Vaulting Lesson with Rosie from Jive Pony!!!!

Rosie came here yesterday to give me my first ever vaulting lesson and it was brilliant - the best fun I've ever had on a horse!!!!! She is an incredible teacher- very enthusiastic and encouraging while making things like walking around the school standing on your horse's back seem like a perfectly normal and reasonable thing to do!

Grace was a complete superstar and never turned a hair at anything. Her only fault was stopping if she got too worried about our antics. She used to be quite a spooky pony so she showed just how far she's come.

I had told Rosie that all I wanted to do was to be able to vault on at a walk, trot and canter but the truth is that was all I ever thought I'd be capable of. As it was we went through loads of vaulting positions including walking around the school with me standing on Grace's back, sitting on her neck with my legs crossed behind her ears, kneeling with one foot on the pad, and even a shoulder stand on her withers.

Unfortunately we ran out of battery time for the video before we got to the most impressive parts but I'm going to set up a roped off cone circle so I can practise on my own to my hearts content and get a little demo videoed of all the moves. I didn't quite get to the stage of being able to vault on unaided but apparently it's much easier at canter and looking at the videos I can see, watching Rosie and then myself, that I'm not diving forward and pivoting enough yet.

I loved this SO much and sitting in a saddle will never have quite the same appeal again. I have been high as a kite ever since, in spite of the weather!!! I just need to buy a vaulting roller now, and finding one is easier said than done, but I'm on the hunt!!!

What I'd really love, one day, is to have some sort of equine theatre here. I have myself down for some sort of comedy vaulting act, which I would love as I love making people laugh, so I'll have to work out exactly what my angle will be!!!!!

Rosie is going to come again when I've practised on my own a bit more and she's going to be at The Devil's Horsemens Christmas Pantos, so we are going to meet up with her again there.

We had such a good laugh and such a good time, Rosie is such a lovely, sweet person and such good fun. She dared me onwards with laughing, twinkling eyes which made me try things against my better judgement, which was fine because her judgement was spot on and she made it all seem surprisingly easy. I was hardly stiff at all today either, which was a big surprise.

Rosie was telling me about all the new and exciting ideas she and Rebecca have for next year's Jive Pony shows and I can hardly wait to see them again then. They both have young horses who will be coming into the shows one at a time so they will have even more adrenalin going than normal!!!!!!!!



Having terrible trouble uploading videos, as you can see, although this one does work!!! Will try some more tomorrow!