Verticals, Outside Lines and Bareback

So here I sit, heatpack pinned between my shoulder and my neck in an attempt to sooth very angry muscles. The human body is a funny thing. You can crush it, maim it, and do all sorts of things to it and you manage to be just fine. My body has survived some crazy things and let me come out none the worse for wear. But then there are some days where my body just gets weird.

I have/had a lot of injuries, I'm not going to lie. I have torn my ankle, broken that same ankle, two bad knees, torn inoperable rotator cuff, broken elbow, broken arm, fractured back, fractured cheek bone, 2 or 3 broken noses and countless broken tailbones. And I feel I forgot some things...

As for my current injury, I really don't know why my muscles are so mad, I didn't do anything unusual. It started last week when I dragged the ring, I got home afterwards and the muscles started screaming. I managed to get them to calm down until last night. I'd spent the day up in Egremont, MA for the South County Riders Horse Show running The Gifted Pony tent with Robin. I got back, went to the barn and decided to hop on UK bareback to hunt for Dacharia's missing flymasks. It was really rather fantastic. We found the flymasks, and then let ourselves into the ring. We hacked around for a bit, worked through his spooks and attitude problems (they only crop up when we go bareback now). Then I got up the nerve to canter him bareback for the first time. Dacharia took off bucking and cut us off, but UK and I stayed united and enjoyed a good canter each direction. Other then grabbing his mane as a backup I didn't do much with my right arm. Yet all of a sudden while we walked around the ring my muscles from the shoulder socket up into my jaw became a line of fire.

I rode UK last week while I was still sick and he was pretty damn good. We did our first line of jumps undersaddle! Both were little verticals, and we had a crossrail on the diagonal. Our only hiccups were when I asked him to walk over the tarp... I fell off, totally my fault. My reaction time was way off as I really was too sick to ride and had jacked up my stirrups to help my ankle which was acting up.  I got his brain back and we jumped around again, then we were walking and the wind blew a jump standard down on top of the tarp. He shot sideways while dropping his shoulder and I slid right off. Both times I had landed on my hip with my head never touching the ground. I was barely sore the day after.

Once I get the pain down to a level where I can turn my head again I plan on riding again. ^_^