This is competition, not therapy

Thankfully, those words came toward the end of the lesson, not the beginning; otherwise I'd have been scared.

It was a beautiful day to ride, and T was quite energetic. Dada said that winter is a great time to practice rhythm and not worry about the movements. That's OK by me, it was so nice to ride up there on T and move my legs in unison with her's.

We did a few small circles, and they were pretty good, at least when I heard Dada tell me to do a circle. A few times I did not hear her so rode straight, then tried to turn sharply when I realized I missed a command.

The big issue today was my left ankle. Dada says I have no strength in it, and she kept lowering the left stirrup to keep me from putting weight on the left side.

It seemed to me that I kept pushing down on the left just to reach the lowered stirrup. And more than once my foot came out of the stirrup.

Dada wants me to wear a brace on that ankle at least. I will, but I sort of wish I wasn't. My ankle will never strengthen if it has a brace.

But as Dada pointed out when I raised this concern: "This is competition, not therapy."