gave najib a kick in the stomach! ;D

was supposed to post this yesterday, but blogger was down… and when they’re up again (sort of), i discovered some of the comments have been removed! the blogger team had better restore it fast!!

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went for my 3rd equestrian lesson today, and was very tickled when i discovered the name of the horse i was riding is najib! a very lazy horse too! and najib the horse must be thinking he’s gotten a crazy rider today, coz i kept chuckling to myself whenever i say, “yalla, najib!” (arabic: let’s go/faster, najib!).

my 2nd lesson was on a small brown mare named barbie. barbie is pretty temperamental, so i was holding onto the saddle a lot of the time.

barbie the temperamental mare…

but najib, he’s just plain lazy. he’ll always just bob his head up and down, imitating the trotting motion, when his legs were just walking. no matter how much i kick his belly with my heels (not really hard lar), he just won’t go any faster. it’s only when the handlers yell out to him that he’ll do a real trot. anyway, he’s quite a small horse (i notice that they like to assign small horses to me. should i be happy? :P) and is all white in colour, unlike oliver who has black freckle-like spots all over his body.

anyway, i’m getting pretty good at standing and sitting while trotting, if i may say so. my balance is improving, so much so that i don’t have to concentrate so much on holding on for dear life, but be more conscious of and improve on my sitting posture, my hand position, the way i hold the rein, the position of my feet in the stirrups etc. sometimes i can even let my mind drift to what i’m gonna write about najib here! :D

oh yes, i bought my riding helmet today! v(^_^)v

excuse the dark eye rings… promise to get more sleep this weekend!

previously i was using the riding school’s helmet, which is free only for the first lesson. after that, we’ll need to pay a rental of 5 dhs (rm4.15) each time. well, the rental is not the reason i decided to get my own helmet. it’s for hygiene purposes. coz we sweat a lot when riding, these helmets tend to really stink big time! no only that, sometimes the inside will still be wet with someone else’s sweat!! super the geli (malay: icky)! so seeing that i still have 8 more lessons to go, i decided 250 dhs (rm208) is worth the price to pay for hygiene. i love the feel of it on my head. it’s lightweight and fits snugly. maybe next time i can use it as a motorbike helmet! :P

here’s a picture i took of myself during my 2nd lesson. see how bad the condition of the rented helmet is? the yellow foam is coming out already!

lastly, here’s a video i took while i was waiting for my class to start. this is a more advanced class, but they’re just starting their warm-up, so this is how a trot looks like. i just wanna show everyone what i meant by standing and sitting.