My love/hate relationships with videos of my riding

I love a good picture of me and Paddy – you know, that video still you carefully select, or when the photographer captures that moment when you look like you’re in perfect harmony with your horse?

We look awesome!

…. And then I watch the video of my ride and am reminded that a photo captures but a moment in time, while the video tells the entire story. Often, that's not a story I want to see, much less show to anyone else.

HAHAHAHA! Just kidding.

In all honesty, I hate watching videos of myself.

But I do it anyway, because I learn SO MUCH. I can see the moments where I lose my position in the transitions, and see exactly how I lose it - and then I can work on fixing it. I can see how much Paddy braces on me and curls, and how much I brace back. I can see how craptastic my posting is on Taran (Seriously? When did I forget how to post?). Videos helped me figure out exactly how I'm sitting unevenly, and now I'm working on addressing the problem. If I'm watching videos of a lesson, I can listen to what my trainer was saying during each moment as the disaster unfolds and I try desperately to fix it.

(Present-time Me also now yells at Video Me to use more leg or put my hands down or SIT UP or whatever because I can see what needs doing from the ground but apparently can't yet feel it from the saddle. Alas, yelling doesn't seem to make any difference to Video Me.)

But don't take MY word for how helpful videos are. A recent study published in the January USDF Connection showed that young riders who received verbal instruction, watched videos of themselves receiving the instruction, then practicing showed significantly more improvement than those who just received verbal instruction and practiced.

 

So sucker your friends (or husband) into grabbing a little video of you next time you ride, then sit down and watch it. If you're like me and get depressed about how many things are wrong, pick out at least 2 things you are doing WELL, because I guarantee that you are. Then focus on one thing you'd like to improve, then really work on that in your next few rides.

PRO TIP: When watching videos, try not to let anyone catch you yelling at Video Self. Even my husband (who is pretty used to how weird I am) looks at me funny.

Paddy plays a Western horse on TV

Early last week, we helped out with a shoot for a fake political ad. The video team has been working hard since then, and the video is now public. So, here you go! A little silliness for your Friday.

Protect your server farm with adorable Paddingtons!

Paddy hones his acting skills

One of the fun things about where I work is the completely ridiculous YouTube videos we make to advertise. This is one of my favorites:

All our talent comes from in-house - the guy in this video actually sits two desks away from me and is awesome to work with in real life.

A couple months ago, the video team approached me about using our horses in a shoot. They cast it, scripted it, and earlier this week we shot the video.

The talent gets bathed and primped by MC. She and Fuzzypony were on hand the whole time and helped get everything ready and wrangle the critters. We definitely could not have done this without them, so thanks to both of you!

Mmmmmdapples!!!

The video itself is a fake political ad. The premise is that you should vote for Beau Hayfield, who is awesome at IT security. He's just a good ol' boy working on his "server farm"... which is where Wyvern Oaks and Paddy come in. 

And obviously, you need a server rack on a server farm.

Brego (the shadow on the left) was like "WHAT THE EVERLOVING FFFF IS THAT?!?!?"

Server on the server farm. Har. Har. Har.

The awesome video crew.

More awesome video crew, with Paddy and other horses (bribed by hay) in the background.

Gotta lasso that server!

Every farm needs a dog! Thea (the yellow lab, trained and handled by MC) played her part perfectly.

In between takes. It was funny - I ended up resetting the hay bales for this take because everyone else thought they were "kinda heavy" :)

Paddy was super good for the entire three hour shoot. He stood patiently wearing a Western saddle for most of that time, letting a non-horse-savvy guy lead him and sit on him. In between takes I would give him a treat, so he was always looking right at me, ears pricked, during the takes (I stood behind the camera so he was looking at it). At one point they wanted to get a close-up of him swinging his head around and looking into the distance, so we rattled a bucket of feed. Of course he did it perfectly on the first take - the entire crew laughed about that! He also patiently picked his foot up and set it down about 20 times so they could get a shot of him "stomping" his foot down. SUCH a good boy!

And here's what I spent most of the shoot doing - trying to stay out of the frame while making sure Paddy did what they wanted. You can see me squatting up against the wall, holding Paddy's head in just the right position.

It was interesting to wrangle animals on a set, especially since I wasn't the one actually in the shoot. It was fun, but certainly not something I'd want to do for a living! I don't think Paddy minded it though - he got about a pound of treats in the course of three hours of filming!

I'll post the video when it comes out - should be very soon!