This has been an up and down week. First, on Wednesday it got up to 70 F and it was sunny. Since my riding instructor went to Florida I did not get a lesson. I also had to groomed Mia and got real tired. I rode anyway because it was so beautiful, and I figured if I did anything horribly wrong that I could count on Mia to bring it to my attention. To my surprise I did not ride too badly.

I had been thinking about grooming more because I cannot think of a better warm up for riding, and this time it worked out real well, Mia was relaxed and attentive and moved out very well. If only I did not get SO TIRED when I groom, I just did not have the energy to work her real hard (for me) so I guess I may be running up against a brick wall here, and I have to come to a decision--groom Mia, warm up my muscles and have a better seat but no energy or not groom and have enough energy to get some physical fitness work in, and end up with sore, hurting muscles.

After Wednesday the weather turned wet, raw, windy and cold. I was all ready to get my lesson on Friday, but Debbie called me, talking about pneumonia weather and a sopping wet ring. I figured that if Debbie thought it was too bad to ride that I had better listen to her, and I wimped out. It was such a day that Mia would have been pretty stiff and really pissed off at me for dragging her out to the windy arena just to ride around in circles and making her go through those dreaded puddles. At least I had ridden on the most beautiful day for months, and I hoped to ride Sunday. It did not work out today though, I woke up to rain and Shannon said it was just too muddy even if it was not raining. Oh well.

Riding makes me tired, but riding is the best physical therapy of all for my type of MS. Luckily I have found two places that let me ride and do not charge me an arm and a leg for the privilege. Since I have been hearing of physical therapists charging over $100 USD an hour for physical therapy I am definitely coming out ahead spending $45 USD a week for an hour and a half of riding a week (including one formal lesson.) Lately I have been reading on the discussions here about how much coaches charge for their lessons, and I think of how fortunate I am. If the two ladies I ride with charged me much more I would not be able to afford to ride as much and my physical condition would be worse. Not only do I get to ride, but Debbie is one of the best riding teachers I've ever had. In spite of me not riding her method (and I do not enough energy and endurance to ride her way) and the fact that she had never tried to help someone as disabled as I am to ride, Debbie has made me a much better rider. I can always depend on her to correct my position and actions when I do some thing wrong. She also continually tests my riding knowledge, expecting me to explain why I am doing something, and what I expect, and how this ties in to making a better riding horse. A truly great education. I find her feedback invaluable. In return I never complained when she asked me to re-habilitate Mia, Debbie is helping me so much that I am happy to help her athritic horse, not only riding Mia but paying for her supplements and keeping her toes rasped down between the farrier work. In return Debbie has not raised my costs for lessons over these three years I've ridden with her. Shannon (who rides Western) gives me a chance to work with horses with problems in a safe environment, and gives me a invaluable feedback from a more Western point of view.

Back when I first owned horses I had a choice (back in those days lessons were included with board), I could either get real good, expensive lessons, for once a week, or I could own a horse, take the lessons at the stable and ride as often as I could get out to the stable. This meant that I did not have close supervision for a lot of my riding, and as hunt seat riding got further and further from my riding ideal I ended up not hassling it when lessons got moved to times I could not ride. Going back and forth between my riding books and my wonderful Anglo-Arab gelding Hat Tricks, and getting a very valuable 3 months residency at a Forward Seat riding school (North Forks, with Kay Russel), I gradually improved my riding. Nowadays I am SOOOO grateful that I went this route. I did not know I had MS, and I would have gotten so discouraged because my progress would have been so slow (or non-existent), just as my progress taking lessons as a live-in student was so slow (my lack of balance really held me back.) As it is it worked out well for me, back when I was younger I got all those invaluable hours of riding and learning how to read my horse, which meant that when I got back to riding as a severly disabled adult my seat could interpret what the horse was doing (and planning to do), and I had enough knowledge and skill to get the horse to do what I wanted it to do. I did not have to start my handicapped riding career not knowing how to ride, and I think I get a lot more physical therapy from my riding because of the knowledge my body acquired all those thousands of hours of just riding. At least I do not require dead quiet horses, and if my horse acts up I know how to ride it through and how to get back into control.

I used to get down on myself for not being able to afford the super lessons or top quality horses, thinking that I would never become a really good rider without them. Of course my undiagnosed MS would have prevented me from ever becoming a top rider anyway. As it was, toodling around on my not so greatly conformed hot-blooded horse trying to ride Forward Seat gave me a solid foundation that I have been able to use at three different stables to ride one both hotbloods and warmbloods, of which only one was a dead quiet horse. Now my goal is to become the best rider I can be WITHIN THE LIMITS OF MY DISABILITY. This is all I can do now. But as long as I can ride and gently control Arabs, you know, I don't really care. At least I've achieved that long term goal.

Have a great ride.