I am a Beginner!

I know this seems like such an embarrassing thing to say, but here's the deal: Everyone has to start somewhere.  We can't all be Isabell Werth or Steffen Peters.  Dressage Today had a great article in the February 2012 issue entitled, "The Beauty of Being a Beginner."  Cindy Sydnor, the author, writes (pg. 70), "Being a beginner is great.  Your attitude is, 'I'm here.  I want to learn to ride.  Please teach me.' [ ...]  When a student keeps trying not to be a beginner and envisions her path to be a predictable staircase that she wants to climb in yearly intervals, learning can actually come to a grinding halt.  [...]  Enjoy the beginning because it is actually what you will need the most until the very end.  Even Einstein was a beginner once."

So you see, I am not embarrassed to be a beginner.  In fact, I know that as a beginner I am learning mountains of things that are crucial to know before moving on.  If I try and skip these first steps, I'll never really know why horses soften or why they won't.  Bringing along my own, two very different boys, is providing me with a wonderful education that I would never get had I bought a schoolmaster or a horse already on his way.  As I write I am basking in the glow of a fabulous ride on Sydney.  I worked and worked on getting a stretch over the topline and was rewarded with some wonderfully relaxed, stretchy strides.  He felt it, I felt it, we both took deep sighs of ooooohhhh.  I asked correctly, after months of trial and error, and he found the right answer. We did that together.  Here's to beginners!

There is a reason for this talk about beginners.  My certificate from the California Dressage Society finally arrived.  I know it's not a big deal, but I really appreciate the recognition.  To me, the introductory certificate says, You braved the showing world as a beginner and you achieved something.  Be proud!   The certificate is earned by CDS members who achieve scores of 60% or better at Introductory C Level or above in a single show season (not to exceed 4 scores).  The scores must come from a CDS rated show.  Once you earn 5 or more scores in a single show season, you earn a plate.  That's my goal for 2012.  I already have one score on the books and am looking for 4 more.  Here's the certificate.

And here's what I did with it.  The three ribbons are from the three shows where I earned the necessary scores (60.500%, 62.000%, and 65.500%).