Lesson Recap

 So I have no new media for this post but I wanted to capture my thoughts anyway.  This was a lesson with a new trainer that travels to all the shows I want to go to, and works out of my magic dressage trainers farm.  Since the last disaster of an HT last year I kinda stopped jumping.  I trailered out to my old trainer and tried for a few lessons, but I felt over faced and nervous a lot.  When I tried jumping at home Uno was very very zoomy - So I stopped jumping.  My jump saddle sat in my garage without stirrups for 5 months. 

We canter through fields bareback now!  What a good egg.

As horse friends started to go out and do the eventing thing, my urge to jump came back.  I like dressage. I mean, even as a dressage rider I mostly only school 1 - 2 times a week and hack out the rest, but I am not the eventer that hates dressage.  I hate SJ. It is scary and awful and I usually cry.  So my expectations were very very low.  

Over 10 years apart and still hating stadium.

We didn't do a huge amount of jumping, or anything big or meaningful, but Trainer S had me really change my ride and dang if it wasn't an immediate change.  

First - she gave me the visual of riding a carousel horse with a pole in front of me.  I had to keep my upper body back.  I have had other trainers talk about my body position, but for some reason, this visual just really clicked.

Even blurry dressage photos will show how hard this is for me.

Second - My job is to get the canter right, hold Uno through the turns, then let his face go.  He needs free range of his head and neck to make the best shape and right now we both rely on me holding him.  This takes a lot of brainpower and trust because my number one worry is getting run off with, so I hate letting go.  However, the longer we did it, the steadier he became.

So unlike Dutch's style where any 'looseness was an excuse to launch himself.  Plus Uno's love of jumping is well established.

Lastly, I need to sit up and turn with my hips.  I always lose his right shoulder in turns because I do not weight my right leg or pivot my hips properly.  Addressing this made our approaches dead straight and fairly steady.  Then on the back side I would hover for too long and just be wishy washy about controlling his balance until it was time to turn.  The new plan is to practice all turns as - Sit Up, Prep, and TURN. On the backside of the fence I am supposed to act just like I am going to turn - Sit Up, Prep, but then just go straight. 

Hopefully more of this soon.

Usually, I tend to have lessons that go well with a trainer, but fall apart at home. However, yesterday I had a short little hop around focusing on those three things and Uno was good as gold.  I am so happy and excited.  We may have to head out for a little HT soon and see how well our new skills are working.