The Best Teacher: Lesson Recap 4/10

Her tail is finally growing back out after rubbing it out last year.

Not saying that L isn't an amazing teacher but both of us learn so much from Katai. I'm lucky in how honest she is, even when that means bucking, kicking out, not taking the correct lead, bouncing, balking etc. I learn something every time and I love that L takes the time to figure out what she's trying to say rather than just encouraging me to scold her when she's doing something that could be considered naughty.

My lesson started out really nice, Katai was forward but relaxed and listening. After my first walk break though she got really hot when I went back to the trot and I had a run away freight train on my hands. All she wanted to do was canter and she really wasn't listening, L said she looked great but that she also understood what I was feeling. We talked a lot about adding forward but keeping submission but Katai really just didn't want to play today. All she wanted to do was rush.

Then when we started working on a transitioning to a canter on a spiral Katai started bucking, and cross cantering, and doing flying lead changes. At my last lesson I had reason to believe that she was just being naughty when she was bucking and that she had too much energy but when she was only bucking to the left on the spiral out (which was what she was doing last time during my lesson) I asked L about it specifically. Katai literally hadn't bucked once this whole week and now as we're doing the same exercise she starts throwing in the bucks again.

L watched me and said that I was pulling on my inside rein, the left rein. She asked me to cue for the canter again going out on the spiral and again even though I was aware I pulled back on that left rein just as she was going into the transition. After a couple more transitions I finally was able to keep my hand forward (not enough contact but better than pulling back) but it was tough.

As soon as I figured it out though I got a lovely, soft, relaxed transition from Katai and I could almost feel her sigh, like "finally, someone fixed my rider and I can do what I'm supposed to. I actually was wondering if she was waiting to be resistant until I was riding in front of L because she knew that L would help her fix me.