Just another day with Amy. Oh yeah and Peter too!!

I am not sure if Karen will ever agree to be a passenger in a vehicle that I am driving again.  I may have traumatized her for life.  First of all I get so excited when she gets into the vehicle I proceed to get on a highway that I am not even supposed to be on going in completely the wrong direction.  Then when trying to turn around the construction made that next to impossible.  My husband was in disbelief how I could have possibly gone the direction I did.  I have no good excuse except it was too early and I was too excited to think straight.  On the way down we had many conversations.  One being about how long it has been since I have gotten a ticket.  That should have been a sign.  About 2 hours into our trip we are sitting at a stop light, as soon as I start to pull away I hear  a siren behind me and lo and behold I was getting pulled over.  After pretty much looking like a complete blond by not knowing how to put down the window in my husband's car and insisting to Karen to get the registration out of the non existent glove box.  The officer sends me off with a warning and "slow down young lady".  Sorry Karen I think my inappropriate comments will be left between you and me ;).  Trust me, me, cops and inappropriateness go way back.  I will have to save that story for our next adventure!

Now onto Peter.  As the trainer personally responsible for making me an incredibly better rider than I ever was I of course have mad love for the man.  He went over many of the same things I had heard at event camp but there were definitely some great new information that really got my wheels turning.  I spent one entire lesson feeling like the creepiest stalker girl, ever.  I did my best to always stay two steps behind him at all times.  Which I am sure is probably completely annoying to someone but I wanted to make sure I was getting all his lesson including everything he was saying on tape.  And trust me keeping up with Peter is a challenge in and of itself.  He is a quick little bugger!  Many times I was shamelessly running after him to keep up.  He is sneaky too.  Before you know it is 50 ft away and I swear he was standing right next to me a second ago.  So off I trot...

Watch the lesson.  There is such great information in each video.  Here is video 1 and 2.



Video 1 is warming up.  Peterisms: Canter backwards with your hips.  A strange and confusing statement but once you get the feel of what he means it is a great thing.  His point was if you are cantering forward with your body you are setting the pace.  In turn pushing your horse to a jump and picking the take off spot.  He says you should let your horse do his job and find his own spot and let him set the pace with you cantering backwards with your hips to keep his pace steady and rhythmic. 

Something that I picked up is don't hold your horse off a jump.  The last 3 or 4 strides you have to give your horse his head and let him jump.  If we haven't done our job up until those last few strides then that is when we set them up to fail.  But we cannot try to fix it the last few strides.  If we hold them off a jump we are going to make them take a long spot.  Food for thought.

Video 2
In any given lesson by Peter there are somethings you will hear every time.  Things that he obviously feels are very important.  And safety is his #1 concern.  "The Peter Position" as one rider called it is when jumping, your legs forward, heals planted in front of the girth, toes out, hips in front of your shoulders, longer reins than typically thought and longer stirrups than typically thought, belly button in front of your boobs(his words not mine), look up, kick up, stand up.  And there you have it.  He advocates being behind the horses movement slightly.  This is mentioned when he asked 'Popping Sara' if being perfectly in balance is where she should be.  That is a tricky question.  I too would have confidently answered, yes.  But he says no perfectly in balance when something goes wrong, you go forward and that is dangerous...hmmm...very good point, right?  I would have to say I have never felt safer jumping than I have in 'the Peter Position.



Video 3 Peter speaking Taswegian...lol.