Day Ten - Getting Physical

I have bad knees. They are not your usual, 60 year old, wear and tear bad knees. They are seriously, critically bad knees. My knee problems date back to college days when I jumped down from a bale of straw and landed awkwardly tearing both cartilage and the anterior, cruciate ligament in my left knee. This injury predated arthroscopic surgery, so the torn cartilage was removed and I have been walking bone on bone on that knee ever since. As a result, I have a slight limp, which has placed stress on my “good” knee and it now has its own problems. I see my current orthopedic surgeon each year for a series of injections of artificial synovial fluid to help keep my knees lubricated and I overheard him a couple of years ago telling a medical student who was shadowing him that he wasn’t sure why I was still walking.
I know my knees are a bit of a ticking time bomb and that I am heading for knee replacement surgery at some point so when I was accepted into the Parelli Center fast track program, I was concerned about how well they would hold up but I wasn’t going to let that stop me from coming. With the agreement of my orthopedic surgeon, I doubled my arthritis medicine and I brought cold packs to throw in the freezer so I could apply them in the evening.
The first day at fast track, I had to walk Sonny almost a mile from where I was staying to the Parelli Center and I was a bit concerned when I realized that the pen Sonny has been assigned was about as far away from the classroom and dining hall as it could be. I thought briefly about asking for him to be reassigned to a closer pen, but decided that perhaps the walking would actually be good for me. Besides, I though, fast track is supposed to be a challenge, mentally, emotionally and physically, and the extra walking certainly would be a challenge. For the first few days, my legs were pretty sore and spent a lot of time stretching out my calf muscles but by the first weekend, the soreness had worked itself out.
For the first week, my knees were surprisingly good, but I only rode Sonny during the evaluations on Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week and the rest of the time I played with him on the ground. The second week, we began riding in earnest, and riding can be hard on the knees. On Wednesday we were in the saddle for 3 1/2 hours in the afternoon so by Friday morning, my knees were pretty sore but I decided that my on-line skills were progressing so well, it was time to begin focusing on my freestyle riding.
Because Friday afternoons are taken up by coaching meetings, I knew there wouldn’t be a riding lesson in the afternoon to stress my knees. So I saddled Sonny up and took him out to the playground to warm up. After some good circling game, I mounted up and walked Sonny all over the playground area. Then I took Sonny into the honeycomb to practice walk, trot, canter transitions. He gave me some nice canter departures, not getting too excited. I also took him into the large arena to practice the bowtie pattern at a trot. We were both tired when we finished, but it was a good tired.
The demonstration on Friday was presented by Beran and was focused on helping us understand the mutual responsibilities between horse and human. He told us that the best game for understanding these responsibilities was the circling game. The circling game has three parts, the send, the allow and the bring back. In the “send” we can see the respect that exists between the horse and human and in the “bring back” we can see their rapport. Bearn’s black mare is a high energy horse and he was able to demonstrate to us how changing his energy could impact her response. After working with his mare on line, he then put her in a round pen and showed us how working with her at liberty could refine and enhance their relationship.
My coaching session this week was with Ryan and he helped me identify strategies for the three freestyle riding focus areas I had chosen for the week. He helped me identify the connection between several issues with my riding and gave me good, constructive guidance for working on the issues. Overall, I finished the week on a positive note with Ryan’s coaching
I know the state of my knees creates some physical limitations for me but the first two weeks of fast track have shown me that I am able to do a lot more than I though I could. Perhaps, some of the physical limits I have placed on myself in the past, were more in my mind than in my knees and perhaps the biggest accomplishment I will have here in fast track will simply be getting more physical than I though I ever could.