Benefitting from the experts in the expert's life - and wish my dad could have seen me

Remy and I finished our dressage week with a fun exercise: Half pass to center line, pirouette, continue half pass. Roz explained that this is an exercise she learned from Conrad Schumacher, an expert dressage trainer. It's great to have a coach/trainer with a broad background because you benefit from his/her education. The long lining expertise Roz bestows on us comes from Cathy Connelly. And that are just a few examples on how we benefit from someone with an excellent background, education, and network.

The other day I saw a FB posting from a trainer, saying something along the lines "you don't just pay for an hour of my time, you pay for my expertise, my years of training, the sleepless nights fretting about a training problem,  the blood, sweat and tears of my learning to become the horseperson that I am". I think that is so true and people tend to forget this.

On a complete different note last night I went way out of my comfort zone … to the gun range for an intro on hand guns. My dad's rifles and handgun have arrived at the gun store, and while I intend to sell the rifles I am thinking of keeping the small .22 Astra hand gun. It's an old model and might not even work anymore, but I thought I might as well get a feel of the whole "gun thing". It was actually fun, and we got to try a variety of models. Kind of cool when the guy tells you: "Bullseye!".  But I'm definitely a small caliber kind of gal and even though the Austrian Gaston Glock is a huge dressage sponsor (his riders were a pin in the shape of a Glock) I'd rather stick to the Germans. Give me one from the Swabian manufacturer, please.

It's sad that I can't tell my dad. He would have been proud.

I won a nice remembrance of the evening:

Never thought I would wear a shell casing on my wrist, but I love it!