Monday, April 7, 2014

Mugs/Big K Clinic 2013

Becky Bean and Caspian



Excerpt from Becky Bean's not yet posted summary of the 2013 Clinic
Read more: http://www.blogofbecky.com/2014/04/mugwumpbig-k-clinic-day-1-first-ride.html


Speaking of horse height….Caspian's tallness worked for me.  I'd parked myself at the end of the line, but I didn't have any trouble seeing down the row of participants. Even though he still felt like an overly-sensitive firecracker underneath me, he stood politely, although his head was high and his neck was stiff.  I think we both sshared  the same, tight "what's gonna happen next?"  look on our face.

Tim had an easy, personable way of speaking - friendly, calm, and just really easy going.  I knew that Mugwump had mentioned that as first-timers and newbies we wouldn't be seeing the cold silences and disapproval we'd read about in the Sonita stories... but it was still a relief to see it in person.

"So, I've never really done a clinic like this before - usually I have an idea where people are at in their riding, or what they're hoping to accomplish. Why don't we go down the line and we can talk about where you're at, and what you hope to get out of this clinic?"

... and so we did.  Flying lead changes, more efficient stops, tracking the cow better without anticipating, spinny circle thingies (do you like my technical jargon?) - everyone seemed to have a pretty good idea what it was they wanted to work on.

Except for me.

"I... uh.... I just want to ride?  I just got this gelding, so, uh... I just want to learn how to ride him better?"  I shrugged my shoulders at Tim, and threaded my fingers through the salt and pepper strands of Caspian's mane.

“Well, we can probably handle that.”










Pssst. I took down my contact email and website a while ago. Here's a new one for Mouthy Monday Stories - renamed Tall Tale Tuesday...and for questions you might want to ask me about the 2014 Clinic, or just private conversation. j.huntington@q.com --

Information for the 204 is on the right --> see? Mugs

3 comments:

  1. Yay! I have been so interested in hearing about last year's clinic, but I think Becky's computer ate her clinic report. I hope you will blog more about it too Mugs.

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  2. Becky's computer did eat the clinic report (apparently Montana rainstorms are not kind to Macbook Airs), and then she got writer's block trying to finish it up a second time. And then she got weirded out because she took so long to post it felt like it needed to be the most amazing post in the world to justify how long it was taking me.

    But fiiiiiine. If I wait to make it awesome, it'll never get published, so here goes.

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  3. I think Becky's version not quite awesome is still going to knock us out. Let's hear it!

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