Bubbles, Bell Curves, and Lesson Recaps

I had a couple of posts figured out and then had a couple of things going on so didn't get anything posted for awhile. Because of that you get all of the posts in one!

Last week I was going to post about how I feel like as I'm finding these little holes in my riding and Katai's training that it's sort of like these little bubbles. One example of these is that when she gets quick I pull my legs off. Then I don't support her and when I ask for something there's that slight gap where she isn't supported (the air in the bubble) and then as the contact picks up on the other side she over reacts (sort of like the bubble popping). I've been working to make sure that I'm removing those little gaps and/or only using them appropriately.

Then after reading this post over at SprinklerBandits I started thinking about how a bell curve could help me stop freaking out about Katai's small sorenesses.

I realized as I was reading that post that if I focus on Katai's normal rather than freaking out about things I've read about other horse's normal I'll be more keyed in to what is actually going on and not over-reacting. I started thinking about this tonight when I was at the barn and had a great ride despite some initial stiffness :)

Then I had a great lesson on Sunday! We're continuing to put together different pieces of training level tests. Katai was very good and we had some great work. There was more bucking and I think we identified that I'm tensing up as I ask which is causing her to feel stuck. However, we got to a great place and overall she was really great. We did uncover my complete inability to turn down the center line so I have some work to do there but otherwise it went really well.

This coming Monday is the Suzanne Winslade clinic so we moved my lesson to Saturday so that Katai can have a rest day between my normal lesson and the clinic. More updates to follow!