Third Time's The Charm: Lesson Recap 3/28

I'm blogging from Omaha, NE right now but we just got here late last night and haven't been over to the Century Link Center yet so other than a late and rainy drive I don't have much to share yet. So EXCITED to be here though!

At any rate I wanted to recap my lesson on Tuesday because after an ok lesson last Saturday and a decent lesson the Tuesday before this one felt really great.

Katai certainly didn't have much energy and Jane always has a lot of empathy for her (Jane says no sympathy, just empathy :) so she kept it pretty easy during the warm up and gave her lots of walk breaks. After a nice walk warm up with some head to the wall leg yields and a bit of trot when we took a walk break Katai dramatically threw on the breaks and scratched her head on her leg. Jane started laughing that Katai was rearranging her hair and then said that Kati would be "one of those girls that take selfies all the time". We both started giggling pretty hard at that point because she absolutely nailed Katai's attitude.

After some of the best, most consistant canter that we've ever had (again Jane was pretty gentle with us and didn't do much) she had us do some shoulder in. It went ok, it's been way too long since I've worked on it (my fault really but also the two weeks off) so I was really on the struggle bus and couldn't get my aids to work together. Jane took pity on me and gave us a walk break. I was thinking we were maybe done but she asked if we'd like to do some haunches in and since I was hungry for a second chance I went for it.

I struggled through the first direction but going to the left we NAILED it down the entire long side. It felt amazing and Jane said it looked perfect! We did a bit of stretchy trot and then called it there.

My main take away was that I need to get her more forward off my leg. Most of the time she's like a run away freight train which means I constantly have the brakes on. I get used to not needing to use my forward aids strongly but on days like Tuesday she needs more forward and I need to use them more. I'm also realizing that this might have something to do with our transition struggle since if she's not used to me using my leg it might be more of a big deal to her when I do use my legs.

The other really exciting thing is that Jane mentioned at the end of my lesson that we're going to work on half pass again next time and we're going to start doing shallow loop serpentines! I'm so, so excited and I've been wondering when we're going to start introducing counter canter. Not that we could start it when her canter with the correct lead was a hot mess but I've been looking forward to starting some counter canter work so I'm excited that we're finally there!

Last July Lesson Recap

First of all I just have to say…Only one more week of this horrid commute!!!!! I’m moving into the new place next weekend and since I’ll only be about ten minutes from work it will be easy to stop home, take puppy out, and then drive to the barn once rush hour is past. I can’t wait! 

 

The reason that I say moving into “the” new place and not “my” new place is that I decided to be smart with money and rent a room in a house rather than an apartment or a house. It’s saving me a TON of money every month so for the first time in a long time I’m able to think about putting money in savings, paying off a substantial amount of debt, and still being able to do fun things once in a while. The house already has three people living in it and all are single and either professionals or grad students. The owner lives off site but does this at houses all across the cities and has some great policies in place so I’m not worried about it being a party house. I’ve got the nicest room in the house in that it has its own bathroom plus I’m also getting a garage stall. On top of that the house has central air and a fenced in backyard where I’ve been encouraged to have a garden! Wedge will love the chance to run and I’m so excited about the opportunity to plant things. The garage will also be wonderful since I hate scraping ice off my car in the winter and on top of all of that the laundry is free (well no quarters anyway) and you pay a flat rate for utilities with your rent every month so it’s easy to budget for. I’m going to have to figure out where to put all my things but other than that it’s all great news!

 

Mainly though, although I’m happy about that, I’m just looking forward to not having to drive so far and leave my puppy in the kennel for so long. Last week I didn’t ride Sunday because Katai was tender and then I didn’t ride during the week because of Wedge so I only ended up riding on Saturday before my lesson and yesterday in my lesson. That’s just not ok for my pony or for me :-(

 

However, even with that Katai was wonderful! She’s really starting to understand what we are asking and thanks to some amazing coaching from L I’ve stopped picking fights with her so she is able to relax and even when she acts like a brat I’m able to laugh and we move on and get back to good work.

 

On Saturday I had a great ride that I kept fairly short since I didn’t want to blow her muscles and then ask her for a great ride during my lesson. She did some great trot work, I cantered her in both directions and we called it a day. Then during my lesson on Sunday she was AMAZING! She started out a little rushy and tense but each time this happens I get better at getting her to relax and go into her good work. On Sunday although it took about 15 minutes to get there we then ended up with at least 30 minutes of great, focused, relaxed, gooey, forward, work. I asked to work in the whole arena since Katai’s been falling out really badly on our regular 20 meter circle (It’s not about picking fights with my little redhead remember :-) ) and I had figured out that she was pretty sure if she could get to the other end of the arena she wouldn’t need to work. Instead we focused on mainly working her at the other end of the arena and returning to that circle for walk breaks and to end.

 

We’ve been working on 15 meter circles (that’s about the width of our indoor arena) and changing the bend from one to the other. Katai, like many young horses, has been getting offended when I change which leg I ask her to listen to and getting tense and rushy until we’re back on the next circle for a bit. Yesterday we worked on changing so many times and then taking her straight down the long side that she eventually just started to focus on my cues and not on “OMG she’s asking me to do something with BOTH legs and this is NOT ok”.

 

I really, really wish I’d gotten some video of our work because it was outstanding. I’m hoping to get my camera fixed over the next couple of weekends and hopefully will phone a friend to come out and get some video :-)