A bit of normal and a scare

 Yesterday, Uno and I finally got to have a lesson.  I am still not all the way cleared for jumping, so we just did a few small cross rail courses.  We mainly worked on using turn on the fore-hand to soften him and get him balanced in the body.  My focus was that instead of getting a lot of small steps, we wanted 2 - 3 BIG steps with a lot of cross over.  Our method for this was to go for a ten meter circle and exaggerate the bend.  Then once he was soft I would ask for the hind to cross over.  If I got 2 good big steps we went forward and rewarded.

I have very little new media so enjoy these happy pony pictures.

I had a massive AHA moment.  Doing this work in the walk made our trot and canter mad balanced. I suddenly had an uphill balanced soft pony.  The trainer wanted me to take it around the jumps and I had a bit of a mental freak.  When we talked through it she explained that I did not have to hold this to the base.  I was to get my dressage canter, line up, check in, then push my hands forward.  I controlled the canter until we were 4 -5 strides out, then I pointed to the jump and let him figure out the job.  

OMG!  This was the nicest course we have done.  The jumps were itty bitty, but we got roll back turns, soft straight stops, and cantered the whole course.  My hand started to hurt and feel a bit sore, so we ended on some dressage work.  

We have been nailing our walk canter departs to the left, but the right was questionable.  So we went back to the walk work and went through the transition a few times.  The first one was messy, but Trainer wanted me to push through it, that I could set up as long as I wanted eventually we would have to canter.  It was ok if it wasn't always a perfect depart, he just had to figure out what was needed from him to be successful.  And don't you know it,  within 2 more transitions he had them nailed.  It was so nice!

The scare came at 8 pm last night when he decided to colic.  It was a minor gas colic that was totally resolved with a bit of banamine, walking, and farting.  The  vet visit also did not break the bank, and he was his sweet hungry self again this morning.