Wilma - Aikidoka

Who knew that Friesians practiced their own form of Aikido? Wilma showed me the other day just how hard she's been practicing. All of this, apparently, has beentaking place under cover of darkness, or during the day while I've got my back turned.

I took Aikido for a couple of years. The first thing you're taught is how to roll. You roll forward, you roll backwards, you roll fast and slow. By the time you're ready to your test for black belt, you can roll just about in slow motion, moving from shoulder to hip, legs beautifully arched over your head, and then complete the roll by springing lightly to your feet. Ta dah! Every hair still in place, and not a wrinkle or speck of dust on your uniform.

Now, I've never discussed my brief but fun career on the Aikido mat with Wilma. I've never shown her any moves, or otherwise indicated that I knew anything about any martial art at all. How was I to know she had been secretly studying??

Her pay off came one weekend after some heavy rain. She and Willow were n the arena, with its hogsfuel base. The younger horses were next door, in the long pasture.

It's not clear how it got started, but suddenly there was a game of "Who can buck and run higher?" going on. Wilma is 16; apparently she was feeling much younger, however, for there she was holding her own against her 3-year-old granddaughter, Marieh, who can buck to the moon when she feels like it. She has a very good portfolio of spins and sliding stops, too.

After one particularly spectacular display by Marieh, Wilma, deciding she would not be outdone, leapt into the air, performed a snazzy little buck in mid-air, and prepared for landing. Uh oh. Her landing gear didn't come down quite right and her hooves started skidding along a slippery spot right by the fence. Next, her front legs buckled, and there she was, skating along on her knees like someone from Holiday on Ice, massive Friesian hindquarters high in the air. Disaster seemed imminent. As I watched in horror, time slowed down, and I had visions of scraping my darling horse up from the dirt and untangling her from what was certain to be a collision with the fencing. Wilma fooled me, though. Her Aikido reflexes went into high gear. She gracefully lowered her head, laid one shoulder down, and executed a perfect forward roll. At one point, all four legs were arching beautifully through the air as she rolled from shoulder to hip, flipped to the other side (not part of the human forward roll, but important in the horse version), and then sprang lightly to her feet. She shook herselfonce, tossed her mane, and gave me a look that said very clearly, "What did you think of THAT?" Then she calmly walked away, content in the knowledge that all those late-night workouts had just paid off. All I could say was "Give the girl her black belt!"