january 20: day 15

with our 4 finnish guests in town for intensives, the days sure have been full but i have enjoyed talking with them, hearing their back and forth banter, and listening in as much as i can to their lessons with craig. though they are working on stuff so much farther ahead of me, it is helpful to see what kind of things are in the future and it's also a reminder that yes, everything comes from the most basic of building blocks that i am only becoming acquainted with now.

before i left yesterday i spent just a few minutes in the arena as mary anne's shadow as she instructed tulaa on the ground and lea in the saddle, working with bleu. they were playing with the clockwise and counterclockwise concepts - lea experiencing the motion in her body astride the horse as tulaa initiated the movements with the horse in hand. as mary anne instructed lea to draw her mind's eye (or the flashlight as we like to call it) to different areas of her body to notice any tension and release it to more fully experience the circular motions the horse's body produces, mary anne and i were circling along on the ground. mary anne pointed out that we could all experience the motion in our seatbones and then we had this moment where we realized how hilarious we must all look, this clump of 5 of us (bleu included) tripping out on our "circular motion" concepts at that end of the arena... helps to be a weirdo when you're amongst a whole bunch of weirdos thinking the same thing is cool. :)

i'm looking forward to the practice time alejandro and i should have tomorrow. i hope we can practice some lunging and seatwork because i am itching to ride again and put my mind on the areas i need to work on relaxing in the saddle.

so the recurrent theme is, once again: my brain is full, feels almost too full, as i am trying to process, relax, process, relax amongst the onslaught of new information i'm encountering daily.