Post by dalesnfellfan on Jul 26, 2015 18:43:27 GMT -1
Back from camp, exhausted but very happy
11796235_10153453371079076_4303421440641517635_n by Andrea Tyrrell, on Flickr
Photos not brilliant will upload some professional ones when I've chosen some.
We had a brilliant time, despite saying I'd moved on from being nervous on Connie and was ready to build on things, in the first assessment lesson she was excited by everything and I went back to being a quivering wreck, leaning forward and grabbing hold of her. Although excited she never put a foot wrong the whole time and with 4 fantastic trainers we made some great progress, I have never had lessons from such a high level of instructor before and it was like a revelation, I would not have believed I could achieve so much in 4 days, 7 lessons and a competition.
My position is so much more secure and effective and I feel so much more confident because of it, I feel I've been given the missing link.
Over the course of the 4 days we did flatwork, poles and grid work, jumping, and cross country, all jumps were only small (under 2 foot) for us and we were put in groups according to our ability very carefully so there was always sympathetic encouragement without ever feeling of being over faced.
We hacked in the forest once but were too knackered to do more, which was a shame as it was lovely, and we had a whale of a time in the water complex and on the bank on the cross country course, sadly no photos of us on the cross country as the photographer wasn't there for our session, he got a great one of Amanda in the water though.
On Friday after a lesson of our choice in the morning there was a competition, we could choose 2 classes out of 3, show jumping, cross country or dressage, I did the jumping and stressage which was Prelim.13.
I was very concerned about doing a prelim for my first ever test but it went better than expected in the pouring rain, we scoured 56.7% and had 4 x 6's, 2 x 7's but also 2 x 3.5's which were for the canter bits, we had all 6's for the collective marks and she went really well for me so I was very pleased and it's given me motivation to go out and do some intro's, much to my surprise I loved it.
The jumping was judged on clear round plus style, fluency and effectiveness of riding and although we were split into classes according to height (mine was 18" - 2 ') we were all judged as one class of 24 and I came 8th, I was gobsmacked!!!
I also got the rosette for the most improved rider at camp, just shows how crap I was on the first day!
We had a ball and I'm definitely going again next year.
Lovely photos. 
