Friday, July 16, 2010

Timing Is Everything

And of course, according the the USDF rules, my freestyle test can not exceed 5 minutes.

Sure enough, after riding mine and taping it in the blazing heat late this morning, I discovered that my current favorite pattern runs 5 minutes, 20 seconds.   Ugh.   Fortunately, by removing a stretchy circle, and tightening two half figure eights, I can get back under 5 minutes.... just.   Phew!

Meanwhile, the music still plays in my head, morning, noon, and night.   I fall asleep with it in my head.   I wake and it's still playing.   Today, while standing in line at a local community Fish Fry dinner, an elderly gentleman standing next to me commented on the extra treat of dinner with music.   Sure enough, I was humming my kur elevator music without knowing it.   Fortunately, he liked it.     :-)

Later this evening, with a spreadsheet handy, I played back the video of our practice run, timing each movement and counting the exact number of steps & strides used.   For the first trot sequence, we take 283 steps in 2 minutes, 1 second.   That works out to 140 beats per minute, confirming what I already established earlier.   But more importantly, and maybe of use later on, I now know how many steps it takes for Piper to perform a 10 meter trot circle, a leg yield from D to E, and so on.   And these steps translate to BEATS in the music.   So if I do find myself needing to adjust the choreography and music a bit, I'm now armed with useful data that I can apply and test via software....

....Anything to avoid having to drill in this excessive heat!   Bring on winter!

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