avaantares - Tumblr blog

[avaantares]

tag of the week:

@larksuibian :

#NHS doesn't know this dance ✳

[avaantares]

unfortunately I am beginning to understand why horse girls are so defensive about riding being a "sport".

Story time!

I began riding competitively when I was seven years old, and showed horses in a variety of disciplines until high school. In college, eager to get back in the saddle after a few years off, I joined my university's equestrian team. I was primarily competing on the flat but training in show jumping, which requires you to grip and balance with only a small area on the inside of your knees in contact with the horse (the rest of your body is braced up out of the saddle when jumping, a position called "two point"). During my years on the team I was riding multiple times a week, actively strength training in the saddle for better riding posture, and in the best shape of my life because of it.

One semester, I took a mandatory health and fitness class that was only a step removed from a high school gym class (it was even taught by a football coach who didn't want to be there). As part of the course, we had to track our physical activity, and we were required to log a certain number of exercise minutes per week. It could be pretty much any activity as long as we hit our target active minutes and heart rate (for cardio sessions).

After I turned in my exercise logs, the coach handed them back to me in class. "This is unacceptable," he said.

I had far exceeded the required number of weekly activity minutes, so I asked why.

"You counted riding horses as exercise. Sitting on the back of a horse isn't exercise. The horse is doing all the work."

"It takes a lot of strength and balance to stay on, especially when you're jumping," I explained. "It's isometric core and leg work, plus some cardio. Look at my average heart rate. I couldn't hit those numbers if it weren't a workout."

"Running is a workout. Weight lifting is a workout. Sitting on a horse while it goes in circles isn't. That's no different from sitting on the couch watching TV."

I stared at him. "Could you hold onto a barrel with your knees while it goes around tight corners and over fences at eighteen miles per hour without using any muscles?"

"I'm not going to stand here and argue about it," he thundered. "It doesn't count. Redo the assignment or take the incomplete grade, your choice."

So yeah, we definitely can get a bit defensive, because most of us have dealt with some variation of this football-bro nonsense. 🙄 It doesn't help that it's often accompanied by heavy overtones of misogyny, of the "real sports can only be played by men because girls are too weak and fragile," and "girls only like horses because they want big strong things between their legs" variety. (Yes, I've actually had both of those things said to my face. I showed great restraint by not immediately crushing the speakers' windpipes between my saddle-strengthened thighs.)

.

Anyway, I feel like most people who say, "Sure, I can ride a horse -- what, like it's hard?" have either never ridden, or have done like... one guided ride on a professional trail horse who is guaranteed not to spook and probably can't manage a speed above a slow jog. And yeah, you can just sit on that horse and hold on as it goes along the path or around the paddock, and you are technically riding a horse.

But trail horses and pony rides are like bikes outfitted with giant training wheels. Sitting on a horse without using your body to guide and assist in its movement is not the complete horseback riding experience, any more than sitting on one of those motorcycle-shaped kiddie rides at the fair is the same as riding a motorcycle at highway speeds.

I always thought it was like an exaggeration when horse people would talk about how silly it was for anyone to think that riding a horse does not require any particular level of skill or balance or anything, or even that they "drive themselves" (???) but just the tags on the reblogs of that "can you ride a bike and/or horse" post from me alone are demonstrating how overconfident some people are in their (often entirely theoretical!) ability to stay on an alive and moving animal with a will of its own.

[avaantares]

[avaantares]

This scene is so real.

Source: a creative writing student.

[avaantares]

DM: and for Christmas, I promise not to kill off any of your characters

DM: just for one session, after that you're on your own

[avaantares]

You know, an interesting tumblr transformation that's happened gradually, and which I've seen no one talk about: ask-culture has essentially dropped off to nothing.

By which I mean, asks used to be WAY more of the tumblr economy. They used to be more common to send, and receive, and see. They were integral to the collaborative, forum-like behavior of old tumblr communities, not even to speak on the HUGE number of ask-blogs that used to exist to only be interacted with in ask-form.

I'm not saying this in a vying-for-attention way but instead in an observational way: I used to get way way more asks in like 2015, even with a fraction of my follower count. I wonder if it's due to the homogenization of social media sites? There's a lot more of this divide between "content creator" and "consumer" instead of just a bunch of peer blogs who would talk to each other. "Asks" aren't really a thing on twitter, are they? And as I understand it, the closest thing to an "ask" on instagram or tiktok would be a creator screenshotting some comment and responding to it in a new reel or video or whatever those content mediums are. Are asks just too tumblr-specific? Is that aspect of the site culture dying out as more and more people converge to using all their social media sites in the same way?

[avaantares]

The side of her the media won’t show you

[avaantares]

Trying out new sketching styles… weekend come fast, got some full pieces to finish 🙏

[avaantares]

[avaantares]

The greater blue-eared starling

[avaantares]

Sauron

[avaantares]

If you're looking for general Z1L acting recs, he's AMAZING in Lighting Up the Stars. It's a totally different type of role from the first few things I saw him in, but definitely worth a watch. (It's a good feelsy movie, too!)

I also quite enjoy his chaotic gremlin take on Wu Xie in The Lost Tomb Reboot/Restart/The Sound of Providence/whatever we're calling that installment of DMBJ this week, though it might be a weird jumping-on point if you aren't already familiar with the franchise. (Despite the title, it's not actually a reboot, just a sequel after a lengthy time skip.)

Honestly I've never seen ZYL be bad in anything, though, so probably any title from his filmography is a safe bet!

Wondering what your favourite role of zhu yilong is beyond guardian :)

Happy to get recommendations from his filmography - Planning to watch Border Town Prodigal bc of the aesthetics!

[avaantares]

jin guangyao text post meme

[avaantares]

Happy anniversary to DMC5!

[avaantares]

middle-earth dashboard simulator

🏵 hobbitc0re Follow

pippin was 29 years old???

🏵 hobbitc0re Follow

he should've been at the green dragon

( 420 notes )

📸 daily-middle-earth-photos Follow

#gates of argonath #argonath #amon hen #middle earth landscapes #photographers of middle earth #travel #dark academia #lmao pls reblog this i almost fell out of my boat taking this photo

( 79 notes )

🦢 elfposting Follow

my hungry ass could never travel with lembas

( 9,839 notes )

🐟 sojuicysweet Follow

.

#the entitlement i see on this site sometimes is disgusting #y'all will just post about having easy access to lembas when we can't eats hobbit food??? #we must starve??? #vent #do not rb

( 3 notes )

🗡 shieldmaiden Follow

CALLOUT FOR GRIMA WORMTONGUE

I've talked a lot about this already on this blog, but I want to have everything collected in one post so next time some dipshit with a white hand icon slides into my inbox to call me a liar I can just link to this post. tl;dr grima wormtongue has been poisoning my uncle and the land of rohan for the past few years, and here are the receipts:

Keep reading

( 38 notes )

🧙‍♂️ bignaturals Follow

i stg if one more of you tells me I should've sent frodo on the eagles I'm asking iluvatar to take me back

( 1,930 notes )

📖 booknerdofbree Follow

recent read: there and back again: a hobbit's tale by bilbo baggins

I thought this was SOOO fun and cute! I'm usually not into rpf but did anyone else think there was something between bilbo and thorin? 👀 I can't be the only one who saw it. but the ending made me cry my eyes out.

4.5/5 stars

#booklr #there and back again #bilbo baggins #recent read #dark academia #light academia #book review

( 12 notes )

🌲 elvenking69 Follow

who up mirking they wood

( 58,274 notes )

🐛 manofsirith Follow

wtf the new king of gondor just bowed to these four random short guys?? everyone else bowed too and I just went along with it lmao 😅 am I missing something????

#this is right after he sang a song and made out with some hot elf chick #truly the wildest coronation i've ever been to

( 85 notes )

🥵 firstagebaddiebracket Follow

ULTIMATE HOTTEST FIRST AGE BADDIE TOURNAMENT FINALS!!!!

🔘 haldir-deactivated30190303

here y'all go again pitting two bad bitches against each other

🌀 aragornsbigtoe Follow

🌊 helcaraxebaby Follow

everyone who voted galadriel is a kinslayer apologist #luthiensweep

( 4,271 notes )

🔥 beaconboi Follow

fuck my job so much. everyone manifest an attack on gondor so I can finally warm my fingers on this beacon fire.

🔥 beaconboi Follow

by eru this can't be happening

( 38,386 notes )

[avaantares]

Do you like the color of the Sun?

Get ready to be dazzled by the true spectrum of solar beauty. From fiery reds to cool blues, explore the vibrant hues of the Sun in a mesmerizing color order. These images were taken in a wavelength of extreme ultraviolet light to clearly see any activity on the surface of the Sun — giving scientists a wealth of data for solar studies.

[avaantares]

The Yin-Yang Master: Dream of Eternity (2020)