Kyria's journal

Horseback riding is getting more interesting. Our group 'upgraded' from the easy horses (the ones that are illing to work, even if you are not very clear in what you want from them) to the horses with a more complex personality. Complex personality meaning that it takes longer for your horse to trust you as its rider, they need more specific cues and if you give them an inch of slack, they'll run with it.

The downside is that most of the horses are huge, like over two meter tall (that would be 7 feet for the US flisties). Being so high up is pretty scary all by itself, though I seem to do fine compared to my fellow riders. I think the key is that due to ballet and dance, sitting up straight and put my weight to the back is easier, making it a lot easier to stay on horseback, even when they do crazy stuff like trying to run into each other at full speed gallop or making unexpected jumps during trot/gallop. Sometimes they are just ignoring their rider and trying to pick a fight with aother horse. It's like having a troublesome four year old on your hands.

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That's right, we get to wear kevlar body armor! Wearing a body protector reduces the risk of injury to internal organs in case of an accident. I consider buying one when we are doing the outdoor two hour trips in April.  The outside world holds more scary suprises for horses compared to the safety of indoor training.

On Sunday we're participating in a contest at our mange and I signed up with Martine and we both picked 'complicated' horses. Because they are more fun! Next week will be the last regular class, after that the riding school is closed to to rebuiling it into a new, shiny complex and we have the opportunity to take the horses into the forest once a month instead. I look forward to riding outside, it asks more from the rider and the horse with regards to trust and skill.

Also, I talked with Lisette and she also has the wish to do a ponycamp because she never went as a girl due to her parents. It eases my mind that I am not the only scorned 30-something woman who took up horsebackriding later in life because it was something that I couldn't do when I was a child.

Despite all the stuff that is going on at my work, I've been investigating plans for the summer holiday. Let's go through the list of options that I worked out, shall we?

1. horsebackriding
I do not have enough experience with horsebackriding for outside tracks, which sucks because that's what I envisioned in my highly romantic version of a horsebackriding holiday. I chose to be sensible and push it to a later moment in my development as a rider. It was fun though, searching the internet for trails and tracks in Spain, Italy, France, and even the Netherlands.  We're a flat country so our outdoor view is always of a flat plain. Flat plain with grass, flat plain with trees, flat plain with houses. Still, we have some great outdoor places where I could ride. One day.

2. diving
I'm taking my 5th indoor training this weekend and the outdoor training is scheduled at the end of June. There is no way that I'm going on a diving holiday on my own this summer, I'm going to get me some experience below my lead-belt with dives in the Netherlands. Maybe Egypt/Red Sea diving next summer....

3. Sailing
This one was on my list of 'stuff to explore'. I have never sailed before, so I signed up for a sailing weekend in Friesland for absolute beginners. Friesland is the Northern part of the Netherlands. It is also flat as a pancake, the view is mainly lakes, water and reed. I'm going in the first week of August on a boat with app 40 people, every day class on a smaller vessel, and everyone is between 20-35 years old. Let the fun begin!

random summer stuff:
-Laudie asked me if I want to participate in her new belly dance project so we're doing a couple of intens days together this summer to get most of the conceptual work done. We'll work on perfecting the theatershow next year. It's awesome that she invited me to participate *glows* Laudie is the creative director of The Oum Kolthoum Project

-I'm doing the fashion show for Laced-Up, the fetish boutique in Utrecht, during the Summer Darkness Festival at the end of August. Need to pick music and prepare a performance for that, something with a 40-50-60ies feel to it, that can be done in gothic/fetish clothes.

-Summer Bellydance Festival
The festival organised by Anusch Alwerdian. I'm not doing the workshops, just going to the show on Saturday because my coworker is performing with the studenttroupe. yay! Next to The Oum Kolthoum Project, my weekly classes and the private performances, I haven't been doing much bellydancing this year. I plan on dusting off my dvd collection this summer and try me som eof those. We'll see how that works out for me.

Things that are not going to happen:

-Castle Fest
Ikaiya didn't know if she could get the Saturday off, and it was the only weekend available for the sail week. So I won't be able to go to Castle Fest this year, it's good to take a break and reevaluate an event that I've been going to for the last couple of years. It's a bit like a renfair, which I totally adore, but I might have had a bit of an overload after a decade.

-sword fighting. Ikaiya took swordfighting classes in Utrecht a couple of years ago, as she is totally awesome. It's been on my to-do list, but it is not going to happen. Ballet, belly dance, badminton, running and horseback riding are sort of keeping me busy right now.

-camping. Mum and my aunt are probably 'going out to camp' when the weather is good and they feel like it. If this is during the weeks that I'm free, I might go a couple of days. I don't see myself taking another couple of days off at the end of summer for the promis of maybe we'll go, maybe we don't.

With everything that's going on at my work, there is also fun stuff happening that I'd like to share. Otherwise I'll read my journal in a couple of years, thinking everything was about my work and such. The good thing is that there is still dance to be enjoyed, friends to hang out with and new stuff to learn and discover.

( diving, Amsterdam, Oum Kolthoum, horse back riding... )
And in general news, people are happy with me at my work, so I expect that my contract will be prolonged in June. Right now I need the distraction of learning new things to keep me going. I notice that I don't have the energy to invest extra time in dance, next to the commitments that I already made. There are several festivals in the summer but the program made me go meh. I expect that my dance drive will return at the end of this year or at the start of 2013 but for now I'm more into exploring and learning other things.