Less is More

After an almost solid year of enjoying my new discipline and learning more each lesson and enjoying every ride that I had on my horse, I hit a block.  My trainer has been pushing us towards more.  We have really gotten the things that she has thrown at us and so we are building up to more and more difficult things.  Yesterday I found a block to moving forward.  We were working on haunches in, going over the mechanics of it and how, specifically, I am supposed to use my body to accomplish this next level movement.  (Haunches in is the first building block of collection, I learned.)  My trainer said that I needed to move my outside thigh back.  Wait, whaaat?!  Umm, the grip that I have with my thighs is what has kept me from dying for my entire riding career.  You are telling me that I have to let go with my thighs and be loose with them in order to continue moving forward in my training?  Yikes!  So now I am not allowed to grip with my calves (fine) and I am not allowed to grip with my thighs (uhhhh).  I have never been allowed to grip with my knees, so that's out.  So I now have no leg with which I am allowed to grip.  Dear sweet baby Jesus, enter the fear that this is where my lack of balance is going to take me down.  Seriously, I walk into the walls in my hallway more often than I am comfortable admitting.  I am left with my sense of balance (*gulp*) and my seat and core.  The good news is that I am willing to try.  I have faith in my trainer and I have faith in my horse.  They have led me great places so far, no reason to think that's not going to happen here as long as I am brave enough to try.  The better news is that my blessed horse has already shown me that this is the way to go.  At the end of our haunches in lesson, as I was trying to unglue my thigh from my saddle, once I got even a little bit where I needed to be, guess what, Tosh did a gorgeous haunches in!  It required me to do almost nothing.  I kept a feel of my inside rein to keep his head facing forward and I convinced my outside thigh to slide back and TA DA, beautiful haunches in with minimal effort.  It turns out that less really is more in this case!  So here I go, off to try to relax a lifetime of muscle memory!