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!
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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