This past weekend we competed at the Willow Draw Horse Trial in Weatherford, Texas. It is a fabulous venue that is home to my future dressage arena. (Hear that universe??) The property is stunning and everyone was excited to be at the show. I had recently been up-graded from my leg immobilizer and crutches combination to a fancy hinged knee brace. My bionic leg and I were all set to tackle a HT with all the course walks and all the schooling and, and... yes, I got a lit

“Ever tried. Ever failed. No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better.” —Samuel Beckett” ― Pema Chödrön, Fail, Fail Again, Fail Better: Wise Advice for Leaning into the Unknown I just finishing listening to this book on my way to morning lessons. It's amazing. The author was suggested to me from one of my yoga instructors, whom hopefully you will be introduced to at a future time. With the last few weeks of being on crutches, changing barns, changing schedules, scratchin

I did my first float yesterday. I had been in conversation with Liquid Floats about partnering with equestrians. We mutually agreed the best place for me to start would be to hop in and try a float myself. Off I went to a flotation therapy spa . I should start off by saying- I'm amazingly claustrophobic. Didn't-make-it-through-the-pool-section-of-scuba-dive-lessons-because-of-the-mask claustrophobic and was talking myself down a level of anxiety I don't even want to disc

I wrote this a few months ago, but wanted to share it to this blog as well. The original post can be found here. This is what happens when you listen to "The Power of Now" on the way to the horse show. Audio books for the win! “You’re riding like you don’t trust your mare.” “I don’t," came the instinctive reply without pause. “Then get out of the tack,” came an even faster reply. {shocked look} “It’s not that you don’t trust your mare. You don’t trust yourself. That’s a ver

I know, asking you guys to come back a second time for the conclusion of this post was a teeny bit mean. It's actually that I was in the truck on the way to Texas Rose HT typing and my laptop battery was dying. Also, I thought the post was getting a bit long. If you have no idea what I am talking about, read PART ONE here. Anyway, I booked a XC clinic at Pine Hill and decided that I would contact a friend of mine about teaching a yoga class on the second day of the XC clin

Yes. Yes it is. A good friend of mine asked, "OM Riding... isn't that a some hippie sh@$? Aren't you worried that people will think you're not as serious about training competition riders/horses?" Excellent questions. Those two questions are probably the biggest reason that I "held back" this side of my coaching for so long. Yes, yes... we all know I love kale so I likely didn't do a great job of hiding it (Sorry, Texas). However, the stigma of what a successful up-and-co

As I mentioned in the last post, I am working my way through one of my life lessons. This means I am on crutches, again. I'm bringing up the crutches thing only because it directly relates to a realization I had today . Being on crutches forces you to slow down. At a base level, it is simply not as effective of a ground covering method as a pair of running sneakers. In addition, crutches imply an inherent instability within the lower limb region. So while you are literal

The universe has a way of slowing you down when you need to. Especially if you know you need to slow down, but ignore it. This is one of my many, many life lessons. Typically if I have been red-lined for too long and feel like I have been spinning my wheels, metaphorically speaking, the universe happily steps in and slaps me right upside the head, er, knee as it were. As I write this, I am icing my newly colored knee and drinking tea while stealing glances at my crutches p