Reflexions

     There are two different kinds of reflexes:  1.) Horse Handler Reflexes, and 2.) Regular People Reflexes.  There are also Ninja Reflexes, but we won’t talk about that today.  No need to depress those without.  Examples of regular people reflex scenarios include 1.) The way my brother jerks his elbow back and whips around and snarls and acctually does sort of an involuntary Wolverine impression whenever I poke him in the ribs 2.) The time I scared my cousin Sam in the dark and both of her fists and one leg shot out at me in a frantic (and hilarious) defensive maneuver (I was out of range, thank goodness)  3.) Sam, again.  Don’t ever get into a game of slap-jacks with her, she’s really fast.  

  Horse handler refelxes are a mite different.  Our speed is in our feet and our core.  I am unconciously in tune with every shift of every horse muscle that has the potential to move every hoof within leaping distance of my feet at all times.  My feet can move faster than the human eyeball when necessary, and that’s because I’ve had my toes smooshed, broken, and blackened by many an accursed hoof in my day.  It’s something to be avoided, believe you me.  At the beginning of a young horse’s training especially, core strength and quick micro-adjustablility is key to staying balanced in the saddle (see blog entitled Riding Small Crazies).  So a rider’s core reflexes have got to be fine-tuned and quick. 

   Included in the Horse Handler’s Handbook For Handling Horses (when I get around to writing it, that is), is a section on the relaxation that is required for being around horses.  You’ll notice regular people reflexes involve a lot of flailing and jerking.  No horse appreciates sudden movements. It scares them.  And a scared horse can do a lot of damage, so at the tender age of twelve I trained myself out of sudden movements, to spare my horsey associates from unecessary fright.  If anything bad happens I’ll automatically hold very still and prepare my vocal chords for low, soothing tones.  If a loud noise goes off right next to me I usually won’t jump (although the resulting dose of adrenaline can leave my fingers tingling), and it takes an awful lot to make me scream or yell out of fear or startlement.  These calm habits and stoic reactions build trust and are useful and reassuring when I’m handling horses. 

   In contrast, the habits that I’ve built and mentioned are usually not the least bit helpful in the real world.  Included in the regular people reflexes that I have forgone are catching things that I’ve dropped, and moving quickly out of the way of things.  For example, last weekend my usually tactical and dexterous boyfriend managed to knock  his coffee cup over, and the contents of the cup ran across the table and into my lap (it wasn’t very hot).  A girl with regular person reflexes would have leaped away from the table, knocking over her chair, hollering obscenities, thereby avoiding the impending coffee river, and rightfully so.  I sat perfectly still except for a half-hearted grab in the direction of the cup, and then sighed as my jeans soaked up the last few drops.  The hilarity of the situation sank in as Frank ran for napkins and I spent the rest of the day alternating between chortles and fits of giggling as I replayed the scene in my head.  I’m sure there were people on scene who assumed I had peed my pants if they watched me walk out the door that day, but had there been a horse sitting at that table, he wouldn’t have been startled in the least.  Thanks to my horse handler reflexes I ended up with a soggy lap and one  heck of a dating story.  

   I can’t speak for all horse handlers when I discuss these habits, however.  Kathrin (see blog entitled Ode To A German) is as jumpy as a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.  I scare her all the time, without intent and much to my amusement.  Apparently I have a habit of “appearing suddenly out of nowhere” and every time she jumps and jerks and occasionally screams in reaction. 

   Sadly (in regards to life in the unhorserelated world), I think my habits are pretty well ingrained by now, although I have a theory that if I were to spend less time with horses and more time with young children my reflexes would get quicker.  My niece requires some fast action sometimes.  And Frank has my back (the occasional misplaced cup of coffee notwithstanding) so in the grand scheme of things there’s no cause for concern regarding my goofy reflexes…or lack thereof. 

Ode To A German

     Kathrin comes from Germany originally, and that keeps the work day interesting.  For example, she has taught me some important German phrases.  I can tell someone to finish their schnitzel or they’re not getting any dessert.  I can wish someone a good morning and ask them if they’d like to milk the cow.  And, my absolute favorite declaration: “Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt” which means “Hope dies last”.  So if I’m ever in Germany I will be able to communicate the necessities. 

    Kathrin is a gifted horse trainer (sometimes she yells at the horses in German…it never ceases to amuse me…), a talented piano player, and an overnight sensation with her new sewing machine.  She also makes me laugh really hard sometimes.  …I’ll admit I’m laughing at her half the time...  Once we were standing out in the field when suddenly she gasped all of the surrounding air into her lungs, squeezed her eyes shut, and stood stock-still.  I regarded her for a moment, then began questioning her: “Did the fence shock you?”  Small head shake in response.  “Did you stub your toe?”  Head shake.  I stood looking at her in complete befuddlement for a minute or two until she released the air with the simple explanation: “Hiccups.”   

    We didn’t get off to a great start though, Kathrin and I.  See, we live in the same house for the sake of efficiency and simplicity, and home life was somewhat less than pleasant at first.  Not that we ever fought, but I would say there was a lack of harmony.  Then the day came when I realized that my slovenly ways were making her as miserable as her resentful vibes were making me.  Communication is a beautiful thing.  I kept our shared living space spotless at her request, and low and behold, a switch was flipped, and she became pleasant tenfold.  Sometimes she still drives me nuts, and of course, she’ll still have the ocassional bad weekend, the result being a weird sort of Monday where she seems genuinely confused by the fact that I can’t read her mind.  But I let those slide. 

    This isn’t to say that Kathrin doesn’t have to put up with my bothersome tendencies.  Having a terrific boyfriend causes a lack of focus on my part which results in a sort of exasperation on hers…unless I am daydreaming to the point of acctually falling off  a horse, in which case she gets the opportunity to laugh at me.  My cat gallops across the tin roof and sounds more like a herd of cats, and that probably wakes Kathrin up sometimes, although she never complains about it.  I never have been able to figure out the system for switching our herds of horses around in the different fields, and I have to have it re-explained to me every time we do it.  Kathrin takes the explanation upon herself with minimal sighing.  She puts up with my same critique of all of her culinary masterpieces: “Mmm…but it needs [more] chocolate.” 

    As I mentioned earlier, she makes me laugh, and usually its unintentional.  Whether it be an English phrase (“I didn’t know until I found out.”) or a seemingly-nonsensical German proverb (“The rabbit lies buried in the pepper”) I usually am amused by the things that she says.  And does, for that matter.  Why, just the other morning she had me in stitches.  She was driving the gator and I was in the passenger seat.  It was still pretty early in the morning, and I was burrowing into my poofy jacket, zoning out a bit, when Kathrin let off the gas suddenly and let out a blood-curdling shriek.  My head snapped up and I scanned the horizon for gunmen and dinosaurs; literally the first dangers that came to mind with a scream that awful.  Then a quiet whimper from the drivers seat: “…There was this spider…”  

    Kathrin has an opinion about absolutely everything.  Not that there’s anything wrong with that.  We seem to agree on things about one third of the time, and I’ve learned what subjects to avoid if I want to finish the work day before dark: politics, religion, raising children, zoos.  Sometimes when I’m bored I’ll get her started on something interesting.  Its like having a book on tape.  She would make a fabulous villain, purely for her tireless ability to monologue.  I remember one day I didn’t want to be left alone with my thoughts, so I asked her about the pilot episode of a new tv show and earned a lengthy description.  Another time I requested the storyline for a horror movie I knew I would never see.  It was like watching it, minus the scary images left to lurk in my head.  

    One day I asked her the all important question: had she and her boyfriend decided what they would do if the other one got infected by a zombie?  I know what I would do if Frank got bitten: distance myself and hold out for a cure.  Kathrin had a different view.  If Toby got infected she would have him infect her immediately, and “live happily ever after as a zombie”.  I was incredulous, and conveyed to her that if she came after me in zombie form I would have to put an end to her twisted happily-ever-after.  “What about holding out for a cure?!”  I wanted to know.  “Die Hoffnung stirbt zuletzt!”  Well, we had to add that topic to the list of things we would have to agree to disagree on.  We did agree, however, that her choice to be zombified along with her boyfriend would make an excellent storyline for a B movie…a cult classic, perhaps…one that would be remembered forever for her character’s passionate, over-the-top delivery of the line “INFECT ME NOW!”  

    I’ll wrap this up by adding that one of the best things about Kathrin is how much she’s improved my riding.  Not only has she drilled “outside rein” and “more forward” so far into my head there’s no chance it will ever come out (you dressage people know what I’m talking about), her religious dependence on the training scale has given my understanding of dressage a scope and perspective that I will always appreciate and put to good use. 

Basketball

     There’s an interesting balance between revelling in the victory of overcoming challenges…and thinking more highly of yourself than you ought.  Highschool basketball taught me that.  I pushed myself beyond my limits countless times, and my lack of athleticism kept me humble.  That’s not to say that horseback riding doesn’t require fitness and coordination; the kind of athleticism I’m referring to is the kind that requires hand-eye-coordination and competetive aggression.  The kind of athleticism contained in the genes that my mother’s brother’s children swiped for themselves and left me entirely without (not that I’m bitter).     

   When I was a mere homeschooled ninth-grader  made up entirely of knees and elbows I joined the girl’s basketball team at a small private school.  I did not volunteer my services willingly, however, as I was doubtful of my abilities to lace up my sneakers properly, let alone send a ball through a hoop under game time pressure.  They begged me to join, and hey, at 5’ 9” with a 6” vertical leap, I was a hot commodity.  I spent most of my time warming the bench and dreading the moment when the coach would lean forward with her clipboard and call, “Meg!  You’re in for so-and-so!”  I get nervous just remembering.  It’s a wonder I got any sleep during those years.  My hands were always cold (supposedly a survival thing…the blood leaves the hands and flows to the legs to assist in escape, if necessary).  There was always somebody in the huddle who would ask, “Hey, who’s hands are so cold?”   

   I played forward most of the time, and I had my little area that I was afraid to leave that first year.  It was a meter-wide triangle of sorts that I would scoot around in, looking like a cornered burglar or something in my nervous crouch.  Teammates told me, “You need to get aggressive!” I didn’t feel aggressive, and couldn’t psych myself up to get aggressive, no matter how many times I watched Space Jam and The Pistol.   The coach told me, “You’ve got to want the ball!”  I did not want that ball.  That ball was the last thing in the world I wanted.  Catching that ball not only meant that all eyes in a packed-out gym were on me, it also meant that I became the target for nine other girls who knew what it meant to be aggressive and had the physical means to enforce it.  But I did catch the ball when someone passed it to me, and I tried hard to send it through the hoop, or (better yet) pass it to someone else on my team who had a better chance of sending it through the hoop.   

  My sophmore year went somewhat better because I had gone to basketball camp that summer.  Thanks to basketball camp, my skills had improved, although my lack of coordination kept me from utilizing them properly.  Case in point: it was best if I didn’t try to dribble the basketball for more than two bounces…the odds of the ball bouncing off my foot and into the hands of an opponent increased significantly after that.  Camp also gave me a better grasp of aggressiveness.  I got more rebounds that year, and even had a few steals. 

  But the glorious discovery was boxing out.  Boxing out is the action of positioning yourself in front of an opponent and blocking her from getting the rebound, should her teammate miss the shot.  It is aggression without coordination, to shove one’s rear into someone else, and I utilized this particular maneuver with enthusiasm.  I remember one game in particular.  We were playing at the school that used to be a barn, in the gym with the carpeted floor (someone was thinking outside the box).  Naturally everyone played with extra care in that gym…there was no glory in carpet burn.  The girl’s team at this school had a signature move: they would flip their ponytails to fake one direction and go the other.  Naturally we mocked them for this.  They were using a man-to-man defense, and the blonde amazon assigned to cover me was being bothersome, always in the way.  Basketball isn’t like hockey; you can’t just go around shoving people out of your space, you’ve got to be more tactful in getting your point across.  So I waited until someone put up a shot and I could feel that girl behind me, elbow jabbing into my back, reaching for the rebound.  It was a beautiful opportunity.  I threw my weight backward and heard the breath go out of her.  She hit the floor with an incredulous squeak.  Eat rug, Barbie.  She gave me space after that.   

  I took a few spills myself throughout my basketball career, and it always made me feel useful.  I figured if I was putting enough effort into the game that I was getting knocked down (or tripping over my own feet, as it were), then I was coming through for my team, and they should be grateful.  I like to think that I improved as my career continued, although if I remember correctly, I only made a grand total of 23 points during those four years that I played.  I would have to say that my favorite moment was during the first scrimage of my first year.  The other girls on my team set it up so that I would have room to make a shot.  They planned it in the huddle and executed it on the floor.  They passed the ball to me, I caught it, put it up, and watched as it miraculously swished through the net.  They were all so busy cheering for me that we almost forgot to get back in the game, and had to rush to get back on defense.  Good times.   

  As I mentioned in the beginning, I had to be careful not to start thinking more highly of myself that I ought.  The videos mom took of me playing basketball helped with that (“Okay, I guess I look more like Olive Oyl in a jersey than a WNBA star…”).  But its still something I need to remind myself of to this day.  Yesterday for example, I had just finished watching one of my favorite spy tv shows, and I was feeling pretty awesome by association.  I got up to get some icecream to complete the awesomeness, and managed to miss the doorway by a tiny margin.  The wall reminded me that my coolness is limited and always in the balance.  It is better to not believe that you’re awesome, but to enjoy the moments where you get to feel awesome, and to recognize the difference.