Lisa's Blog post # 48

This week marks the year anniversary of High Cotton’s move to Oak Hill and my discovery of the true nature of the beast I had fallen in love with just a couple of years before.

What a journey!  Lesley has taught me so much about how to ride Cotton and Cotton has taught me so much about Life.

How did a horse help me learn to be more joyful, content and peaceful?  As well as more confident, less easily influenced by others and less critical?  All of these qualities, plus large doses of patience and humility, have been imposed upon me from above through the ups and downs of living with, loving and learning my horse.  Add to that a deeper appreciation for the weather, God’s beautiful creation and friends who listen, encourage and edify – even when they don’t know they are doing it. 

Cotton has been good for my soul!

This week also marks the halfway point in our conditioning program.  It is my firm conviction that I do not have what it takes to get this horse going well – he really should be in training by a professional.  I am also firmly convinced that Lesley should be giving me dressage lessons on a schoolmaster so I can actually learn dressage and not just flail around at it – and put me on the lunge for the first 6 months while she’s at it!   Since neither of those luxuries enter into my foreseen future, I am content to do what I can with what I have to work with.

Being stripped of regular lessons has forced me to put a lot more thought into my learning.  I find myself doing homework before almost every ride by pouring over Lesley’s articles, doing additional reading and pondering what needs to happen before I climb up on my sweet, unbalanced, unpredictable, sensitive yet resistant horse.  My head knowledge far exceeds my “do it” knowledge. 

In a way that is good.  It means I have plenty to keep me busy during my lesson freeze!  Lesley has taught me tons of things my intellect agrees with and can describe and my mind can visualize and practice – it’s the actual “doing” that gets me!   It seems that every improvement I make only serves to uncover yet another shade of one of Cotton’s issues – or one of my own issues.  Like a never-ending spiral we keep coming back around.  But each time we make the loop our path has improved if only by just a hair!  

Thanks to Lesley – that I am not the same rider I was a year ago and thanks to Cotton - that I am not the same person I was a year ago!