One step closer to our freestyle - and "everybody uses him"

It was great watching part of the freestyle clinic Karen Robinson held last weekend. I also had a chance to talk with Karen and –here we go- made a down payment on our freestyle! This time it is SERIOUS.

Karen’s handouts for auditors and riders contained great information, and here are some of the key points I am going by:

-        Who is it for? Judges, audience, and the rider – and for me the rider should be on top of the list. If I don’t have fun, then why do it? I am stretching my comfort zone quite a bit with this, as Karen notes:  “If you have no desire to entertain an audience, you probably don’t ride freestyles”. Hmm, I don’t really see myself as an entertainer per se, but Saumur sure loves an audience. So I guess as long as one of us is the ‘ham’ we are fine.

-        Music? Oooh, that’s NOT easy. You have to listen to the music so many times, and it should bring a smile to your face, so in my case, that limits it right there. Nix the big band, lounge, elevator, brass… Original music that the audience is not familiar with or tunes that will get them clapping?

-        Give the audience goosebumps or make them laugh?

-        Finding a theme. A theme?

-        Does the music make us look like dancers or bouncers?

-        And the list goes on …

But first things first: a video for Karen showing all required movements. Important is to focus on the “Schokoladen Seite” (“chocolate side” or good side) of horse and rider. Also, there are so many ways to show strengths and divert a bit from weaknesses. As an example Karen pointed out that if the horse doesn’t have a great walk, doing the walk on curved lines (that would be us). But then we can compensate with some “killer-canter”.

Back to music and theme choices – I had to bid a sad ‘Goodbye and Godspeed’ to James Bond because “Forget that, everybody uses him!”.