me to one side and with a sympathetic air calmly stated “I know you’re disappointed but there will be other opportunities for you to purge your shit in the woods!”
Indeed! Is the Pope Catholic?
Patricia – The Dressage Tipster
help@likecrystal.com
I am really enjoying your “tips”
and can’t wait to read your book!
hopefully you will find time soon to get out into the “wood”:)
Thank you Sandra, don’t forget if there’s anything I can help you with, just drop me a line. Px
Hi Patricia, I too really enjoy reading your very helpful tips and blogs and am looking forward to your book. I have a similar problem in that I need to go and find somewhere quiet to read your blogs without feeling guilty that I really should be working so flick back and forth between work and dressage. There just does not seem to be enough hours in the day. It would be lovely if we could all go and sit in the woods in the sunshine and talk about dressage and horses 🙂
Yeah, that’d be great Deb. What a nice idea! Px
Patricia,
I do enjoy and take in every word you write. I print the tips and have them handy – not only to take to the woods – but just crab with me to the loo ….
Yesterday I heard a remarkable story about a horse that had been intermittently lame and not able to do canter to left. The desperate owner called for a animal communicator as her last resort. The wise woman spoke with the horse and learned that left canter was not a problem for the horse but that the rider person (owners daughter) had such a pain in her back that that the horse refused the canter to save her from suffering. And so it was, she has been treated and rode a dressage test last Sunday. The story came out when I commented on their beautiful performance.
Oh my word, I have a vision of you reading my blog … sitting up tall – on the loo! lol and the horse whisperer story … pretty unusual, but hey, whatever works, can’t have a closed mind! Px
LOL! Love the cartoon! By the way, I had a fall two weeks ago, which resulted in an ambulance ride, on a spinal board, with a suspected pelvic fracture! Seems to be catching! My bruising was so widespread and intense in colour, my daughter said I had the markings of a Friesian cow! Nice! I don’t know when I shall be able to ride, because although I don’t have a fracture, I do have a haematoma containing approx. one and a half litres of blood, which could take up to six months to reabsorb! How on earth am I to begin to retain any riding muscle tone? Answers on a postcard, please. <:-)
Kathy, your injury sounds exactly the same as mine, with the bruising going from the point of my hip at the front, right round to my spine at the back! And the haematoma – Yes, I have one too. Maybe not so big though! Anyway the good news is that you will be able to ride before the haematoma goes down fully, the bad news is you will lose muscle tone and ache like hell when you climb back aboard! Oh the joys of Dressage.