Drop and roll

I lie in the tall grass, wondering how I got there. Oh, that’s right, I fell off a horse.
If you are going to ride horses, you are going to eventually fall off. It is a rule of the horse world. Even the most highly trained, docile mount can spook at an unusual object. Even the most balanced rider can get distracted at an inopportune moment. It will happen.
My goal in life is to be riding a horse when I am 90 years old, so falling off needs to be a less traumatic event for me. To this aim, I decided to study Aikido, a non-violent martial art that also teaches balance and how to fall without getting hurt. I’ve been going to Tim Doyle’s dojo in Cornucopia on Thursday nights for several months now. One of the first things I learned in the class was how to roll.
As a child, rolling was easy. I was more limber then, less afraid of injury and closer to the ground. In Aikido, we start with rolling from a kneeling position, slowly and on a mat. We graduate to rolling from a standing position, then rolling backwards. My forward rolls were clumsy at first, but with practice, I can now roll forward effectively.
Backwards rolling took more time. I found I could roll backwards to one side nicely, but the other side was a mess. An image of flopping jellyfish comes to mind. I learned to roll forwards, then immediately backwards in the same direction to develop the muscle memory, instead of trying to think my way through it.
A few weeks ago, our class was visited by two young men just out of high school. Though it seemed to be their first class, they were natural rollers. Forward, backward, sideways, all in fluid movements. I commented about the age difference to my instructor. He told us a bit of ancient wisdom about Aikido. You don’t get really good at it until you reach age 60. Why? As with many things, it’s not the years you put into the art, it is the art you put into those years. Because Aikido is a non-aggressive form of martial arts, to do it well, you need to conserve your movements and do more with less. It requires concentration and wide-spatial awareness all at the same time. These are abilities that become refined with age. As we get older, we become more interested in conserving our energy, doing things to avoid conflict and knowing how to deal with conflict without getting hurt.
Concentration and spatial awareness, avoiding conflict and dealing with conflict without anger or injury are all traits needed in life with horses. So, back to the fall.
I was riding Eddie bareback. It was the kind of ride not meant to go anywhere, only to spend quality time together. I was mostly a passenger, letting Eddie choose our destination and which patches of grass were the finest for his treat. My job was to flow with his movements, refining my balance and working on patience with non-demanding riding. We had already explored the winter pasture, the driveway and done a couple laps around the arena. Eddie was doing well, and enjoying the outing with me.
We decided to venture into a pasture that hadn’t been used this year. The grass was waist high in places. From on top of Eddie, it reached to my heels. Eddie was sure-footed, traversing ditches and avoiding gopher holes hidden under the verdant pasture bed. Blue sky was beginning to return after a day of cold and rain. The air had the smell of freshness only spring rain and growing grass can produce.
We walked farther into the pasture, nearing the spot where my husband has stacks of wood covered with old metal sheets to keep it dry. While Eddie dipped his head into the grass, I looked ahead and spotted a piece of metal lying partially hidden ahead of us. I remember thinking it would not be a good thing for Eddie to walk on unexpectedly. Just as I had that thought, Eddie looked at the metal, and instantly stepped sideways, as if reading my mind.
They say that when you are about to die, your life flashes before your eyes. It’s about that way with falling off a horse. It only takes about two seconds to fall off, but those two seconds are separated into many minute milliseconds.
I remember the moment when I felt Eddie shift. I remember the moment when I thought I could still save my balance, then the split-second later when I realized I was going to fall.
The good thing was, while I was falling I was thinking, “I have to remember to roll.”
Even though I don’t consider myself very good at Aikido yet, those hours of practice in the dojo paid off. Had I been falling head first, I could have done a forward or backward roll. However, I was falling straight sideways. I hadn’t practiced that one yet. So, I did the next thing we learn in Aikido; I let my body become soft and landed in a balanced way.
The not-so-good thing was, Eddie had stopped spooking and was standing still. I fell so close to him that I hit my side on one of his legs. Ouch. Eddie must not have like it either. He decided to walk back to the barn.
As I lay in the grass, breathing away the pain in my side, I had the most insightful, enlightened thought cross my mind, the kind of thought yogis spend years in meditation trying to achieve.
“I’m really going to get a lot of ticks lying here.”
So, I got up, retrieved my horse, and walked him back to the scary metal. He did circles around me while I stomped on the metal, making scary metal noises. After a few figure eights, Eddie decided to stop and sniff the metal calmly. I got back on and we headed home to the barn.
Other than a bit of stiffness in my side, I am unscathed, thanks to Tim Doyle, Morihei Ueshiba (the founder of Aikido), and Eddie. I ended my horse session by doing some Reiki on my mare’s swollen eye, during which she stepped on my foot.
I think I need to go back to the dojo.