First riding lesson

This morning I went back to the National Museum of Scotland because I had to look at a certain exhibit (Scotland: A Changing Nation) for my history tutorial tomorrow. I think I'm going to go back to the museum a few more times. It's enormous and a really good museum, plus it's free and close to where I live.

After that I went back to my flat and got some work done, then went to the bank, bought some groceries, ate lunch, and went to my first riding lesson here.

We met at the informatics building at 3, then drove about 45 minutes to the barn. It was cool being in a British car, listening to British radio, driving through the Scottish countryside. We got to the barn (very nice, by the way), got ready to ride, then went to the ring (they have 2 indoor rings). The lesson before us was running late so we waited a little, then the horses for our lesson weren't there so we had to wait for them. The wrong horses were brought up (they were more for the beginner level, not advanced which is what we were) but we rode them anyway. They said that it's not usually that crazy but it was fine, we still rode for almost the full hour.

I was on a horse called Sid. Before the lesson people were talking about how crazy this horse is, then I rode him... He wasn't really crazy, just fast and he kept his head up which is obnoxious because it makes the rider pretty ineffective. I got him moving decently though so it was fine.

I really liked the trainer. She started off the lesson by just having us walk/trot around for 5 minutes without instruction to get a feel of our horses. Then we each said what we liked about the horse and what we wanted to work on, and she said that my observations about Sid were exactly right and what she would have said, which was a confidence boost.

I rode pretty well considering the horse, and I felt like I was at or above the level of the other riders. People that are at my level or above me are on the teams (competitive teams that you have to try out for at the beginning of the year), so even the advanced lesson isn't super advanced.

The trainer is really good. She focused more on us getting the horses to do better than focusing on our positions, which is perfect for an advanced lesson. We all know how to ride so lessons get boring if the trainer just focuses on our position, but she really focused on training the horses and doing movements for suppleness and stuff. It's an eventing barn so I'm going to learn a little dressage which is helpful. She was upset that the wrong horses were brought up because she said that at our level we shouldn't have to be training the horses, so I think in the future the lessons will go more smoothly and we'll have nice horses.

We didn't jump which was a huuuge bummer. Apparently the teams jump a lot more at their lessons than the rest of the riders do (they get 2 hour lessons), but I hope I get to jump at least a little bit while I'm here... Overall it was fun and I'm happy with the way I rode. It was great to ride again!