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	<title>vaulting &#8211; Equestrian from Crete</title>
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	<description>A Greek islander explores equestrianism</description>
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		<title>The horse dancer: a film for the whole family</title>
		<link>http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/the-horse-dancer-a-film-for-the-whole-family/</link>
					<comments>http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/the-horse-dancer-a-film-for-the-whole-family/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[chriszygakis]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Fri, 03 Aug 2018 20:07:56 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Equestrianism on the screen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[entertainment]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[equestrian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[film]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[horse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Horse Dancer]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[movie]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vaulting]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/?p=3196</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Hi! I hope you have had a great summer! I don&#8217;t know about your place, but here in Crete it&#8217;s hot, very hot! And when it&#8217;s so hot outside, one wants to relax and find ways to entairntain oneself. So, I searched for something entertaining, enlightening and age appropriate. And there you go, I found &#8220;The Horse Dancer&#8221;, which&#160; I enjoyed very much. Samantha Wick, a promising teen gymnast, is informed that she hasn&#8217;t made it to the American Olympic gymnastics team. Her grandmother, a former champion in gymnastics herself, pays for her grand daughter to join a summer camp in Black Water Horse Camp. Due to her highly competitive nature, the girl faces behavioral issues, which have led her to a life with no friends. She carries those issues to Black Water and soon realises that they can make her life in the camp very hard. The programme will gradually change her attitude to the better, helping her open up to other people. Yet, apart from a new attitude, she will earn new skills, which are riding and equestrian vaulting. Having appreciated the value of friendship, solidarity and gratefulness, Samantha will use her new vaulting skills in a joint effort to save the equestrian centre from bankruptcy. * It is true that &#8220;The Horse Dance&#8221; is a low-budget film which has received mixed reviews. And if you are looking for impressive effects and fit equine silhouettes, then I suggest that you should look elsewhere. Personally, I appreciated the strong messages that the movie tries to deliver; the value of friendship, the importance of collaboration and the advantages of asking help in times of need are just a few of them. It is a movie that I strongly recommend for a family night in, or, why not, a special evening at the yard after a gymkhana day. So, I would advise you to go for it! Oops, I forgot to say this small detail; according to the movie, Black Water actually exists! *The author of Equestrian from Crete, as an Amazon Associate, earns from qualifying purchases. &#160;]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">3196</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>My first vaulting lesson</title>
		<link>http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/my-first-vaulting-lesson/</link>
					<comments>http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/my-first-vaulting-lesson/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[chriszygakis]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Wed, 24 Jun 2015 02:21:37 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[My adventures]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[equestrian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gymnastics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[horse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vaulting]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[Warwick]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://equestrianfromcrete.wordpress.com/?p=686</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Last Friday I took my first vaulting lesson with the university&#8217;s riding club. The equestrian club we had booked the lesson with specialises in vaulting and it is quite far from Nottingham, in Warwickshire, 1 1/2 hour by car. I hadn&#8217;t been to Warwickshire before. It&#8217;s a beautiful area, whose flora is similar to the Cretan one -except for asparangus, which is not produced in Crete. It&#8217;s just so different from Nottinghamshire, which is colder, wetter, and more windy, as a result of the height of its location. I could never imagine myself getting a sunburn in Britain, but yes, it happened to me in Warwick. When we finally got there, I noticed that the horses were huge! Gorgeous, but huge! We soon met Julie, the instructor, who has been to Greece. She was excited to find out I&#8217;m from Crete. I love my homeland, it&#8217;s true. However, when people get excited, I feel a bit weird. Julie declared to us a few times that vaulting is not riding, but gymnastics. The lesson eventually began and I had to face a few challenges; it was the first time I was doing equestrian sports outdoors, and the fact that I was doing something like vaulting for first time one month before my 30th birthday felt strange at its own. Firstly, we started warming up and stretching in a field next to the arena, accompanied by a little dog and the Julies cute grand daughter. Then we moved to the barrel, where Megan showed us the basics. And then, one by one, we were moving to the horse. So, eventually my turn came. The barrel was nice. Stable and safe. But the horse? I had to try not to think too much about it, so I started gazing at the British scenery, as we were moving on the circle. I was a nightmare as a trainee for Julie, for sure! First, I would not let go of my leg for her to throw me to the back of the horse; &#8220;Are you fighting me?&#8221;, she asked. Oh, let alone the instructions. She thought I did not trust her, as I was staring at her with my ears focused on her speech and my eyes focused on her lips. I reminded her that English is a foreign language to me and I was receiving instructions outdoors at that moment. The most terrifying thing was the canter. I almost fell about twice, while I was just doing sitting positions. Boris was quite bouncy and my legs could not steadily grip on his sides. I just kept slipping, but the fact that I stayed there was something positive, or so I believe. It&#8217;s the too much thinking again. When Boris started cantering, I was thinking that I was cantering without almost bareback and without reigns. This feeling that I cannot control things as much as I want to drives me crazy. So, I tried not to think or feel anything, I was just gazing at the British countryside. It seemed so beutiful, by the way; sliding on the vast green valleys, my eyes reached the horizon. It looked like a painting! Julie invited Megan to join me on horseback. She helped me a lot not to think about what I was doing! So, here&#8217;s a hilarious dialogue: ME: I&#8217;m trying not to think about it! MEGAN: Exactly! So, what are you having for dinner tonight? ME: Em, I don&#8217;t remember! MEGAN: You don&#8217;t remember what you will have for dinner?? ME: I guess I have pancakes in my fridge, and some milk, and some golden syrup&#8230; MEGAN: Are you going to add strawberries? ME: No, I don&#8217;t have any strawberries, but I have appricots (&#8216;aprɪˌkɒts) Megan and Julie started laughing. JULIE: Christina, we are in England now. It&#8217;s called ˈeɪprɪˌkɒts , not &#8216;aprɪˌkɒts !   And the horse kept doing its job while I was repeating the word ˈeɪprɪˌkɒt . Whatever, as long as it was keeping me distracted! Urgh! When will I stop overthinking on horseback??   Apart from the fact that I had managed to turn a lesson into a hilarious situation again, I just could not believe what I was doing. If my mother was watching, she would yell at me like crazy to come down, probably pulling me downwards as well. But I dared to do it and had fun, and I&#8217;m proud of it! The video from the second part of my session: Some pictures:]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">686</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>Preparing for vaulting</title>
		<link>http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/preparing-for-vaulting/</link>
					<comments>http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/preparing-for-vaulting/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[chriszygakis]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 18 Jun 2015 00:52:33 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[My adventures]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[equestrian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[fun]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sports]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[training]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vaulting]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://equestrianfromcrete.wordpress.com/?p=673</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[One and a half year ago, on a skiing centre, when my sisters returned from the slopes were stunned to find out that I was gone, having rented equipment and hired a trainer, in order to try skiing! Nobody believed that I would do such a thing, but, well, I did it. I wanted to see how it feels and whether it works for me. Well, I didn&#8217;t like it, but this is not the point on this post. Later, I tried horseback riding. I was curious too. And I loved it. &#8220;I have found my sports at last!&#8221;, I kept saying to people. But it wasn&#8217;t so easy, as I discovered that I was actually nervous with horses. And horses know when someone is nervous and this has an impact on their behavior. Now I&#8217;m not as nervous any more. I am more confident when I approach them or when I ride them. But deep inside I suspect that, when I go home, Bebis might find out that I might still maintain some nervousness. And all this biting will follow. So, hoping to completely wipe out nervousness from my conscious and unconscious spheres, I decided to give it a go with vaulting through the university&#8217;s equestrian club. Having watched all these videos I can see that, although it seems a challenging sport, at least it&#8217;s fun and also benefits equestrians, helping them with their balance skills and fitness. So, why not? Now, what should an almost 30-year old beginner expect from her first experience with vaulting? I don&#8217;t know, really. Maybe a sore body that can&#8217;t move and some bruises as well. But, I am sure that, no matter the result, it will be a fun challenge! Here is a video I watched today:]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">673</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>What is equestrian vaulting?</title>
		<link>http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/what-is-equestrian-vaulting/</link>
					<comments>http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/what-is-equestrian-vaulting/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[chriszygakis]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Sat, 18 Apr 2015 23:00:31 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Equestrian topics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[athlete]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[equestrian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FEI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gymnastics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[horse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[sports]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vaulting]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://equestrianfromcrete.wordpress.com/?p=525</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[Vaulting is in fact gymnastics on horseback, initially established as a circus act. Its origins come from the years of the Roman empire, when acrobats performed exercises on the back of a cantering horse. Some also consider that vaulting even comes from the Minoan years in Crete, where the sacred sport of tavrokath&#8217;apsia -or bull-leaping- was performed by youngsters. Vaulting joined the FEI-recognized equestrian sports in 1983 and the first FEI World Vaulting Championship was organized in 1986, in Bulle, Switzerland. Vaulting is performed by individuals, pairs or teams and there is also therapeutic vaulting, for people with disabilities. Unlike other equestrian disciplines, male and female athletes compete separately. According to the FEI rules, athletes have to perform a series of compulsory exercises, to be rated within a scale of 1-10, while horses&#8217; performance is marked as well, judging from the quality of their movement and their character. The horse is guided on a long rein by a lunger standing on the ground who ensures that a steady canter is maintained on a circle with a minimum diameter of 15 metres. The compulsory exercises are the following and have to be performed without interruptions or dismounts: Vault On: The vault-on leads to the frontways seat on the horse. After jumping on both feet, the right leg swings up immediately, as high as possible, lifting the pelvis higher than the head, while the left leg remains stretched down. The shoulders and hips are parallel to the shoulder axis of the horse. When the pelvis is at the highest possible point, the vaulter lowers the stretched right leg and lands softly, erect and centred in the seat astride with the upper body vertical. Basic Seat: An astride position (the vaulter sits on the horse as a rider would), with the arms held to the side and the hands raised to ear level. Hands should be held with closed fingers and palms facing downward, with the fingers arching slightly upward. Legs are wrapped around the horse&#8217;s barrel, soles facing rearward, with toes down and feet arched. Vaulter holds this position for four full strides. Flag: From the astride position, the vaulter hops to his or her knees and extends the right leg straight out behind, holding it slightly above his or her head so the leg is parallel to the horse&#8217;s spine. The other leg should have pressure distributed through the shin and foot, most weight should be on the back of the ankle, to avoid digging the knee into the horse&#8217;s back. The left arm is then stretched straight forward, at a height nearly that of the right leg. The hand should be held as it is in basic seat (palm down, fingers together). The right foot should be arched and the sole should face skyward. This movement should be held for four full strides after the arm and leg are raised. Mill: From the astride position, the vaulter brings the right leg over the horse&#8217;s neck. The grips must be ungrasped and retaken as the leg is brought over. The left leg is then brought in a full arc over the croup, again with a change of grips, before the right leg follows it, and the left leg moves over the neck to complete the full turn of the vaulter. The vaulter performs each leg movement in four strides each, completing the Mill movement in sixteen full strides. During the leg passes, the legs should be held perfectly straight, with the toes pointed. When the legs are on the same side of the horse, they should be pressed together. Scissors 1st part: From the astride position, the vaulter swings into a handstand. At the apex, the vaulter&#8217;s body should be turned to the lunger and the inner leg should be crossed over the outer leg. The vaulter than comes down and lands so that she is facing backward on the horse, toward the tail. Scissors 2nd part: From seat rearways on the horse the vaulter swings up with the outside leg over the inside leg, and lands facing forward once again. If the vaulter lands hard on the horse&#8217;s back, they are severely penalized. Scissors is judged on the elevation of the movement. Stand: The vaulter moves from the astride position onto the shins and immediately onto both feet, and releases the grips. The vaulter then straightens up with both knees bent, the buttocks tucked forward, and the hands held as they are in basic seat. The vaulter must hold the position for four full strides. Flank 1st part: From the astride position, the legs are swung forward to create momentum, before swinging backward, and rolling onto the stomach with a straight body, with a full extension of the legs so that the vaulter nearly reaches a handstand. At the apex, the vaulter jackknifes her body and turns the body to the inside, before sliding down into a side seat. The vaulter is judged on form, landing, and elevation. Swing off: From seat astride, the vaulter swings to handstand position with closed legs, arms extended to attain maximum elevation. At maximum arm extension, the vaulter pushes against the grips, and as a result of shoulder repulsion, attains additional elevation and maximum flight, landing to the inside of the horse, facing forward, on both feet. Due to its demanding nature, vaulting requires an outstanding physical condition from the vaulter, a harmonious relationship with the horse, and first-class teamwork. &#160; &#160;]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">525</post-id>	</item>
		<item>
		<title>This is how it&#8217;s done: equestrian vaulting on video</title>
		<link>http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/this-is-how-its-done-equestrian-vaulting-on-video/</link>
					<comments>http://www.equestrianfromcrete.com/this-is-how-its-done-equestrian-vaulting-on-video/#respond</comments>
		
		<dc:creator><![CDATA[chriszygakis]]></dc:creator>
		<pubDate>Thu, 16 Apr 2015 23:28:56 +0000</pubDate>
				<category><![CDATA[Equestrianism on the screen]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[equestrian]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[FEI]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[gymnastics]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[horse]]></category>
		<category><![CDATA[vaulting]]></category>
		<guid isPermaLink="false">https://equestrianfromcrete.wordpress.com/?p=522</guid>

					<description><![CDATA[I watched tonight on YouTube a video from the 2012 FEI World Vaulting Championships organized in Le Mans, won by the Swedish team. Germany and France were came second and third respectively. I hadn&#8217;t seen anything like that before and I found it amazing! Here is the video of the Swedish performance:]]></description>
		
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		<post-id xmlns="com-wordpress:feed-additions:1">522</post-id>	</item>
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