Had a riding lesson on Sunday, followed by a 4-hour yoga workshop. It was such a good day. I wore my legs out riding the horse, and at the workshop only did 1 hour of yoga, but both were great workouts and I am sore today. But it's a good sore. I was really tired last night, and fell asleep while watching Arrested Development on Netflix, but I felt SO GOOD.

Horses are amazing. There's something about sitting on that saddle, swaying back and forth as they take their steps, communicating with them by just pulling the reins a little bit, or looking down, or squeezing certain muscles. It's amazing that you can communicate with an animal by making very subtle changes to the way you are sitting on them. They read every muscle twitch, squeeze, or release. They can tell when you are gripping the reins and when you're relaxing your grip. They know which way to move when squeezing your legs a certain way. They know to slow down when you look down because they're trying to be careful. No wonder people rode horses as their primary mode of transportation for a long time. Hell, I'd do it now...If it didn't take so long...And weren't so dangerous.

In my lessons, we've just been walking and trotting, nothing major. But my instructor yesterday had me trot in circles, literally. It's hard to actually keep the horse trotting while going in a circle, oddly enough. He would slow down and get lazy, or sometimes he'd think what I was doing with my body meant he should slow down. You have to be careful about what you're doing, because as I said before, they interpret certain things as commands. But when you do finally have that synchronicity with the horse, you're doing all the right things, and they're responding in the way they're supposed to, it's smooth, and magical. I just love it!

Also, because you are using so many muscles to guide the horse, you are working every part of your body at once. I think swimming is the only other activity that will do that. So my stomach is sore, my legs are super sore, my arms are sore, my shoulders are sore...And doing yoga after riding a horse doesn't help with the soreness factor either. Yesterday evening my legs were shaky, but when I got home, I lounged around and watched shows on Netflix. I felt I had deserved it.

So in case you can't tell, I've been feeling better. I wish I could do that much exercise every day, but I don't know how I would make that work. I also wish I could take riding lessons every week, but I just can't afford it right now, so I go every other week. Being on a horse just clears your mind, even though you are thinking about lots of things at once. It's hard to get carried away thinking about your everyday life when you're on a horse, at least, at first, when you're learning (or re-learning in my case). But I think I could use mind-clearing activities a lot more. Yoga and riding are the perfect combination, it seems.

I had a very interesting experience yesterday. Actually, it was kind of scary. I went to my horseback riding lesson, and found I wasn't in the schedule even though I had confirmed it a few days prior. So they squeezed me in with another instructor who had a private lesson with another student who is more advanced than I am, but she went back and forth between us. We were outside, and it was really hot, there were no clouds in the sky, and I obviously hadn't had enough water to drink that day, because at the end of the lesson, I started seeing major spots. Actually, my vision was pretty much going, and my ears were totally muffled. I put my head down on the horse's neck and just breathed, then finally was able to get off the horse and take him inside and recover. I almost fainted, on a horse. At least he was standing still!

The other girl in the lesson had a worse experience - she actually fell off the horse she was riding while it was cantering. It just kind of kept going faster and faster and wouldn't listen to her when she tried to get him to slow down, and finally she just slid off. She said she was ok, but she asked the instructor about five times what the date was, and said she couldn't remember what happened. Looks like she might have a minor concussion. I hope she is ok and that her parents listened to the instructor and took her to the doctor.

Crazy day yesterday. Note to self: Drink lots of water before riding, eat enough before riding, and get good sleep the night before riding (which I also did not do).

I have been slipping back into my old ways of not putting myself first. I wake up so tired, I haven't been doing yoga every day (going to a class tonight, though), and I haven't been eating great, either. I don't know why I'm doing this to myself. I guess I just forget about myself.

Something I don't think I've shared on here yet: "Tom" and I are dating again, and it has been really great, I feel like I'm coming at it from a different place and that I'm a different person than I was a month ago. But I also think it drains some of the energy out of me. It's hard enough to focus on myself, and bringing someone else into my life to focus on brings my energy level down some, I think. Maybe polyamory isn't right for me right now just because of that.

Actually I have realized that polyamory isn't right for me right now anyway, because I have to really take care of myself these days, and I just don't have the time to date another person. Tom and I haven't really talked about when we would like to approach the polyamory thing again, and I think it's a conversation we should have.

(On a separate note, the name Tom really doesn't fit him at all. Maybe I should come up with another alias.)