Looking back, moves me forward

I was looking back at some videos from shows last summer and realized that while I was doing two divisions most of last season, the lower one for warmup since most of the places didn't have warmup rings, even from my very first show I was already jumping 18" from the start.

I'm glad to have done 18" at my first show this year, but I guess I forgot that I was competing that all last year. I knew I had not made my goal of 2'3" at the end of the summer, but I didn't realize how far off I was from it. Need to push more since the only thing holding me back is mental. My riding is ready to move up. And secretly, I think my horse wants me to move up since he tends to just keep trotting right over the 12"ers now.

So, my trainer and I have started incorporating 2' verticals...UGH. Visually they are intimidating for me. Jumping them, they are easy. But even though it's all super smooth, afterwards I'm always like, 'whew, that was scary'. Sometimes I say it out loud too :)

Here's a short video of me from Friday, no lesson, by myself (hubbie videoing) and it's my second pass at it since he missed shooting the first one. I usually only have enough guts to take it once. Glad I went again, as it was a perfect distance to the vertical. No way I was going to go a third time ;)

Looks so easy watching on video... good picture to keep in my head. I've done it, it was easy.