Compromise

I have written this post ten different ways today, but I have decided to be 100% honest.

I'm worried that my barn doesn't give me enough bang for my buck.  I think that the board and the lessons are well worth the price, but it's like a cowboy taking lessons from George Morris.  It still isn't worth it.

Then I decided to stop being so judgey.  After all, did I not just have a rant about others judging me like two days ago?  I haven't even seen a lesson, let alone ridden in one.

I want to jump and do dressage.  I would like to do cross country too, but I have mentally lumped that into the jumping category because if you can't jump in a stadium, you aren't going to do so well out in an open field.  These are my current interests.

But the sad cold hard reality is that I just need to ride.  I have been out of the saddle for 3 - 4 months (give or take the occasional ride), and I spent the last year and a half getting out of my flopping around like a beginner stage.  I'm by no means an experienced rider (or perhaps even an intermediate rider), and my riding needs streamlining in every way.

Matchey matchey - his shoes match his dress :)

The one thing I love about my current barn is the barn manager.  She is awesome - completely understanding, flexible, helpful, attentive.  She is the hidden gem at this barn, and tonight I watched her give a lesson.  I must say that I was thoroughly impressed.  Her lesson was diverse, not just your wtc kind of lesson that some barns give, and she had them constantly doing something different.

So I decided to enroll myself in one month's worth of lessons at the barn.  I get to ride and decide if I like the program (and it seems like the barn manager is not so obsessed with The Program as my barn owner, which is a plus).  If I do like them, I can use this time to get to a happy place in my riding.  My barn owner has since assured me that they do teach jumping, and even though it's mostly small stuff, I can barely jump a crossrail so who am I to judge.  If after time, I'm ready to move on, Walker and I will simply move on.  If I don't enjoy the lessons, then we will move on sooner.

And who knows, maybe it's simply a matter of establishing myself at the barn.  At my last barn, I got off to a slightly rocky start, but by the end, I could have burned the place to the ground and no one would have faulted me for it.  Maybe with time, I can have the best of both worlds - I can stay at this barn and convince my barn owner to let me bring in other trainers or lesson elsewhere occasionally.