Lesson notes almost didn't happen for this month because the lesson almost didn't happen because I am a fucking idiot and wrote down the wrong time. Thankfully, my barn manager texts AND I live less than ten minutes from the barn. I was on and warming up only 30 minutes after my planned start time. Sigh.
What we worked on:
1. Forward. Always. Forever. In this lesson we focused hard on quickness and getting his feet hustling, accomplished at least partly by me posting much more quickly, which frustrated him enough to want to match it.
2. Bending through his whole body. He was actually pretty responsive to softening in his jaw right off the bat, but took longer to convince to yield his ribcage and step through with his inside hind, particularly to the left.
3. Lateral work. In particular, we worked hard on sharpening up my aids for the shoulder in: when I was asking for too much bend, when I wasn't signalling clearly enough with my leg aids to keep his hind end moving. It still wasn't bright and quick but it was a damn sight more through than I've ever had him in the shoulder in. We also dabbled in haunches in, even getting a few creditable steps at a time.
4. Canter. For once, we didn't actually school the canter too much because it was pretty darn good! But I finally got the idea hammered into me that I am breaking too much at the wrists in the canter.
Bel Joeor: Life + Horses
Showing posts with label lesson notes. Show all posts
Showing posts with label lesson notes. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 24, 2017
Thursday, April 6, 2017
March Lesson Notes
Super behind, but I DID have a lesson in March!
We worked more on getting him truly forward, and then on working out how much weight he takes in the reins right now.
I always worry about this line: when do I take too much weight back, too much of a pull, and I'm backing him off or being hard on his mouth?
The answer we worked out in this lesson was: way more than I had been using (I'd been using an extremely light touch with the reins to keep encouraging him to fill them up) BUT the key was that he had to be going forward.
Forward is always the key; I should be able to remember that by now, right? Ha. But: when he is forward, I can take much more weight than I can otherwise, because I'm not sucking him back, or stalling him out. I'm using the weight to encourage him to lighten.
Primarily, I was using very strong inside aids to a firm holding outside rein as a very hard half halt. Strong aids is not a new thing for Tristan, but I struggle with getting in & getting out again, and often fall into the trap of simply increasing the strength of the aid over and over again.
That's actually been the story with my leg aids for a long time now, and I've been working hard on leg aid means GO and then taking them off in the meantime.
This may sound really stupid, and I feel kind of embarrassed for putting it out there, but Tristan has typically required constant, strong, nagging leg aids to maintain forward momentum. It's a training problem, and it's entirely my fault. I'm working hard on fixing it right now, with the result that we're getting long minutes at a stretch of a springy, forward trot with only occasional leg aids to ask him to come strongly out of a corner.
By the end of the lesson, I'd reached a new equilibrium with my rein aids and he was giving me a lovely strong uphill feel through the base of the neck and into the bridle.
In the two weeks since, he's been going really well, like we've unlocked something in him, to the degree that I've been schooling transitions in that uphill frame, and working on lightening him in the bit in the trot. Canter still weighs a ton and is not wildly maneuverable, but I can feel how much lighter it is already, and I'm excited!
We worked more on getting him truly forward, and then on working out how much weight he takes in the reins right now.
I always worry about this line: when do I take too much weight back, too much of a pull, and I'm backing him off or being hard on his mouth?
The answer we worked out in this lesson was: way more than I had been using (I'd been using an extremely light touch with the reins to keep encouraging him to fill them up) BUT the key was that he had to be going forward.
Forward is always the key; I should be able to remember that by now, right? Ha. But: when he is forward, I can take much more weight than I can otherwise, because I'm not sucking him back, or stalling him out. I'm using the weight to encourage him to lighten.
Primarily, I was using very strong inside aids to a firm holding outside rein as a very hard half halt. Strong aids is not a new thing for Tristan, but I struggle with getting in & getting out again, and often fall into the trap of simply increasing the strength of the aid over and over again.
That's actually been the story with my leg aids for a long time now, and I've been working hard on leg aid means GO and then taking them off in the meantime.
This may sound really stupid, and I feel kind of embarrassed for putting it out there, but Tristan has typically required constant, strong, nagging leg aids to maintain forward momentum. It's a training problem, and it's entirely my fault. I'm working hard on fixing it right now, with the result that we're getting long minutes at a stretch of a springy, forward trot with only occasional leg aids to ask him to come strongly out of a corner.
By the end of the lesson, I'd reached a new equilibrium with my rein aids and he was giving me a lovely strong uphill feel through the base of the neck and into the bridle.
In the two weeks since, he's been going really well, like we've unlocked something in him, to the degree that I've been schooling transitions in that uphill frame, and working on lightening him in the bit in the trot. Canter still weighs a ton and is not wildly maneuverable, but I can feel how much lighter it is already, and I'm excited!
Monday, February 20, 2017
February Lesson Recap
I could sum up this entire lesson pretty easily:
FORWARDFORWARDFORWARDFORWARDFORWARD
But this is a blog, so I will elaborate.
Overall, this went really well. I'm really happy with how responsive Tris was, and we were both tired but energized by the end.
Things I need to remember:
- Especially in the warmup & early on, establish my baseline for my aids. I have a bad habit of asking ten times to get one response in leg aids. It's not like I don't know to ask once, get an answer or bring the thunder. It's that bad habit stuff. I need to be more conscious of this.
- Keep my hands forward and a loop in the reins early on to not let him for a second think there's resistance to him going forward. It doesn't matter what he's doing with his face. Just GO.
- Strong into the corners, strong out of them.
- Use diagonals but don't let that energy jam into the corner. Flow through them!
- Be thoughtful, deliberate, and firm about the use of bending and counterflexion, in two different ways.
--- First, in corners: bend into the corner, straighten out of it, almost to the point of counterflexion. Particularly useful for short sides: bend, straighten/counterflex, bend, then GO down the long side. Also useful in shorter cycles on a 20m circle; bend on the curves of the circle, counterflex on the points (where the circle touches the wall).
--- Second, in half-halts. BEND, almost over-bend, strong bend, but ask and then done. Keep inside leg asking to access his inside hind at the same time. Keep contact with the outside rein and keep that inside leg active: bend and step up INTO the outside rein.
In particular, we got one wonderful canter: found a whole new gear and he LEAPT forward, sitting down, up and charging with real impulsion right up through his back down a whole long side. It was not unlike the compressed canter approaching a jump, and my body for a second wanted to get ready to two-point so I didn't follow nearly as well in my seat as I should have. But I know the canter is there and mostly how to get it again, and I am happy with how it felt.
I was not able to replicate this quite as well in my schooling rides later that week. I erred too much on go go GO and not enough with finesse so there were some really ugly moments in the middle. But I was able to pick him back up and finish well, so I will count those as learning moments.
I really wish I could even manage every two weeks, but that's not going to happen, so that's it until March.
FORWARDFORWARDFORWARDFORWARDFORWARD
But this is a blog, so I will elaborate.
Overall, this went really well. I'm really happy with how responsive Tris was, and we were both tired but energized by the end.
Things I need to remember:
- Especially in the warmup & early on, establish my baseline for my aids. I have a bad habit of asking ten times to get one response in leg aids. It's not like I don't know to ask once, get an answer or bring the thunder. It's that bad habit stuff. I need to be more conscious of this.
- Keep my hands forward and a loop in the reins early on to not let him for a second think there's resistance to him going forward. It doesn't matter what he's doing with his face. Just GO.
- Strong into the corners, strong out of them.
- Use diagonals but don't let that energy jam into the corner. Flow through them!
- Be thoughtful, deliberate, and firm about the use of bending and counterflexion, in two different ways.
--- First, in corners: bend into the corner, straighten out of it, almost to the point of counterflexion. Particularly useful for short sides: bend, straighten/counterflex, bend, then GO down the long side. Also useful in shorter cycles on a 20m circle; bend on the curves of the circle, counterflex on the points (where the circle touches the wall).
--- Second, in half-halts. BEND, almost over-bend, strong bend, but ask and then done. Keep inside leg asking to access his inside hind at the same time. Keep contact with the outside rein and keep that inside leg active: bend and step up INTO the outside rein.
In particular, we got one wonderful canter: found a whole new gear and he LEAPT forward, sitting down, up and charging with real impulsion right up through his back down a whole long side. It was not unlike the compressed canter approaching a jump, and my body for a second wanted to get ready to two-point so I didn't follow nearly as well in my seat as I should have. But I know the canter is there and mostly how to get it again, and I am happy with how it felt.
I was not able to replicate this quite as well in my schooling rides later that week. I erred too much on go go GO and not enough with finesse so there were some really ugly moments in the middle. But I was able to pick him back up and finish well, so I will count those as learning moments.
I really wish I could even manage every two weeks, but that's not going to happen, so that's it until March.
Wednesday, January 11, 2017
Lesson Recap
One of my 2017 goals was to take more lessons, and when my trainer was in town for a few days and did a clinic, I jumped on board.
I honestly can't remember the last time I took a lesson. Summer, maybe. In another life, old me took lessons weekly, and sometimes twice a week. If something came up that made me miss one, I'd handwave it away with a laugh and say, oh, I'll make it up later, I have plenty of credits! Old me was an asshole.
So: lesson. I'm going to take down a few bullet points as things I need to work on, and have been working on since.
1. Get my goddamn hands out of my goddamn lap. Shorter reins, more over his withers. In order to encourage him to come up and lift through his withers and the base of his neck, in order to create that space between hips and hands to hold collection, THERE HAS TO BE ACTUAL SPACE THERE.
In order to really work on this, I need to let go of the part of my brain that feels like I'm tipping over, leaning forward, not following with my arms enough, because what I need to do is follow WAY more, because it is one thing to follow with long reins and your hands in your lap and another entirely to follow with a careful regular contact and short rein.
2. Stop providing resistance for him to meet. This is one of my old, favorite traps: Tristan is hard-headed and uses his under neck muscle to grind out his frustration, and hoo boy do I take that bait. I've risen to that bait for a decade now. We're like an old married couple except instead of arguing about the dishes we argue about him softening his mouth for, like, one half second, asshole. The thing is: he knows better, I know better, and miracle of miracles, when I refuse to hold up my end of that pattern everything falls apart...and comes back together much better.
3. FORWARD FORWARD FORWARD FORWARD FORWARD. 'nuff said.
4. Canter transitions! These were something I'd specifically asked to work on. So, we spent a lot of time breaking down the idea of transitioning on a half-halt, first picking moments and then creating moments in which he was surging up through his back to ask for a canter transition, so that we went forward into the canter with a bouncing, bounding energy. Keeping that in the canter, more half-halts, more encouraging him to lift and carry, then keeping it back down through into the trot.
5. Part and parcel of everything: setting the bridle out in front of me and then sending him forward into it. Elementary, and yet: sigh. Still working on it.
Sometimes, honestly, I despair that I have been riding this horse for ten years and I still more or less suck at it, but other times I think of everything else I've learned and - it's probably even.
I honestly can't remember the last time I took a lesson. Summer, maybe. In another life, old me took lessons weekly, and sometimes twice a week. If something came up that made me miss one, I'd handwave it away with a laugh and say, oh, I'll make it up later, I have plenty of credits! Old me was an asshole.
So: lesson. I'm going to take down a few bullet points as things I need to work on, and have been working on since.
1. Get my goddamn hands out of my goddamn lap. Shorter reins, more over his withers. In order to encourage him to come up and lift through his withers and the base of his neck, in order to create that space between hips and hands to hold collection, THERE HAS TO BE ACTUAL SPACE THERE.
In order to really work on this, I need to let go of the part of my brain that feels like I'm tipping over, leaning forward, not following with my arms enough, because what I need to do is follow WAY more, because it is one thing to follow with long reins and your hands in your lap and another entirely to follow with a careful regular contact and short rein.
2. Stop providing resistance for him to meet. This is one of my old, favorite traps: Tristan is hard-headed and uses his under neck muscle to grind out his frustration, and hoo boy do I take that bait. I've risen to that bait for a decade now. We're like an old married couple except instead of arguing about the dishes we argue about him softening his mouth for, like, one half second, asshole. The thing is: he knows better, I know better, and miracle of miracles, when I refuse to hold up my end of that pattern everything falls apart...and comes back together much better.
3. FORWARD FORWARD FORWARD FORWARD FORWARD. 'nuff said.
4. Canter transitions! These were something I'd specifically asked to work on. So, we spent a lot of time breaking down the idea of transitioning on a half-halt, first picking moments and then creating moments in which he was surging up through his back to ask for a canter transition, so that we went forward into the canter with a bouncing, bounding energy. Keeping that in the canter, more half-halts, more encouraging him to lift and carry, then keeping it back down through into the trot.
5. Part and parcel of everything: setting the bridle out in front of me and then sending him forward into it. Elementary, and yet: sigh. Still working on it.
Sometimes, honestly, I despair that I have been riding this horse for ten years and I still more or less suck at it, but other times I think of everything else I've learned and - it's probably even.
Friday, January 9, 2015
What do you bring when you fall off?
It happens to the best of us. You're approaching a jump - riding a fresh horse - asking for a little too much spice in an upward transition, and then boom, you're on the ground.
If you're riding by yourself, you dust yourself off and get back on. (Hopefully, anyway.)
If you're in a lesson, what happens next? Once you're deemed to be ok, of course.
Does your lesson barn or trainer have an imposed penalty for falling off?
When I took lessons in France, if you fell off, the rule was that you had to bring a chocolate cake to the next lesson.
These were group lessons, basically cattle calls, with 8-10 people per lesson, riding in a circle. I've never been in a lesson format like it since. I maintain today that the French system of riding is founded on not dying. The people who make it out are damn good riders.
We had chocolate cake every week. If no one had fallen off at the 45 minute mark, we dropped stirrups. Then we sat the trot. Then we worked on canter transitions. If all else failed, out came the crossrail. Keep in mind, 8-10 people, riding in a big circle in a situation that sometimes felt an awful lot like a warmup ring from hell. Sometimes we were only riding in half of an indoor arena - a very big indoor, to be sure, way oversized, with second story bleachers for watching horseball. But still, now we're talking 16-20 horses, in two big circles at either end. Yeah.
So: cake every week. One week it was me. Some weeks we had multiple cakes.
I've heard other variations on this. A bottle of wine, for the adults. What brought this to mind was a blogger recently mentioning that she had to bring doughnuts to her next lesson for falling off.
I don't know what the current barn's policy is, as I haven't fallen off in a lesson (thankfully).
Do you have to bring anything to your trainer or the barn when you fall off in a lesson?
If you're riding by yourself, you dust yourself off and get back on. (Hopefully, anyway.)
If you're in a lesson, what happens next? Once you're deemed to be ok, of course.
Does your lesson barn or trainer have an imposed penalty for falling off?
When I took lessons in France, if you fell off, the rule was that you had to bring a chocolate cake to the next lesson.
These were group lessons, basically cattle calls, with 8-10 people per lesson, riding in a circle. I've never been in a lesson format like it since. I maintain today that the French system of riding is founded on not dying. The people who make it out are damn good riders.
We had chocolate cake every week. If no one had fallen off at the 45 minute mark, we dropped stirrups. Then we sat the trot. Then we worked on canter transitions. If all else failed, out came the crossrail. Keep in mind, 8-10 people, riding in a big circle in a situation that sometimes felt an awful lot like a warmup ring from hell. Sometimes we were only riding in half of an indoor arena - a very big indoor, to be sure, way oversized, with second story bleachers for watching horseball. But still, now we're talking 16-20 horses, in two big circles at either end. Yeah.
So: cake every week. One week it was me. Some weeks we had multiple cakes.
I've heard other variations on this. A bottle of wine, for the adults. What brought this to mind was a blogger recently mentioning that she had to bring doughnuts to her next lesson for falling off.
I don't know what the current barn's policy is, as I haven't fallen off in a lesson (thankfully).
Do you have to bring anything to your trainer or the barn when you fall off in a lesson?
Tuesday, April 8, 2014
In Just-spring
when the world is mudlicious
and puddlewonderful
says e.e. cummings, to continue the poetry kick.
Two very good rides. Long road hack on Sunday, with some short bits of trot interspersed. We stopped at a big puddle of runoff to see if he would want to take a drink (he loves his puddles), and he took a long drink, then splashed and splashed with his nose, curling his lip in disgust every other splash when water went up his nose. I forgot to turn on the GPS app, but I would estimate we were out for about 60 minutes.
Monday, a lesson. We focused on hind end action: both in flexibility and in push. WT put out poles, and wanted me to capture the feeling of that push and that activity in going all the way around the ring. When I was losing it, and falling into nagging, I was to go back over the polls. It worked really well. He was really motoring around, and sitting back, and lifting through his back.
In between, the focus was on really.going.straight. Lining everything up and not letting him trick me into overbending instead of really stepping through in the shoulder-in and haunches-in.
In all, I felt really good about where I had him. I felt less good about the consistency of it: keeping him there. And I felt not so good about my own position, which was sloppy at times. In particular, heels! I've usually been pretty good about them, but I am doing far too much pointing with my toes and pushing off the balls of my feet.
After the lesson, the barn manager gave Tris his first Pentosan injection. It was a lot - 6ccs - in the muscle, and I had bought a slightly larger gauge of needle than is usual (20). So he definitely felt it, but was very good. I think we'll have to get further into the loading dose before he shows any results, but I'm optimistic.
Rest of the week:
Tuesday, rest
Wednesday, longeing (maybe? work event that might keep me late)
Thursday, hack
Friday, dressage school
Saturday, rest
and puddlewonderful
says e.e. cummings, to continue the poetry kick.
Two very good rides. Long road hack on Sunday, with some short bits of trot interspersed. We stopped at a big puddle of runoff to see if he would want to take a drink (he loves his puddles), and he took a long drink, then splashed and splashed with his nose, curling his lip in disgust every other splash when water went up his nose. I forgot to turn on the GPS app, but I would estimate we were out for about 60 minutes.
Monday, a lesson. We focused on hind end action: both in flexibility and in push. WT put out poles, and wanted me to capture the feeling of that push and that activity in going all the way around the ring. When I was losing it, and falling into nagging, I was to go back over the polls. It worked really well. He was really motoring around, and sitting back, and lifting through his back.
In between, the focus was on really.going.straight. Lining everything up and not letting him trick me into overbending instead of really stepping through in the shoulder-in and haunches-in.
In all, I felt really good about where I had him. I felt less good about the consistency of it: keeping him there. And I felt not so good about my own position, which was sloppy at times. In particular, heels! I've usually been pretty good about them, but I am doing far too much pointing with my toes and pushing off the balls of my feet.
After the lesson, the barn manager gave Tris his first Pentosan injection. It was a lot - 6ccs - in the muscle, and I had bought a slightly larger gauge of needle than is usual (20). So he definitely felt it, but was very good. I think we'll have to get further into the loading dose before he shows any results, but I'm optimistic.
Rest of the week:
Tuesday, rest
Wednesday, longeing (maybe? work event that might keep me late)
Thursday, hack
Friday, dressage school
Saturday, rest
Tuesday, March 11, 2014
Lesson Notes: Canter breakthrough, finally!
Just some brief outline notes to remember this lesson - it was an excellent one. Tris is finally fit enough to get some serious work done. I paced him a bit during the lesson but he stuck with me and recovered beautifully. Only uphill from here!
First things first: lovely gorgeous stretchy warmup, awesome pony. We walked and trotted on the buckle for nearly 20 minutes, and then I brought him back to the walk and picked up the reins. We did lateral work to ease him in, more transitions: shoulder-in, straight, haunches in, straight, leg yield off the wall, straight, back too the wall, straight...you get the idea.
In the trot we needed more forward so we worked on going deep into corners and coming out strong down the long side. If there was a flaw to this lesson it was that I did not install forward firmly enough and was too nagging with my leg.
Once warmed up, it was all about circles and getting him round and deep. Controlling the shoulders on the circle, getting him deep and over his back, increasing the activity of his hind end with my inside leg. Deep and firm in the reins but not diving.
The real meat was in the canter, though. First we did some circles and back to our counterflexion exercise at each "point" of the circle. As we went on it felt less like a whole body shift and more like a subtle moment of more straightness, and he got stronger and stronger through it rather than threatening to break.
Then WT (winter trainer, to differentiate from the barn's main trainer, who is in Florida, sigh) suggested an experiment. Tristan has been getting so much stronger and more through in the canter - what would he do if I got into two point, up off his back, but kept everything else the same?
So I did. And it was a teensy bit of a learning curve, as he kept breaking, I was leaning a bit too much, and my brain clicked into jumping mode a bit and I wanted to shimmy up the reins and press my knuckles into his neck and GO...but after a few minutes of figuring each other out, I settled down into my leg, kept my hands down just in front of his withers, and reprogrammed my body.
He seemed happier almost immediately, and was surprisingly adjustable for all I didn't have my seat - he did lose some of the straightness, but he gained in engagement through the hind end. Left, we made progress. Right? Right we had this one shining moment when his hind end connected up through his back and whooosh, there was everything we wanted, complete with a fleeting feeling of softness through the bit.
Then he broke to the trot, but he got SO much praise, pats, and he was done. His breathing recovered quickly and he was happy to go back into a stall with his cooler very soon.
Next ride, we'll go back and forth between the deep seat + counterflexion and the two point + impulsion, and as we make progress we'll start to marry the two together more and more.
(of course, we are getting 18" of snow on Wednesday afternoon through Thursday, so who knows when that next ride will be? sigh.)
First things first: lovely gorgeous stretchy warmup, awesome pony. We walked and trotted on the buckle for nearly 20 minutes, and then I brought him back to the walk and picked up the reins. We did lateral work to ease him in, more transitions: shoulder-in, straight, haunches in, straight, leg yield off the wall, straight, back too the wall, straight...you get the idea.
In the trot we needed more forward so we worked on going deep into corners and coming out strong down the long side. If there was a flaw to this lesson it was that I did not install forward firmly enough and was too nagging with my leg.
Once warmed up, it was all about circles and getting him round and deep. Controlling the shoulders on the circle, getting him deep and over his back, increasing the activity of his hind end with my inside leg. Deep and firm in the reins but not diving.
The real meat was in the canter, though. First we did some circles and back to our counterflexion exercise at each "point" of the circle. As we went on it felt less like a whole body shift and more like a subtle moment of more straightness, and he got stronger and stronger through it rather than threatening to break.
Then WT (winter trainer, to differentiate from the barn's main trainer, who is in Florida, sigh) suggested an experiment. Tristan has been getting so much stronger and more through in the canter - what would he do if I got into two point, up off his back, but kept everything else the same?
So I did. And it was a teensy bit of a learning curve, as he kept breaking, I was leaning a bit too much, and my brain clicked into jumping mode a bit and I wanted to shimmy up the reins and press my knuckles into his neck and GO...but after a few minutes of figuring each other out, I settled down into my leg, kept my hands down just in front of his withers, and reprogrammed my body.
He seemed happier almost immediately, and was surprisingly adjustable for all I didn't have my seat - he did lose some of the straightness, but he gained in engagement through the hind end. Left, we made progress. Right? Right we had this one shining moment when his hind end connected up through his back and whooosh, there was everything we wanted, complete with a fleeting feeling of softness through the bit.
Then he broke to the trot, but he got SO much praise, pats, and he was done. His breathing recovered quickly and he was happy to go back into a stall with his cooler very soon.
Next ride, we'll go back and forth between the deep seat + counterflexion and the two point + impulsion, and as we make progress we'll start to marry the two together more and more.
(of course, we are getting 18" of snow on Wednesday afternoon through Thursday, so who knows when that next ride will be? sigh.)
Tuesday, February 4, 2014
Lesson Notes: Shoulder-In and Counterflexion in the Canter
The plan for the lesson was to warm Tris up thoroughly over his back before it started, and then drop the stirrups and do a 30 minute lesson in shoulder-in and work on the canter a bit.
It mostly succeeded. The catch was a bit that I didn't get him really through and supple enough in my warm up, so we spent the first bit of the lesson working on leg yield at the walk and then trot to get him connected and responding. Then we switched over to shoulder-in, starting at the walk.
Tris and I have both ridden shoulder-in before; it's not new to us, but it's been a long time and we haven't really ever had good eyes on the ground when we've schooled it. Plus, I'm finding that most things are a bit of a re-learning, both because we were out for so long with his injury and because the new barn is much more dressage-focused than the old barn.
So, shoulder-in went reasonably well; Tris had a tendency to be overbent through his neck and not get his haunches through. I had a tendency to hunch to the inside and let my outside leg flop around uselessly. Correcting the shoulders through the outside aids and tapping with the crop helped straighten him out, and discipline corrected some of my postural problems.
It really got cooking in the trot, though: Tris had enough forward energy to really load his hind end, and when I got him lined up, BAM, I could feel the sizzle in his hind end as if I had unstuck a cork. In fact it became a bit too much at times and he got fizzy and rushed and disorganized at the end of the long side, so we then incorporated half-halts every stride or two to collect the trot more. It felt like every pass we made was better than the last and with great substantive improvement. I was feeling his body much better and able to catch when it was going out of alignment, I was sitting more deeply and through and straight, and we had some very nice passes. Best of all, I was really connecting through my core in the shoulder-in - feel the burn!
Tris was huffy and puffy from working so hard through his hind end and over his back in that shoulder-in, so we walked for quite a while, and then picked up some canter work. The goal here was not necessarily to school, but rather more to demonstrate where we are in the canter. Right canter met with approval: I am more straight and deep in the saddle, more even in my hands and seatbones. He's more supple and more flexible and on the outside aids.
Left canter was better than it has been, but still not nearly the right canter. So we did end up schooling that direction for a bit, as he flung his shoulders around on the circle and was not nearly as sharp to the aids in the transition. Trainer had us school counterflexion and back for a bit to get control of his shoulders, and once I got the feel of it, applying it correctly really unlocked some nice things in his left canter. Basically, before each "point" in a 20m circle, counterflex for one stride; then correct flex for the "point"; then counterflex the stride afterwards. It was a way really emphasizing my outside aids, and not allowing his shoulders to rule the day.
So it actually ended up being more like 45 minutes, all without stirrups. Hoorah and huzzah! I felt great, and especially loved schooling the canter without stirrups. It's not an all the time solution - in particular, I can't warm him up effectively without getting off his back and I can't do that for long enough without stirrups - but I loved pulling them for the second half and getting a workout at the same time we did more technical work.
It mostly succeeded. The catch was a bit that I didn't get him really through and supple enough in my warm up, so we spent the first bit of the lesson working on leg yield at the walk and then trot to get him connected and responding. Then we switched over to shoulder-in, starting at the walk.
Tris and I have both ridden shoulder-in before; it's not new to us, but it's been a long time and we haven't really ever had good eyes on the ground when we've schooled it. Plus, I'm finding that most things are a bit of a re-learning, both because we were out for so long with his injury and because the new barn is much more dressage-focused than the old barn.
So, shoulder-in went reasonably well; Tris had a tendency to be overbent through his neck and not get his haunches through. I had a tendency to hunch to the inside and let my outside leg flop around uselessly. Correcting the shoulders through the outside aids and tapping with the crop helped straighten him out, and discipline corrected some of my postural problems.
It really got cooking in the trot, though: Tris had enough forward energy to really load his hind end, and when I got him lined up, BAM, I could feel the sizzle in his hind end as if I had unstuck a cork. In fact it became a bit too much at times and he got fizzy and rushed and disorganized at the end of the long side, so we then incorporated half-halts every stride or two to collect the trot more. It felt like every pass we made was better than the last and with great substantive improvement. I was feeling his body much better and able to catch when it was going out of alignment, I was sitting more deeply and through and straight, and we had some very nice passes. Best of all, I was really connecting through my core in the shoulder-in - feel the burn!
Tris was huffy and puffy from working so hard through his hind end and over his back in that shoulder-in, so we walked for quite a while, and then picked up some canter work. The goal here was not necessarily to school, but rather more to demonstrate where we are in the canter. Right canter met with approval: I am more straight and deep in the saddle, more even in my hands and seatbones. He's more supple and more flexible and on the outside aids.
Left canter was better than it has been, but still not nearly the right canter. So we did end up schooling that direction for a bit, as he flung his shoulders around on the circle and was not nearly as sharp to the aids in the transition. Trainer had us school counterflexion and back for a bit to get control of his shoulders, and once I got the feel of it, applying it correctly really unlocked some nice things in his left canter. Basically, before each "point" in a 20m circle, counterflex for one stride; then correct flex for the "point"; then counterflex the stride afterwards. It was a way really emphasizing my outside aids, and not allowing his shoulders to rule the day.
So it actually ended up being more like 45 minutes, all without stirrups. Hoorah and huzzah! I felt great, and especially loved schooling the canter without stirrups. It's not an all the time solution - in particular, I can't warm him up effectively without getting off his back and I can't do that for long enough without stirrups - but I loved pulling them for the second half and getting a workout at the same time we did more technical work.
Monday, January 20, 2014
What makes a good lesson horse?
A narrative of my lesson with my boyfriend on Tristan has been requested, and in thinking about how to write it I thought a bit about a bigger question: what makes a good lesson horse?
But I'll get to that in a minute. There's honestly not much to recap about the lesson. It was 20 minutes, with about 15 on the longe line. A lot of talking him through position at the walk. I made him reach all over and do stretching, and call out to me which feet were hitting the ground at what moment, trying to get him to feel what each part of Tristan was doing in order to propel them forward.
We talked about keeping weight deep in the saddle and it was a bit of an exercise in frustration for me to see him refuse to grasp the idea that it is weight, not muscle, that keeps a rider in the saddle. He insisted it was physically impossible for him to drop his weight through his heels without gripping the saddle with his knees. I told him to see what happened when he gripped as tightly as he thought he should with his whole leg, and bless my horse, he launched into a beautiful forward trot, obedient as you please, and then stopped after two strides because M. was bouncing around like a potato sack.
We talked about posting, and finding the rhythm of it, and then I turned him loose off the longe for about five minutes of experimenting at the walk, seeing what happened when he asked Tris to move off his leg and go different places. We talked about how contrary to Hollywood's bad example, reins are not the way to make a horse go left or right, and what the right feel of a horse's mouth in your hands is, and there were some very brief, faint glimmers as Tris tried so hard to figure out what this strange person was doing, when my poor pony offered to step under and reach in response to the sort of, kind of, muffled aids asking him to do so. (I love him so.)
I have always maintained, and yesterday proves it once again, that Tristan would be a really superlative lesson horse. His brain is so rock solid, and his self-preservation instincts are so good. When he feels inexperienced riders on his back his preference is to slow down, and not speed up and take off in reaction to their imbalance. He tries to read muddled aids, and in size and in overall temperament he is the very opposite of intimidating. At the up-down, walk-trot level he is not a complicated or difficult horse to ride; his issues crop up when you get further along, and are usually in response to a more experienced ride.
But he would not be happy as a lesson horse. He doesn't thrive on work. He keeps his temper cheerfully for the occasional up-down ride but string two or three of those together and he would start to get seriously sour and cranky. He would start to shut himself in. He is a one-rider kind of horse; that's where his personality really shines through, and I don't think I'm saying that just because I happen to be that one rider. His interest in and devotion to work is not sufficient to carry him through a lesson schedule.
So I think, perhaps even more than that steady-eddie adult amateur horse (of whatever discipline) the truly good lesson pony is the rarest of equines. The horses that can take a joke all day long and still make faces on the cross ties. The horses who will adjust their way of going to the ride they're getting, will be kind when interpreting aids, and will generally work to preserve the balance of the rider on their back rather than to upset it. Who do as they're told not in the deadhead way, but in the highly competent, thoughtful way of a seasoned professional.
What do you think? What qualities go into the truly superlative lesson pony? Would your horse be a good schoolie?
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
Lesson Notes
(first things first: it is a triumph of will that I even got to this lesson, after my car died 40 miles away and I had it pushed in neutral to the gas station next door and the mechanic called me mid-day and I had a conversation with him that went something like, him: "Did the air conditioning work on this car before?" Me: "It did until it caught fire last summer. I haven't used it since." Him: "Wait, what?" All's well that ends well and I had a working car again by the end of the day. Whew.)
Anyway! Lesson. Good lesson. Ass-kicking lesson for both of us. A solid hour of work, some of it very high-quality, and with stretches that tested both of us equally and separately. I felt some strain in my core & thigh muscles after I got off! Dressage: not for wimps.
The overall theme of the lesson was straightness, and each piece of the lesson addressed a different way in which we were not straight and helped put us straight. First up: leg-yields. Worked on getting the whole body straight: first the neck, then the ribcage, then the hind end. No evasions, just good clean crossover. We also worked hard on getting just the right step: come down the quarter line straight, take one or two good steps, then go straight, then take one or two steps. We moved from quarter-line-to-wall to broken lines, off the wall to the quarter line and back. Walk and trot both.
Then we moved on to transitions: clear, sharp, straight transitions. Here, the challenge was more for me: not to corkscrew my body and drop my inside hand to my thigh. For him, though, less bend, more lift, and more alertness to my aids. We worked on fitting as many good crisp transitions as we could into a twenty meter circle.
Then, changes of direction, on diagonals both short and long. Go deep into the corners, get quality straightness on the short side, go deep into the corner again, and come off the diagonal - off the wall - with shoulders even, reins even, pushing from the hind end. I don't know that I've ever schooled diagonals like that in my life, but it was a hugely useful exercise to have someone really drill me on them rather than just use them as a way to change direction.
Back to the twenty meter circle, and this time, work really really hard on controlling the shoulders around it. We did this by starting with a diamond exercise within the twenty meter circle, as outlined below.
Anyway! Lesson. Good lesson. Ass-kicking lesson for both of us. A solid hour of work, some of it very high-quality, and with stretches that tested both of us equally and separately. I felt some strain in my core & thigh muscles after I got off! Dressage: not for wimps.
The overall theme of the lesson was straightness, and each piece of the lesson addressed a different way in which we were not straight and helped put us straight. First up: leg-yields. Worked on getting the whole body straight: first the neck, then the ribcage, then the hind end. No evasions, just good clean crossover. We also worked hard on getting just the right step: come down the quarter line straight, take one or two good steps, then go straight, then take one or two steps. We moved from quarter-line-to-wall to broken lines, off the wall to the quarter line and back. Walk and trot both.
Then we moved on to transitions: clear, sharp, straight transitions. Here, the challenge was more for me: not to corkscrew my body and drop my inside hand to my thigh. For him, though, less bend, more lift, and more alertness to my aids. We worked on fitting as many good crisp transitions as we could into a twenty meter circle.
Then, changes of direction, on diagonals both short and long. Go deep into the corners, get quality straightness on the short side, go deep into the corner again, and come off the diagonal - off the wall - with shoulders even, reins even, pushing from the hind end. I don't know that I've ever schooled diagonals like that in my life, but it was a hugely useful exercise to have someone really drill me on them rather than just use them as a way to change direction.
Back to the twenty meter circle, and this time, work really really hard on controlling the shoulders around it. We did this by starting with a diamond exercise within the twenty meter circle, as outlined below.
Ride straight lines on the distances from center to wall to wall to wall to center, thinking of the turns off each point almost as turns on the haunches. It's basically riding a square, which is an exercise I have done in the past but never really nailed. Pretty soon Tris had worked through and figured out what we were asking of him: don't magnetize your shoulders to the wall, push off with the inside hind to make the turn, be straight and even in the bridle. For me, it was a really good exercise again for the corkscrewing of my body and the over-reliance on my inside rein. Turning those tight corners was all about a deep outside leg and a steady outside rein. We did this at the walk and trot both directions.
Finally, we finished with some very short canter exercises, to get a similar feel of what we had been aiming for through the lesson: straightness, control of the shoulders, a more supple hind end. Eventually in our own schooling we will work on the changes of direction through the diagonal, but for yesterday - since we were both so tired - we worked briefly on canter down the quarter line: come down the long side at a walk, then a trot, pick up the canter in the corner, then come off the short side cleanly and without overbending, and keep straight down the diagonal, then drop back to trot, make the clean turn back on the short side, repeat. We only did it a handful of times, but I could feel how much easier it was to get Tristan straight through his body after all the work we'd been doing throughout the lesson.
In short: whew. But some really, REALLY good tools to work on in our own rides, and a really positive outlook overall. There were some really gorgeous, fancy strides in there, and Tris really stepped up beautifully.
Tuesday, December 31, 2013
Lesson Notes
Excellent, really difficult lesson yesterday. Tris and I were both quite tired at the end of it.
Once again, we focused on getting him supple behind the saddle, and keeping his shoulders from leading too much in leg yields. I was zipping through them too quickly, and S. encouraged me to slow down and pause on moments of straightness in them. The goal was then not just quality steps but also where his feet were and on what tracks everything was on.
We also doubled down on getting him forward through long sides and then progressed to keeping him forward through the short ends. He is small and compact enough not to need extra consideration on the short ends of the indoor; he can perfectly well keep himself balanced and going really forward through them, no matter what he tries to tell me.
In all, some huge improvements in his way of going and his self-carriage. I'm asking for more and he's giving me more. We had some stretches of trot that I would happily take into a dressage ring anywhere at Training/Beginner Novice. We had some gorgeous downward transitions in to an elastic, forward walk.
On the other hand, our canter was an unmitigated disaster. Well - to be accurate, there was some mitigation, in that there was a LOT to work through and it was good we did so in a lesson.
In short, we are still working to get him straight and pushing through in the canter. And it feels like no matter how gorgeous a trot we start from, the canter blows up in the first stride. The theory is that some of that quality trot will carry over, right? Not so much.
Right canter was ok, not great, but it went. Left canter was - well. It started getting ugly, and when he broke to a trot I pulled him up and had a talk-through with S. about my tendency to hang on to my left (inside) rein. It doesn't happen nearly as much tracking right, and when I really cling to it I might as well be hanging on to a brick wall. There is no give, no softness, and my whole arm gets sore.
She asked what would happen if I let go. I told her he'd counter-bend and possibly slam into the wall. I think she thought I was exaggerating. I so wasn't. Tristan has shown himself perfectly willing to slam into walls in the past. He goes where he's pointed. It's an asset on cross-country; not always in dressage.
So we worked back through the trot and she had me physically pushing my left hand forward. That got some beautiful stuff! Then we translate it into the canter. I obediently pushed my left hand forward. WHAM SCRAPE WHAM went his right shoulder and my right leg. Ok. Ow. Tried again; I only avoided the same fate, again and again, when I pulled my leg up practically on his back to avoid the wall.
Eventually, we were avoiding the wall, but our 20m circle was bulging out badly into the middle of the ring. Tristan spied a pole on the centerline (outside the bounds of the circle) and made a beeline for it. He jumped it very prettily and neatly in stride and cracked everyone watching up, and after that he aimed for it each time, having learned that performing antics over it would save him from working hard for another circle.
So S. brought in cavaletti blocks and made a bounds of a smaller, about 18m, circle on the open end, and said that I was a) not to hang on to my inside rein and b) not to go outside them.
Yeah. So after 3-4 circles of Tristan crashing through the blocks and then breaking into trot, me getting progressively more frustrated, my outside rein 2-3 inches to the inside of his withers as I full-on pony-kicked with my spur him as hard as I could with my outside leg to keep him on the circle...we called a truce for a few minutes, and trotted around the ring.
We worked on it some more. I wish I could say we had a magic circle where he stayed on my outside rein and was adjustable and did not try to trip over the blocks, but that was not to be. I did get my aids more coordinated, and our turns were a bit better, and we made miniscule adjustments that resulted in us missing the blocks more often. But we were both getting tired, and we finished with a huge forward trot on the bit and a soft downward transition.
I'm still stumped by his canter. I don't know if it will just take more hard work by me - or if I'm just not the right person to crack it. I don't think I can afford training rides on him, or maybe I can save up until the main trainer gets back from Florida. I keep hoping that he'll make a breakthrough but I can't ride it well enough or long enough to get there. At least in the trot I could school that for long enough to really get through to him. I never feel like I have enough time in the canter.
Anyway. Even with the discouraging canter work, it was a good lesson, and I'm looking forward to keeping up the work with him.
Once again, we focused on getting him supple behind the saddle, and keeping his shoulders from leading too much in leg yields. I was zipping through them too quickly, and S. encouraged me to slow down and pause on moments of straightness in them. The goal was then not just quality steps but also where his feet were and on what tracks everything was on.
We also doubled down on getting him forward through long sides and then progressed to keeping him forward through the short ends. He is small and compact enough not to need extra consideration on the short ends of the indoor; he can perfectly well keep himself balanced and going really forward through them, no matter what he tries to tell me.
In all, some huge improvements in his way of going and his self-carriage. I'm asking for more and he's giving me more. We had some stretches of trot that I would happily take into a dressage ring anywhere at Training/Beginner Novice. We had some gorgeous downward transitions in to an elastic, forward walk.
On the other hand, our canter was an unmitigated disaster. Well - to be accurate, there was some mitigation, in that there was a LOT to work through and it was good we did so in a lesson.
In short, we are still working to get him straight and pushing through in the canter. And it feels like no matter how gorgeous a trot we start from, the canter blows up in the first stride. The theory is that some of that quality trot will carry over, right? Not so much.
Right canter was ok, not great, but it went. Left canter was - well. It started getting ugly, and when he broke to a trot I pulled him up and had a talk-through with S. about my tendency to hang on to my left (inside) rein. It doesn't happen nearly as much tracking right, and when I really cling to it I might as well be hanging on to a brick wall. There is no give, no softness, and my whole arm gets sore.
She asked what would happen if I let go. I told her he'd counter-bend and possibly slam into the wall. I think she thought I was exaggerating. I so wasn't. Tristan has shown himself perfectly willing to slam into walls in the past. He goes where he's pointed. It's an asset on cross-country; not always in dressage.
So we worked back through the trot and she had me physically pushing my left hand forward. That got some beautiful stuff! Then we translate it into the canter. I obediently pushed my left hand forward. WHAM SCRAPE WHAM went his right shoulder and my right leg. Ok. Ow. Tried again; I only avoided the same fate, again and again, when I pulled my leg up practically on his back to avoid the wall.
Eventually, we were avoiding the wall, but our 20m circle was bulging out badly into the middle of the ring. Tristan spied a pole on the centerline (outside the bounds of the circle) and made a beeline for it. He jumped it very prettily and neatly in stride and cracked everyone watching up, and after that he aimed for it each time, having learned that performing antics over it would save him from working hard for another circle.
So S. brought in cavaletti blocks and made a bounds of a smaller, about 18m, circle on the open end, and said that I was a) not to hang on to my inside rein and b) not to go outside them.
Yeah. So after 3-4 circles of Tristan crashing through the blocks and then breaking into trot, me getting progressively more frustrated, my outside rein 2-3 inches to the inside of his withers as I full-on pony-kicked with my spur him as hard as I could with my outside leg to keep him on the circle...we called a truce for a few minutes, and trotted around the ring.
We worked on it some more. I wish I could say we had a magic circle where he stayed on my outside rein and was adjustable and did not try to trip over the blocks, but that was not to be. I did get my aids more coordinated, and our turns were a bit better, and we made miniscule adjustments that resulted in us missing the blocks more often. But we were both getting tired, and we finished with a huge forward trot on the bit and a soft downward transition.
I'm still stumped by his canter. I don't know if it will just take more hard work by me - or if I'm just not the right person to crack it. I don't think I can afford training rides on him, or maybe I can save up until the main trainer gets back from Florida. I keep hoping that he'll make a breakthrough but I can't ride it well enough or long enough to get there. At least in the trot I could school that for long enough to really get through to him. I never feel like I have enough time in the canter.
Anyway. Even with the discouraging canter work, it was a good lesson, and I'm looking forward to keeping up the work with him.
Tuesday, December 10, 2013
Lesson Notes
I do so love a lesson in which my ass is completely and thoroughly kicked, and that's just what we got yesterday.
I had to do a relative minimum of nagging to get Tristan moving forward, and he reached beautifully for the bit way, way earlier than he usually does. I was already counting the warmup a success, and we hadn't even gotten into the hard work yet.
First thing we tackled was getting him straighter through his whole body; he has a tendency to want to get a bit overbent in the bridle, and when I straightened that with the outside rein he threw his haunches in. So we worked for a while on really getting him straight and through, which to me felt almost a little bit counterbent. I've gotten too used to him overbending.
After that, we played with shoulder-in and leg-yielding to loosen him up. In the shoulder-in we focused on pushing from the hind end and not letting his neck overbend and his shoulder come in too far. In leg-yields it was all about small, quality steps and really maintaining the straightness. Shoulder is supposed to lead a teensy bit but not nearly as much as he was trying for; S. wanted me to allllmost think haunches in during the leg yield. We did both straightforward quarter-line-to-wall ones and then went out from the wall to the quarter line and back.
Finally, we cantered for some time and worked on getting him really forward and attempting some straightness in the canter. He was very tired afterwards, and had sweated quite a bit - all down his neck and chest, and on his face. I spent a fair bit of time rubbing him down with towels and checking on him under his cooler, but he dried off relatively quickly. It was warmer (in the 30s) so hopefully that's why - I still really don't want to clip him!
Takeaways:
1) Work on getting him supple behind the saddle and continue that through our rides. If he feels like he's locking up or lagging behind, throw in some leg-yields to break that up
2) Don't hang so much on the inside rein in the canter, and work generally on keeping a more stable rein length and hold throughout all gaits and especially through transitions.
3) Pick a spot - or a feel - that's easily attainable for us now, but still quality work, and back off to that to end each piece of our ride. For us right now that's a forward, on the bit trot with about a Training-level self-carriage.
4) In the canter, try for counter flexion down the long sides and then back to the correct flexion for the short sides to inject more of a feel for straightness. It's a LOT of work for the outside aids right now but it will keep adding up.
I had to do a relative minimum of nagging to get Tristan moving forward, and he reached beautifully for the bit way, way earlier than he usually does. I was already counting the warmup a success, and we hadn't even gotten into the hard work yet.
First thing we tackled was getting him straighter through his whole body; he has a tendency to want to get a bit overbent in the bridle, and when I straightened that with the outside rein he threw his haunches in. So we worked for a while on really getting him straight and through, which to me felt almost a little bit counterbent. I've gotten too used to him overbending.
After that, we played with shoulder-in and leg-yielding to loosen him up. In the shoulder-in we focused on pushing from the hind end and not letting his neck overbend and his shoulder come in too far. In leg-yields it was all about small, quality steps and really maintaining the straightness. Shoulder is supposed to lead a teensy bit but not nearly as much as he was trying for; S. wanted me to allllmost think haunches in during the leg yield. We did both straightforward quarter-line-to-wall ones and then went out from the wall to the quarter line and back.
Finally, we cantered for some time and worked on getting him really forward and attempting some straightness in the canter. He was very tired afterwards, and had sweated quite a bit - all down his neck and chest, and on his face. I spent a fair bit of time rubbing him down with towels and checking on him under his cooler, but he dried off relatively quickly. It was warmer (in the 30s) so hopefully that's why - I still really don't want to clip him!
Takeaways:
1) Work on getting him supple behind the saddle and continue that through our rides. If he feels like he's locking up or lagging behind, throw in some leg-yields to break that up
2) Don't hang so much on the inside rein in the canter, and work generally on keeping a more stable rein length and hold throughout all gaits and especially through transitions.
3) Pick a spot - or a feel - that's easily attainable for us now, but still quality work, and back off to that to end each piece of our ride. For us right now that's a forward, on the bit trot with about a Training-level self-carriage.
4) In the canter, try for counter flexion down the long sides and then back to the correct flexion for the short sides to inject more of a feel for straightness. It's a LOT of work for the outside aids right now but it will keep adding up.
Wednesday, December 4, 2013
Lesson Notes
Hooray and huzzah, back in the lesson swing!
This was just a 30 minute one that ended in 40 minutes of work if you count the walk warmup and cooldown. I primarily asked for eyes on the ground to recalibrate our sense of forward: not to let me either get him almost there and then give up OR shove him into rushing instead of forward. End result, develop a more honest reaching connection to the bit.
It was a fast, energetic 30 minutes and we were both pretty tired at the end of it, which was great. It was my first lesson with the barn manager, who teaches through the winter, and I was glad that we clicked nicely and I saw a lot of things we can work on.
Takeaways:
1) Ask for acceleration when coming to the long side when first asking for more forward. Going forward out of the turn weights the inside hind, which helps develop lift, and gives him the length of the arena to really motor through.
2) Get transitions crisper; we worked on this on a 20m circle going walk-trot-walk-trot with a step or two in each, setting a baseline of a quick but firm aid. Our best transition was actually a bit muddled - there was a split second where I felt the offer of a canter in there - but that meant that the lift and the forward I wanted were contained in the transition, it just wasn't quite clear enough.
3) Keep my hands further forward, and resist the temptation to fiddle with the reins just to get him stretching down and through. Leg, not hands! (Story of my life.)
4) Use cavaletti to encourage hind end action and stomach muscles, which will help make forward easier. Start with a regular distance and then shorten them slightly to make him think a bit harder and step a bit more quickly.
This was followed by a massage which had good and bad news. In good - he was quiet and responded really well, and J. confirmed that he's back at a good weight. In bad - still not muscling up quite enough. Continue with tummy tuck and sternum lift exercises, and really commit to a regular exercise schedule with more work than he has been doing.
This was just a 30 minute one that ended in 40 minutes of work if you count the walk warmup and cooldown. I primarily asked for eyes on the ground to recalibrate our sense of forward: not to let me either get him almost there and then give up OR shove him into rushing instead of forward. End result, develop a more honest reaching connection to the bit.
It was a fast, energetic 30 minutes and we were both pretty tired at the end of it, which was great. It was my first lesson with the barn manager, who teaches through the winter, and I was glad that we clicked nicely and I saw a lot of things we can work on.
Takeaways:
1) Ask for acceleration when coming to the long side when first asking for more forward. Going forward out of the turn weights the inside hind, which helps develop lift, and gives him the length of the arena to really motor through.
2) Get transitions crisper; we worked on this on a 20m circle going walk-trot-walk-trot with a step or two in each, setting a baseline of a quick but firm aid. Our best transition was actually a bit muddled - there was a split second where I felt the offer of a canter in there - but that meant that the lift and the forward I wanted were contained in the transition, it just wasn't quite clear enough.
3) Keep my hands further forward, and resist the temptation to fiddle with the reins just to get him stretching down and through. Leg, not hands! (Story of my life.)
4) Use cavaletti to encourage hind end action and stomach muscles, which will help make forward easier. Start with a regular distance and then shorten them slightly to make him think a bit harder and step a bit more quickly.
This was followed by a massage which had good and bad news. In good - he was quiet and responded really well, and J. confirmed that he's back at a good weight. In bad - still not muscling up quite enough. Continue with tummy tuck and sternum lift exercises, and really commit to a regular exercise schedule with more work than he has been doing.
Friday, October 11, 2013
Inspiration
Last night, Tris had a massage scheduled (or re-scheduled, I should say, as it was meant to happen on the day his hives blew up, but thankfully that is in the past). My friend was running a bit late so I groomed him and then took the opportunity to wander into the ring to watch a lesson.
I've always loved sitting and watching lessons when I have some downtime, whether it's friends, strangers, or the trainer him/herself. It's a good bonding experience with others who are watching and I always come away feeling inspired by something I've seen.
Last night was a doozy. R. was giving a local eventing trainer a lesson in flying changes on one of her schoolmasters, a beautiful gray Lusitano who has been there, done that, and whose specialty is the freestyle. He's a wonderful, kind soul that everyone adores.
Watching R. teach the trainer - who will be clinicing at the barn over the winter while she's in Florida, and is my pick to re-start Tris and I over fences - was absolutely amazing. He is already an extraordinary rider, and watching him adapt his talents to a much higher dressage level than he was used to was amazing. R. walked him through Otelo's gaits and had him collecting from his seat and then turned them loose to try a few single flying changes down the diagonal.
I'd never seen a lesson in flying changes before, not the dressage ones anyway, and watching her work him through the singles, then up to two tempis and critique the quality of each one and the way he rode them was breathtaking.
I don't know if Tris will ever have a flying change, not from the aids anyway (he pops them sometimes when jumping or galloping), but watching the preparation to get there - the collection, the rocking back, the lift in front of the withers, the core strength and stillness to create a space to communicate: all of that will stay with me for a long time.
(Tris's massage went well, he is feeling great all over save for some small tightness in his right shoulder but that has been slowly decreasing over the months and will hopefully disappear entirely when his foot finishes growing out.)
I've always loved sitting and watching lessons when I have some downtime, whether it's friends, strangers, or the trainer him/herself. It's a good bonding experience with others who are watching and I always come away feeling inspired by something I've seen.
Last night was a doozy. R. was giving a local eventing trainer a lesson in flying changes on one of her schoolmasters, a beautiful gray Lusitano who has been there, done that, and whose specialty is the freestyle. He's a wonderful, kind soul that everyone adores.
Watching R. teach the trainer - who will be clinicing at the barn over the winter while she's in Florida, and is my pick to re-start Tris and I over fences - was absolutely amazing. He is already an extraordinary rider, and watching him adapt his talents to a much higher dressage level than he was used to was amazing. R. walked him through Otelo's gaits and had him collecting from his seat and then turned them loose to try a few single flying changes down the diagonal.
I'd never seen a lesson in flying changes before, not the dressage ones anyway, and watching her work him through the singles, then up to two tempis and critique the quality of each one and the way he rode them was breathtaking.
I don't know if Tris will ever have a flying change, not from the aids anyway (he pops them sometimes when jumping or galloping), but watching the preparation to get there - the collection, the rocking back, the lift in front of the withers, the core strength and stillness to create a space to communicate: all of that will stay with me for a long time.
(Tris's massage went well, he is feeling great all over save for some small tightness in his right shoulder but that has been slowly decreasing over the months and will hopefully disappear entirely when his foot finishes growing out.)
Wednesday, October 9, 2013
Lesson Notes
I had the last of my boot camp lessons tonight; three lessons in 7 days, and probably the most progress I've ever seen in myself and my horse over the course of three lessons. I'm trying not to be too sad that the trainer is leaving for Florida because that gives me a whole winter to do my homework and take checkup lessons with the barn's other trainers and then kick butt in the spring.
Key takeaways from last night:
- Get him straight and forward first and before all else. I was trying to supple too early, and following some previous training advice which said to get him overbent and kick him on through that. R. compared this to a kink in a hose: if he's overbent all that forward I'm asking for gets stuck. Better to start with a straight horse and then channel that.
- When he flings his head skyward when I apply leg, don't get suckered into fighting with him about that. Give the reins so he doesn't have anything to brace against and KICK. Kick him until he's very very forward and then praise him and go back to a gentler aid. So putting my leg on in the trot resulted in a head flipping, I refused to take the bait and booted him into a good rollicking canter, nearly a hand gallop, patted him, and only once the forward gear had been established did I take him back to the trot. Repeat as necessary.
- In picking up canter leads, I need to pay more attention to his shoulders. If he's overbent to the inside, his shoulders are pointed to the outside and I'm just inviting him to pick up the wrong lead. Similarly, don't drag down on the inside rein through the transition.
- Seriously need to work on elastic arms and shoulders. That's the key to a more consistent contact and more even way of going.
- FORWARD. We have made big strides in this department but I need to stay on task and not settle for "more forward than last time" but really truly establish where he needs to be.
We did make the switch in his bitting arrangement. He's going in a thinner bit with a football shaped lozenge in the French link rather than a flat piece, the bit was raised two holes, and we've added the flash back onto his bridle. Overall he's much more consistent and happy in it.
He'll get a well-deserved night off tonight. I'll start banking barn time again and probably check in with a lesson at the end of October, but we have lots to work on in the meantime.
Key takeaways from last night:
- Get him straight and forward first and before all else. I was trying to supple too early, and following some previous training advice which said to get him overbent and kick him on through that. R. compared this to a kink in a hose: if he's overbent all that forward I'm asking for gets stuck. Better to start with a straight horse and then channel that.
- When he flings his head skyward when I apply leg, don't get suckered into fighting with him about that. Give the reins so he doesn't have anything to brace against and KICK. Kick him until he's very very forward and then praise him and go back to a gentler aid. So putting my leg on in the trot resulted in a head flipping, I refused to take the bait and booted him into a good rollicking canter, nearly a hand gallop, patted him, and only once the forward gear had been established did I take him back to the trot. Repeat as necessary.
- In picking up canter leads, I need to pay more attention to his shoulders. If he's overbent to the inside, his shoulders are pointed to the outside and I'm just inviting him to pick up the wrong lead. Similarly, don't drag down on the inside rein through the transition.
- Seriously need to work on elastic arms and shoulders. That's the key to a more consistent contact and more even way of going.
- FORWARD. We have made big strides in this department but I need to stay on task and not settle for "more forward than last time" but really truly establish where he needs to be.
We did make the switch in his bitting arrangement. He's going in a thinner bit with a football shaped lozenge in the French link rather than a flat piece, the bit was raised two holes, and we've added the flash back onto his bridle. Overall he's much more consistent and happy in it.
He'll get a well-deserved night off tonight. I'll start banking barn time again and probably check in with a lesson at the end of October, but we have lots to work on in the meantime.
Wednesday, October 2, 2013
Lesson Boot Camp
Trainer is leaving for Florida in a week and a half, so I am hustling to use up my credits before she goes.
Last night, we had our first lesson in about six weeks, due to my work schedule and her clinic schedule and sundry other things. We focused on getting a couple simple things down and then my homework is to translate them throughout my ride.
First up: bending. We worked out a few simple exercises to start in the halt then carry through walk, trot, and canter to get him more supple R and L. He's never been the most laterally supple horse, and he lost any trace of what he once had during his time off, so this was really good for both of us.
Next, some pieces of my position. In particular, my hands. I need a stronger contact and need to focus on using my shoulders and elbows more to encourage elasticity rather than just heavy. I need to keep the reins shorter than I have been. (Always a problem for me...) I also need to keep my hands quieter (something I've been working on). I had been backing off on that because one of our bad feedback loops is to get harder and harder against each other, and I've been erring too far on the side of a soft contact, to the point that it was inconsistent.
Last but not least we worked on the canter: bending and encouraging a bit of round. We had some really, REALLY nice moments in the canter, when he would give a little to the inside and then I'd add in outside rein to keep him on a consistent circle and all of a sudden his hind legs would connect. There was a moment or two when he felt like riding a bouncy ball in comparison to his usual strung out canter. For the first time in a very long time there were also a few strides where he felt on the edge of control, like he was letting out all that energy we'd just accessed by going FAST. It took me so much by surprise that slowing him down didn't enter into my mind and we had a few good rides down some long sides before I realized that my horse, my lazy behind-the-leg horse was going too fast.
After the mechanics and riding exercises, we also talked a bit about tack. She opened up Tristan's mouth and suggested trying some different bits, with two main goals in mind: something thinner and something with more of a peanut shape than the French link he's got right now. He has a low palate and a small-ish mouth so the thickness of the bit wasn't as kind as it typically is; it was hard for him to really get his mouth closed and accept it. I knew he had a low-ish palate, hence the French link instead of a regular snaffle (which he def. doesn't like) but as she showed me his mouth and we looked at the way the bit was moving together the thickness made sense, too. A different shape to the middle link (right now it's a flat piece) will also provide a gentler bend.
Overall she praised both my seat and my general instincts - often when he had a breakthrough we both said "Good!" at the same time. My hope is always that I'm a good student - that I respond quickly, effectively, and am thoughtful about the questions I ask and the conversations I have - and I feel like our communication was good. I'd ride with her twice a week, every week, if I could, but I can't work that many hours at the barn on top of my regular job, alas.
Final note: it was such a gorgeous day that we rode on top of the hill in the jumping ring, and used a headset. I kind of loved it. Having her voice in my ear without straining to listen meant that I could react quickly, go further in the ring, and have near-constant feedback on what I was doing, which I really needed last night.
We worked hard for the full hour, and Tristan was foamy with sweat through his winter coat, so he got a long rinse and a cooler to go back in his stall, where he was clearly a bit weary.
He'll get tonight off to rest as I stay late at work to catch up, and then we have another lesson on Thursday, whew!
Last night, we had our first lesson in about six weeks, due to my work schedule and her clinic schedule and sundry other things. We focused on getting a couple simple things down and then my homework is to translate them throughout my ride.
First up: bending. We worked out a few simple exercises to start in the halt then carry through walk, trot, and canter to get him more supple R and L. He's never been the most laterally supple horse, and he lost any trace of what he once had during his time off, so this was really good for both of us.
Next, some pieces of my position. In particular, my hands. I need a stronger contact and need to focus on using my shoulders and elbows more to encourage elasticity rather than just heavy. I need to keep the reins shorter than I have been. (Always a problem for me...) I also need to keep my hands quieter (something I've been working on). I had been backing off on that because one of our bad feedback loops is to get harder and harder against each other, and I've been erring too far on the side of a soft contact, to the point that it was inconsistent.
Last but not least we worked on the canter: bending and encouraging a bit of round. We had some really, REALLY nice moments in the canter, when he would give a little to the inside and then I'd add in outside rein to keep him on a consistent circle and all of a sudden his hind legs would connect. There was a moment or two when he felt like riding a bouncy ball in comparison to his usual strung out canter. For the first time in a very long time there were also a few strides where he felt on the edge of control, like he was letting out all that energy we'd just accessed by going FAST. It took me so much by surprise that slowing him down didn't enter into my mind and we had a few good rides down some long sides before I realized that my horse, my lazy behind-the-leg horse was going too fast.
After the mechanics and riding exercises, we also talked a bit about tack. She opened up Tristan's mouth and suggested trying some different bits, with two main goals in mind: something thinner and something with more of a peanut shape than the French link he's got right now. He has a low palate and a small-ish mouth so the thickness of the bit wasn't as kind as it typically is; it was hard for him to really get his mouth closed and accept it. I knew he had a low-ish palate, hence the French link instead of a regular snaffle (which he def. doesn't like) but as she showed me his mouth and we looked at the way the bit was moving together the thickness made sense, too. A different shape to the middle link (right now it's a flat piece) will also provide a gentler bend.
Overall she praised both my seat and my general instincts - often when he had a breakthrough we both said "Good!" at the same time. My hope is always that I'm a good student - that I respond quickly, effectively, and am thoughtful about the questions I ask and the conversations I have - and I feel like our communication was good. I'd ride with her twice a week, every week, if I could, but I can't work that many hours at the barn on top of my regular job, alas.
Final note: it was such a gorgeous day that we rode on top of the hill in the jumping ring, and used a headset. I kind of loved it. Having her voice in my ear without straining to listen meant that I could react quickly, go further in the ring, and have near-constant feedback on what I was doing, which I really needed last night.
We worked hard for the full hour, and Tristan was foamy with sweat through his winter coat, so he got a long rinse and a cooler to go back in his stall, where he was clearly a bit weary.
He'll get tonight off to rest as I stay late at work to catch up, and then we have another lesson on Thursday, whew!
Thursday, August 8, 2013
Lesson Notes
Second lesson on Tuesday, and it went really, really well. I think the 30 minute spots are a perfect fit for us right now: I have him warmed up, we zero in on a few specific issues, and then I have homework.
Warmup was a bit rocky on Tuesday, as he was hopping about rather than go forward, so I stood up off his back and urged him into a canter for a few minutes, and focused on staying forward and straight rather than anything he was doing with his head.
When R. came up for the lesson, we started by testing the response to driving aid exercises we'd been drilling and she saw huge improvement. Not perfect, but already much sharper off the aids. So now that we had laid the forward-and-straight foundation back down, we added flexion back ion.
She talked about something I'd never really parsed for myself before. If the inside rein is responsible for flexion, then there are three types of inside rein that can help achieve that flexion. The first is an indirect rein - a subtle lift and shift of the inside rein more toward the outside rein, while brings your elbow back behind your shoulder. Second was direct rein, which is straight back. Third was open rein, bringing the rein away from the horse's neck.
Indirect rein is more for collection, is more subtle, and is a lighter aid. Direct rein is, well, more direct, and in Tristan's case in particular I have to be careful not to kill the motor when I use it. Open rein is more for greenies who are just learning to steer (and also for oh $h!t moments on XC, I should think...).
We worked on a 20m walk circle and re-established flexion. Tris settled in beautifully, thankfully showing R. that instead of the lazy lunatic who slams into walls as in our last lesson, he does have a dressage pony in them. Within a stride or two he flexed beautifully into the inside rein and filled up the outside rein. We're not talking FEI collection, here, but he recognized and executed the concept beautifully. We repeated at the trot, and worked through a rough patch tracking left - he is hollow to the left and over-eager to fling his shoulders to the outside. So we applied a few strides of counterbend, release, inside bend, release, counterbend, release, and he worked through it nicely.
Then we worked on layering in a half-halt for more collection into that outside rein, once he'd filled it up. R. doesn't like to use the term half-halt when teaching because she feels it places too much emphasis on the "halt" - it's more of a half-go, or as she calls it a connecting aid. I've always thought of a half-halt as that guy in the old phone commercials - "Can you hear me now? Good!"
So we broke the half-halt down into its component parts: forward energy, inside flexion, outside rein, and release. In the perfect, imperceptible half-halt these all happen practically simultaneously. I've never been that coordinated and in the past my half-halts have been an approximation of this but I'd like to take this opportunity to really nail them. So then we worked half-halts on the 20m circle at the trot.
One of the most useful concepts R. gave me while we were working the half-halts was about recycling energy. That's essentially what a half-halt does: if you feel like your energy/collection level is at, say, a 2, then your next half-halt should be at a 2.5, and think about loading the hind legs, increasing the collection, etc., up to that 2.5. Then go for a 3 on your next half-halt. The idea being you're always asking for a bit more with each half-halt and that you aren't "leaking"" energy in between (or at least hopefully not). I am thinking of them a bit like a catalyst, too - you're checking in, you're putting a finger on the connection, and when you're asking for more dressage collection you use it to recharge the battery, but if you use a half-halt out on XC or in the jump ring, you're asking for a re-orient - "here, the jump is here, let's touch base, let's re-form ourselves to tackle what's next."
Tris was a bit tired even after that short lesson, as he used his back and hind end waaaaay more than he has. Our prescription is 10-15 minutes of this work a day for the next stretch and then we'll check in again and take the next step. We'll also make sure we get plenty of road hacks in there, too. :)
Warmup was a bit rocky on Tuesday, as he was hopping about rather than go forward, so I stood up off his back and urged him into a canter for a few minutes, and focused on staying forward and straight rather than anything he was doing with his head.
When R. came up for the lesson, we started by testing the response to driving aid exercises we'd been drilling and she saw huge improvement. Not perfect, but already much sharper off the aids. So now that we had laid the forward-and-straight foundation back down, we added flexion back ion.
She talked about something I'd never really parsed for myself before. If the inside rein is responsible for flexion, then there are three types of inside rein that can help achieve that flexion. The first is an indirect rein - a subtle lift and shift of the inside rein more toward the outside rein, while brings your elbow back behind your shoulder. Second was direct rein, which is straight back. Third was open rein, bringing the rein away from the horse's neck.
Indirect rein is more for collection, is more subtle, and is a lighter aid. Direct rein is, well, more direct, and in Tristan's case in particular I have to be careful not to kill the motor when I use it. Open rein is more for greenies who are just learning to steer (and also for oh $h!t moments on XC, I should think...).
We worked on a 20m walk circle and re-established flexion. Tris settled in beautifully, thankfully showing R. that instead of the lazy lunatic who slams into walls as in our last lesson, he does have a dressage pony in them. Within a stride or two he flexed beautifully into the inside rein and filled up the outside rein. We're not talking FEI collection, here, but he recognized and executed the concept beautifully. We repeated at the trot, and worked through a rough patch tracking left - he is hollow to the left and over-eager to fling his shoulders to the outside. So we applied a few strides of counterbend, release, inside bend, release, counterbend, release, and he worked through it nicely.
Then we worked on layering in a half-halt for more collection into that outside rein, once he'd filled it up. R. doesn't like to use the term half-halt when teaching because she feels it places too much emphasis on the "halt" - it's more of a half-go, or as she calls it a connecting aid. I've always thought of a half-halt as that guy in the old phone commercials - "Can you hear me now? Good!"
So we broke the half-halt down into its component parts: forward energy, inside flexion, outside rein, and release. In the perfect, imperceptible half-halt these all happen practically simultaneously. I've never been that coordinated and in the past my half-halts have been an approximation of this but I'd like to take this opportunity to really nail them. So then we worked half-halts on the 20m circle at the trot.
One of the most useful concepts R. gave me while we were working the half-halts was about recycling energy. That's essentially what a half-halt does: if you feel like your energy/collection level is at, say, a 2, then your next half-halt should be at a 2.5, and think about loading the hind legs, increasing the collection, etc., up to that 2.5. Then go for a 3 on your next half-halt. The idea being you're always asking for a bit more with each half-halt and that you aren't "leaking"" energy in between (or at least hopefully not). I am thinking of them a bit like a catalyst, too - you're checking in, you're putting a finger on the connection, and when you're asking for more dressage collection you use it to recharge the battery, but if you use a half-halt out on XC or in the jump ring, you're asking for a re-orient - "here, the jump is here, let's touch base, let's re-form ourselves to tackle what's next."
Tris was a bit tired even after that short lesson, as he used his back and hind end waaaaay more than he has. Our prescription is 10-15 minutes of this work a day for the next stretch and then we'll check in again and take the next step. We'll also make sure we get plenty of road hacks in there, too. :)
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
First Lesson Notes
In short: very basic foundational lesson that we both really, really needed.
If I could have asked to address any issues right now, it would be our lack of forward and my tendency to nag. Tris had been out for so long, and I've been so tentative about his rehab, that I haven't really gotten after him the way I should have, and have fallen into the trap of asking every few strides for him to keep going, even at the walk.
That's exactly what R. addressed after watching us warm up for a little bit. We made a great first impression (NOT) when I asked for the trot, and down the long side I asked for more forward, he flipped his head around, threw his shoulders around, tripped, and slammed my left leg into the wall, dragging it along for a stride or two. There is white paint all on my iron on that side and you should see the lump/friction burn on my knee. It was awesome. Then he head-flipped and tried to hop into the canter and was in general extremely unpleasant, though he started to listen and smooth out nearish to the end. Sigh.
So we worked on isolating driving aids, the idea being that he should darn well listen when I put leg on instead of barely maintaining. My responsibility is to dictate the tempo, his is to maintain the tempo. It was basically a disciplined, methodical version of the good old fashioned aid escalation method: he gets one test to listen to the aid he should respond to, and then he gets pony kicked forward and praised for going forward. We did the exercise in both directions, off each driving aid: leg, seat, whip, voice.
He is not a stupid pony. Within a few minutes he was powering right along with much lighter aids. We did it on a relatively loose rein at the walk and then trot, and then I picked up the reins for more contact and we repeated in both directions at walk and trot. In generally, R. had us going much, much straighter than I am used to - I am used to keeping him in some sort of bend at all times, and she wanted my hands MUCH quieter and to worry about straight and forward instead of bend. It was a good solid lesson and it was simple but not easy. I had to fight my urge to ask him for more bend, more supple, and just focus hard on getting engagement.
We did not exactly put our best foot forward but that's okay; I think this was a fair representation of our problems right now, and after 11 months I couldn't possibly expect him to come out and give me the work we had last August. We made clear progress, we have homework, and perhaps most importantly, I liked the way the lesson went, both physically and mentally.
R. had plenty of good things to say, too - she liked my general position, and even apologized for giving such a basic lesson, because she said she could tell we both knew better, and I had all the right answers, we just needed to shore up our foundation before we could move forward again. She liked how generally supple we were and said that once we squared away our forward problem he'll be easy to get right back where he was. She also said he was looking 100% sound when he was straight (though predictably wonky when he was flailing all over the place) and complimented my rehab generally.
He'll get tonight off and then back to work on Thursday. Hip hooray for progress!
If I could have asked to address any issues right now, it would be our lack of forward and my tendency to nag. Tris had been out for so long, and I've been so tentative about his rehab, that I haven't really gotten after him the way I should have, and have fallen into the trap of asking every few strides for him to keep going, even at the walk.
That's exactly what R. addressed after watching us warm up for a little bit. We made a great first impression (NOT) when I asked for the trot, and down the long side I asked for more forward, he flipped his head around, threw his shoulders around, tripped, and slammed my left leg into the wall, dragging it along for a stride or two. There is white paint all on my iron on that side and you should see the lump/friction burn on my knee. It was awesome. Then he head-flipped and tried to hop into the canter and was in general extremely unpleasant, though he started to listen and smooth out nearish to the end. Sigh.
So we worked on isolating driving aids, the idea being that he should darn well listen when I put leg on instead of barely maintaining. My responsibility is to dictate the tempo, his is to maintain the tempo. It was basically a disciplined, methodical version of the good old fashioned aid escalation method: he gets one test to listen to the aid he should respond to, and then he gets pony kicked forward and praised for going forward. We did the exercise in both directions, off each driving aid: leg, seat, whip, voice.
He is not a stupid pony. Within a few minutes he was powering right along with much lighter aids. We did it on a relatively loose rein at the walk and then trot, and then I picked up the reins for more contact and we repeated in both directions at walk and trot. In generally, R. had us going much, much straighter than I am used to - I am used to keeping him in some sort of bend at all times, and she wanted my hands MUCH quieter and to worry about straight and forward instead of bend. It was a good solid lesson and it was simple but not easy. I had to fight my urge to ask him for more bend, more supple, and just focus hard on getting engagement.
We did not exactly put our best foot forward but that's okay; I think this was a fair representation of our problems right now, and after 11 months I couldn't possibly expect him to come out and give me the work we had last August. We made clear progress, we have homework, and perhaps most importantly, I liked the way the lesson went, both physically and mentally.
R. had plenty of good things to say, too - she liked my general position, and even apologized for giving such a basic lesson, because she said she could tell we both knew better, and I had all the right answers, we just needed to shore up our foundation before we could move forward again. She liked how generally supple we were and said that once we squared away our forward problem he'll be easy to get right back where he was. She also said he was looking 100% sound when he was straight (though predictably wonky when he was flailing all over the place) and complimented my rehab generally.
He'll get tonight off and then back to work on Thursday. Hip hooray for progress!
Wednesday, October 3, 2012
Lesson Notes: Sea Changes
So I finally sucked it up and put in a request to ride a school horse in my lessons going forward. I was worried and maybe a bit scared - I haven't ridden any horse but my own (other than to hack out at the walk!) - in years. Close to three years, I think. I can't actually remember the last time I did. I can make a decent guess, but that's it.
That's not exactly the way to get good as a rider, and certainly even five years ago I got on other horses with regularity, but my role has never been the get-on-and-ride-anything type of rider. I want to do well by the horse I have, and form a partnership with him, and I'm happy with him.
But I digress. I got to the barn and flushed Tris's foot and rewrapped it; all is proceeding as planned, and he behaved well. Then I checked in with T. and got a little Appaloosa lesson horse named Charlie.
I had a ridiculous amount of fun. There were a few moments when I felt guilty, actually, I was having so much fun. I had...maybe not forgotten, but I had been so out of touch with the idea that a properly trained horse, who has the buttons installed, who has a willingness and a base of athleticism, is magic.
First things first: Charlie, though he looks a bit on the stocky side, is surprisingly narrow to sit on, especially for someone with longer legs. The effect of this was to seriously unbalance my seat for the first 20 minutes or so as I tried to figure out the geometry of it all, which pleased T. to no end as one of my bigger flaws is my tendency to let my leg swing. Tris has such a large barrel that it took up leg even when I didn't have it right where it needed to be. Take away that barrel and I was floundering.
Then he got on me and worked hard on me for about 10 minutes on a circle and about halfway through it clicked: oh yeah. I can do this after all. And then I was deep in the saddle and keeping my leg on and connecting to the bit through my core. Not all at once, and T. nagged me for another 10 minutes or so when I started slipping, but by the end of the lesson - as he told me afterward - I was snapping back on my own.
I hadn't ridden a horse on the bit in the canter in years. Which is depressing as hell to admit out loud, but I didn't even realize it until after I'd gotten Charlie warmed up, and I asked for a canter, and all of a sudden he was soft in the mouth and I could half-halt and hey, there were his hind legs, and I could adjust the canter, and it was awesome. Sigh.
I admit to feeling a bit smug, maybe? I have watched this horse in lessons for years and years, and I had formed the idea that he would feel a lot like Tristan. I couldn't have been much more wrong. He put up only token resistance to the ideas of bending and going round, and then tried to cross his jaw - which T. said was, for him, a sign of the next level of resistance, but once I learned the feel it was easy enough to wiggle him out of - but when I put leg on properly, he was there, and when I stabilized with the outside rein, he went into it. We were looking and feeling terrific by the end of it, and he looked in the mirrors as good as I've ever seen anyone ride him, and I felt awesome and then I realized I was feeling superior to 10 year old lesson kids and adult re-riders so I should get the hell over myself already. But it was still a nice boost in confidence.
That's not exactly the way to get good as a rider, and certainly even five years ago I got on other horses with regularity, but my role has never been the get-on-and-ride-anything type of rider. I want to do well by the horse I have, and form a partnership with him, and I'm happy with him.
But I digress. I got to the barn and flushed Tris's foot and rewrapped it; all is proceeding as planned, and he behaved well. Then I checked in with T. and got a little Appaloosa lesson horse named Charlie.
I had a ridiculous amount of fun. There were a few moments when I felt guilty, actually, I was having so much fun. I had...maybe not forgotten, but I had been so out of touch with the idea that a properly trained horse, who has the buttons installed, who has a willingness and a base of athleticism, is magic.
First things first: Charlie, though he looks a bit on the stocky side, is surprisingly narrow to sit on, especially for someone with longer legs. The effect of this was to seriously unbalance my seat for the first 20 minutes or so as I tried to figure out the geometry of it all, which pleased T. to no end as one of my bigger flaws is my tendency to let my leg swing. Tris has such a large barrel that it took up leg even when I didn't have it right where it needed to be. Take away that barrel and I was floundering.
Then he got on me and worked hard on me for about 10 minutes on a circle and about halfway through it clicked: oh yeah. I can do this after all. And then I was deep in the saddle and keeping my leg on and connecting to the bit through my core. Not all at once, and T. nagged me for another 10 minutes or so when I started slipping, but by the end of the lesson - as he told me afterward - I was snapping back on my own.
I hadn't ridden a horse on the bit in the canter in years. Which is depressing as hell to admit out loud, but I didn't even realize it until after I'd gotten Charlie warmed up, and I asked for a canter, and all of a sudden he was soft in the mouth and I could half-halt and hey, there were his hind legs, and I could adjust the canter, and it was awesome. Sigh.
I admit to feeling a bit smug, maybe? I have watched this horse in lessons for years and years, and I had formed the idea that he would feel a lot like Tristan. I couldn't have been much more wrong. He put up only token resistance to the ideas of bending and going round, and then tried to cross his jaw - which T. said was, for him, a sign of the next level of resistance, but once I learned the feel it was easy enough to wiggle him out of - but when I put leg on properly, he was there, and when I stabilized with the outside rein, he went into it. We were looking and feeling terrific by the end of it, and he looked in the mirrors as good as I've ever seen anyone ride him, and I felt awesome and then I realized I was feeling superior to 10 year old lesson kids and adult re-riders so I should get the hell over myself already. But it was still a nice boost in confidence.
Thursday, July 26, 2012
Lesson Notes: #$#!@ Outside Leg
Balance, balance, balance: between forward and supple, between solid in my aids and position and soft and forgiving, and of course the good old-fashioned kind.
Some nice moments, but overall inconsistent. We touched on consistency a few weeks ago, and haven't climbed back up that mountain. He'll swing and get soft and round...and then fling his head up and lose it five minutes later. I'll lock in with my seat and have soft hands...and then he'll jut his shoulders out and I'll get a bit out and it spirals down from there and ends up with a rock-hard and static left rein.
I'm fighting some unevenness in my own body right now, too. There's something slightly odd going on with my left hip that I need to overcome that's making it more difficult to keep my left leg really wrapped around. I can't quite nail the feel of a solid outside rein while tracking left.
In all? Productive lesson. Good lesson. Once again more proof that if I could just ride, if I could just be in the right place and give the right aids, he would be going so well, but when I break up my own fluidity it just...disintegrates. It's like juggling fifteen fresh eggs and as soon as I drop one the rest go splat, and then I have to walk all the way back to the fridge and start the juggling routine again, one egg at a time, before we approach that level again.
Tuesday night was my last ride for nearly 2.5 weeks; I'm away for two weeks for a long-awaited and long-planned-for vacation. I arranged for the best barn kid ever (which could so honestly apply to half a dozen kids at our barn, which is amazing) to sit on him during that time, and deeded over my two missed lessons to her. Probably I'm going to have to eat crow when I come back and she's improved him dramatically in just two weeks, but - I'm okay with that.
When we get back, life starts to fly fast and furious: XC again at Scarlet Hill, followed by Valinor at Elementary, followed in short order by King Oak. Home stretch!
Some nice moments, but overall inconsistent. We touched on consistency a few weeks ago, and haven't climbed back up that mountain. He'll swing and get soft and round...and then fling his head up and lose it five minutes later. I'll lock in with my seat and have soft hands...and then he'll jut his shoulders out and I'll get a bit out and it spirals down from there and ends up with a rock-hard and static left rein.
I'm fighting some unevenness in my own body right now, too. There's something slightly odd going on with my left hip that I need to overcome that's making it more difficult to keep my left leg really wrapped around. I can't quite nail the feel of a solid outside rein while tracking left.
In all? Productive lesson. Good lesson. Once again more proof that if I could just ride, if I could just be in the right place and give the right aids, he would be going so well, but when I break up my own fluidity it just...disintegrates. It's like juggling fifteen fresh eggs and as soon as I drop one the rest go splat, and then I have to walk all the way back to the fridge and start the juggling routine again, one egg at a time, before we approach that level again.
Tuesday night was my last ride for nearly 2.5 weeks; I'm away for two weeks for a long-awaited and long-planned-for vacation. I arranged for the best barn kid ever (which could so honestly apply to half a dozen kids at our barn, which is amazing) to sit on him during that time, and deeded over my two missed lessons to her. Probably I'm going to have to eat crow when I come back and she's improved him dramatically in just two weeks, but - I'm okay with that.
When we get back, life starts to fly fast and furious: XC again at Scarlet Hill, followed by Valinor at Elementary, followed in short order by King Oak. Home stretch!
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