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My RL riding diary: Salsa, baby, Salsa
15 years ago
"It took you more than thirty years to develop this disfunctionality. You can't expect to get rid of it within a few days."
The orthopaedic specialist doesn't have too much time for me. Oh blessings of public healthcare - in Germany you can actually visit specialists without fearing high medical bills. But that doesn't mean that said specialist is too eager to spend too much time on you. Especially if you have no interesting emergency to offer.
I have no emergency, let alone an interesting one. I just want to know why I find it almost impossible to shift weight onto my right butt cheek. Yeah, I know what they show you in those cool movies - how they turn their horses around by yanking the reins. That's wrong, kids. A horse is navigated by shifting the weight (at least it is when you mastered riding... which is a goal that appearently has a long way for me to go to reach it).
Something isn't right with me. And the orthopaedic specialist seems to be almost disappointed to tell me: "It's not the size of your legs. Both of them are equally long." Instead he babbles something about adductors and my pelvis. Simply put - the muscles that connect my legs to my pelvis aren't in a bad shape; they are in a catastrophic shape. They are much too short thanks to the lack of exercise and constrict the movements neccessary when riding a horse.
Now don't get me wrong here; I am in a pretty okay shape all in all. I do ride my bike 40km on three days a week. My arms and leg are just fine. It's just that I've never felt a need to move my hips (and don't you dare to start commenting speculations about my sexual life!)
Pressing my knees together as if forming an 'X' with the legs? Well, I can mime it. But it's impossible for me to push them together with the needed force to impress a horse carrying me. Shaking my hips back and forth and side to side? It looks like a terrible joke when I try it.
And to make things worse they aren't in an equally catastropic shape. The muscles on the left side are just a tiny little bit stronger than the ones on the right side. Just enough to pull my pelvis out of balance. And that's the source of my problem, that's why I find it so hard to shift my weight to the right side.
So what I have to do is work on execises and show patience. Short muscles don't grow long after one night. Not even after some days or weeks. It'll take months. And even then it will only happen if I keep up training and stretching and training and stretching. So while my colleagues do their little cigarrette breaks I vanish into the supply room and do my little exercises.
Suddenly the words of my first riding instructor come to my mind. I can almost hear her yelling across the riding-hall: "Come on, show me those southamerican swinging hips of yours!"
"No way, Ma'am - all I have to offer is a Germanic clumsy wood shoe dance!"
The orthopaedic specialist doesn't have too much time for me. Oh blessings of public healthcare - in Germany you can actually visit specialists without fearing high medical bills. But that doesn't mean that said specialist is too eager to spend too much time on you. Especially if you have no interesting emergency to offer.
I have no emergency, let alone an interesting one. I just want to know why I find it almost impossible to shift weight onto my right butt cheek. Yeah, I know what they show you in those cool movies - how they turn their horses around by yanking the reins. That's wrong, kids. A horse is navigated by shifting the weight (at least it is when you mastered riding... which is a goal that appearently has a long way for me to go to reach it).
Something isn't right with me. And the orthopaedic specialist seems to be almost disappointed to tell me: "It's not the size of your legs. Both of them are equally long." Instead he babbles something about adductors and my pelvis. Simply put - the muscles that connect my legs to my pelvis aren't in a bad shape; they are in a catastrophic shape. They are much too short thanks to the lack of exercise and constrict the movements neccessary when riding a horse.
Now don't get me wrong here; I am in a pretty okay shape all in all. I do ride my bike 40km on three days a week. My arms and leg are just fine. It's just that I've never felt a need to move my hips (and don't you dare to start commenting speculations about my sexual life!)
Pressing my knees together as if forming an 'X' with the legs? Well, I can mime it. But it's impossible for me to push them together with the needed force to impress a horse carrying me. Shaking my hips back and forth and side to side? It looks like a terrible joke when I try it.
And to make things worse they aren't in an equally catastropic shape. The muscles on the left side are just a tiny little bit stronger than the ones on the right side. Just enough to pull my pelvis out of balance. And that's the source of my problem, that's why I find it so hard to shift my weight to the right side.
So what I have to do is work on execises and show patience. Short muscles don't grow long after one night. Not even after some days or weeks. It'll take months. And even then it will only happen if I keep up training and stretching and training and stretching. So while my colleagues do their little cigarrette breaks I vanish into the supply room and do my little exercises.
Suddenly the words of my first riding instructor come to my mind. I can almost hear her yelling across the riding-hall: "Come on, show me those southamerican swinging hips of yours!"
"No way, Ma'am - all I have to offer is a Germanic clumsy wood shoe dance!"
