More Bend: Lesson Recap 4/25

No new media so you get some classic dressage photos

I had a GREAT lesson yesterday. It was really cool to hear Jane feels we're ready for more and that she was really putting more pressure on me to really get more, more trot, more bend, more straight etc. Just doing this stuff isn't enough anymore, now she wants us to do it better :)

The main themes were getting Katai more forward and more bent and round. We started at the walk and Jane wouldn't let us trot until we nailed the transition. Then we worked on serpentines and really focused on getting Katai more in front of my leg with bigger, more forward strides but needed to really nail the bend The. Whole. Time.

and I think keeping the bend with both legs is hard

It was so tough!

After we got that Jane had me do a spiral in and out on a 20 meter circle at the trot and really focus on maintaining the bend. Katai is so quick and wiggly that it's easy for me to lose the bend at multiple points around the circle and that's not really doing anything for either of us. She told me not to let Katai "evict" my inside leg and that it needed to find home (bend) and stay there even if the pressure of "there" varied.

We did a bit of lateral work and I got the alignment on the leg yields better but this time we were also really focusing on maintaining the roundness so that she needed to use her back appropriately.

Then we worked on the canter. Since this was Katai's third day in a row she was a little tired and sore so the canter didn't have as much oomf as it has. She was extremely willing though which was really nice. We did some shoulder in, across the diagonal and then picked up the canter. I only got the wrong lead once and that was completely my fault for not preparing her correctly. We also did some shallow serpentine counter canter work but since she was tired we only got a couple in each direction before she ran out of gas.

Finally after one last walk break we worked on some haunches in. It took a couple of times but we finally got a couple of really good ones in each direction with the proper bend, coming through her rib cage. After that we did a couple of lengthening across the diagonal and because of the looseness she'd gained through the shoulder it was pretty fancy. I was so proud of both of us!

We also talked a little about the show at the end of May and the plan right now is for me to do Intro C and a Training level test. I'm really excited to try this again and to be even thinking about doing Training at our first show of the year. I also can't wait to get a redo on intro C and hopefully score above 35% lol.

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!

Woohoo! Lesson Recap 2/14

From my ride on Monday

I had an amazing lesson with my pony valentine on Tuesday! After this lesson I figured out at least part of why Jane is so good for us and that is that she doesn't allow me to be such a perfectionist.

Both of us are but instead of letting me get on a 12 meter circle and pick at the trot for 20 minutes to get it "perfect" she just expects me to ride a "perfect" trot while doing lots of other things. When it's not perfect, she gives me feedback and trusts that even if it's not good in that moment, I'll work on it appropriately and make it better. She never thinks anything is good enough and I always get lots of blunt feedback on everything but she also doesn't let me wait until she starts to introduce new things.

Right after I realized this I saw this quote on VivaCarlos' blog and it so perfectly illustrates exactly what this lesson was all about.

"You'll never be ready if you keep waiting to be."

iOn my own I would totally just keep waiting because I wouldn't let myself move on until something was perfect and my instructors in the past have supported this or brought this out in me. Jane just doesn't care and keeps on pushing me which is exactly what I need.

In this lesson we covered the following:
3 and 4 loop serpentines
Halt
Medium Canter
Medium Trot
Shoulder In
Haunches In
Baby Half Pass
Leg Yield

Plus, she didn't just have me work on each of these things. Pretty much the whole lesson was her calling out what she wanted next much like a reader would do in a test. 

Shiny pony butt!
 I never thought I'd see her actually shine :)

I don't remember exactly what we did where because it was pretty much one thing after the next but one of the exercises we did was to turn down the center line and then A to E do haunches in which was baby half pass. Then straighten on the wall and at C turn down the center line and do the same thing to E which was haunches in (baby half pass) the other direction. It was SO cool, very tricky and it really reinforced how exact I need to be with my aids for haunches in and how I can't "cheat" with the reins and avoid using my legs correctly if I want to be able to ever do half pass.

My favorite exercise that we did though was shoulder in, sitting trot down the long side. Then half way I would straighten her and ride a short diagonal, get the bend, hit the wall and cue for canter. We'd do a 20 meter canter circle and then canter down the long side and transition into trot before I hit the corner. This was cool because a few months ago both of us would have fallen apart at the seams if asked to do those things back to back and now we both held it together a few times in each direction. We also only got one canter lead incorrect!

Yep, it's spring!

This was also the first time Jane had us try medium canter and Katai did so well! Jane asked me to try it towards the end of the lesson and that was where we ended after one really good try. She really lifted in front and lengthened and it felt pretty magical :)

During the rest of the lesson we also got at least one really good medium(ish) trot, some great haunches in at the walk (we spent a lot of time there getting my cues correct - MUST NOT TIP TO THE OUTSIDE!!!), a couple of ok halts, really nice shoulder in and a few nice leg yields!

Katai was clearly extremely proud of herself (as she should be) after this ride and I was too. Jane had some really nice things to say and it really felt good. It was all messy and the perfectionist in me was crying for a lot of it but I held it together and really rode the whole time which I certainly wouldn't have been able to do a month or two ago. 

So happy with my amazing baby girl!!!

Strength: Lesson Recap 1/31 + Ride Recap 2/4

Old picture but I figured some media was needed

To preface this I have a couple of posts that I was going to split up but I've got a bunch more posts I want to get up including a February Goals post so I decided to just combine these. Sorry if it gets long!

Lesson Recap:

Earlier this month I ended up with a sore back. I'm not sure why, I hadn't lifted anything heavy or done anything that hurt so all I can imagine is that it happened when I was sick. I'm guessing that I either pulled something when I was sneezing explosively throughout the time I was sick or that laying on the very unsupportive couch for three days did something to me. It's weird in that it seems to vary day to day how bad it hurts and that it's behind my ribs on the right side rather than my lower back. Right now on the worst day a couple of Advil kill any soreness so I haven't felt the need to get it checked out but if it continues I will.

For whatever reason on the day of my lesson it was the worst that it's been. I'd been popping Advil all day but hadn't got the timing right so when I showed up for my lesson I was pretty sore. I went to pick up my saddle and had to freeze and just breath for a moment. I was trying to decide if a lunge lesson made more sense but I decided to just let Jane know and see if we could arrange my lesson a bit differently. Because of that we stuck to walk and trot and focused on lateral work instead.

We started with walk warm up to a nice trot warm up. Katai was moving well so we didn't need to focus too long on getting her loosened up. Instead we went to lateral work pretty quickly and started with leg yields at the trot. They were really working for me (for whatever reason) at my lesson and so after a few in each direction we switched to doing shoulder in at the walk. 

At first I wasn't doing enough to keep her flexed the correct way but after some coaching for Jane about catching her quicker without pulling I was able to get a couple of successful tries in each direction. Then Jane had me switch to doing haunches in for the first time! We did it at the walk and Katai very naturally just understood so after doing it a couple of times in each direction we went to the trot.

At the trot Jane had me do a new exercise where I would start the shoulder in the way we have been with a 10 meter circle in the corner but then at the center of the long side I would do another 10 meter circle and as I came back towards the wall I would start haunches in and do that to the short side. Other than some very slight fussiness about what I was asking for Katai was brilliant and really thinking and listening instead of just reacting. 

After we had the just of it Jane had me do it again and this time she actively coached me to actually ride and keep the bend and flexion and lower/forward/reaching feeling with the bit instead of just letting Katai fling her head in the air. Wouldn't you know it, with her reminders I was able to very successfully RIDE it correctly.

I'm a very visual person so this sort of thing is so helpful!

Both Jane and I were so happy with that as well as being cognizant of my poor back that we ended at that point and did lots of praising of my amazing pony :)

Ride Recap:

I've been playing around with my riding schedule a bit and trying to find something that works for both me and Katai. When I had Sunday lessons I gave her Monday off and then either Thursday or Friday (or sometimes both haha) and that worked really well. I've been struggling with Tuesday lessons because Mondays off work really well for me but not well for Katai and that sort of throws off my whole schedule. This past week I tried riding Saturday-Wednesday and then giving Katai Thursday and Friday off. 

Because of that my ride today fell after two days off for Katai and so I guessed she'd be full of energy. Oh boy, was I right.

It was interesting because when I was walking her around in the arena she seemed about the same as she normally is (ie. walking around quickly and sometimes with her head in the air) and normally even if she's a bit amped on the ground she goes right to work once I mount up. Today though my adrenaline started amping up right away which is unusual and I couldn't figure out why. Now I think I was picking something up from her. 

I mounted up and she was certainly tense and threatening to rear but never did. She's often better if I go straight to trot which I did and had a gorgeous trot. She was in full suspension bridge mode and on her toes but stretching down in to the contact, if a bit light in the contact, and forward. She wasn't relaxed but she was mostly listening to my leg and other than ensuring she didn't come above the contact I was just focusing on riding her forward and letting her dispel some energy.

Often when she's like this I'll let her decide to canter out of a forward trot and just go with it. Usually she'll canter for awhile, snort a bunch and then when I ask for trot again she's feeling better about life and we continue in a more relaxed and productive way. So when she made the executive decision to canter I went with it. However, a couple seconds in I was having to do a  lot more riding than normal and she was alternating head flinging with bolty steps and some slight leaping. I was just concentrating on keeping her forward when suddenly in the center of the arena she bolted straight up. The only thing I really remember was seeing her withers directly in front of me, that's how bad she bronc-ed up into the air. When she came down I yell/growled at her and asked for forward but she was so frozen up that she didn't move and I could tell she was prepared for battle so I did the wise thing and got off and lunged. 

She could have taught this horse a thing or two today of course I stayed on
This may be an option as a second career path when I get tired of HR ;)

I needed to go retrieve my lunge line, pull the reins off the bridle, and pull off the stirrups since I knew there would be acrobatics (spoiler I was right). When we got back to the arena I pretty much immediately made her go to canter and oh my gosh was she full of herself. Katai has NEVER been one for bucking, kicking, bronc-ing, or bolting on the lunge so I'm used to climbing off a crazy horse and then having a quiet lunge session and being done.

She was kicking out at her tail, bucking because there was a dark spot in the arena, bolting because she had boots on her back legs (like EVERY time I've ever worked her for the past three years) and frankly just being a bit of an ass. Honestly she didn't get in any trouble she just needed to stay forward and out on the line and basically listen to which gait I wanted. I didn't punish her for the antics because it was so clear to me that she just had excess energy and that's my fault. After all we're trying to create a stronger pony so it's not her fault that she is now stronger and has more energy and then after a break needed to express some of it.

After a few "quiet" canter circles on the lunge I did a few transitions and when she was listening we switched directions. She was mostly good the other way other than acting goosed a couple of times when I asked for a transition. Same thing to this side, lots of canter and eventually some transitions and we ended with a few circles at the walk.

Katai's innocent face

Normally I would have been done but I knew I was feeling a little squigged out about the canter transitions (I used to have major canter anxiety issues before Katai fixed them :) so instead I got her put back together (reins, stirrups, and all) and then mounted back up. We started at the walk but she was still slightly tense so before she got to make an issue of it I went into trot. Almost immediately she remembered that she was very tired pony and just went nicely forward, stretching, and also did lots of snorting. She was also more receptive to my cues to bend her and I wasn't have to RIDE as much as I had before. Before I let it drag out too long I cued for canter in her harder direction and other than a slight head toss she did it and was very rideable in canter. In fact she felt so loose and forward, and had such a nice open stride that I'd say it was some of our best canter to date. Again, I didn't wait too long before I brought her back to trot and after a loop to change directions cued for canter in the other way. This time (easier side) she didn't even toss her head just went straight into it and again I had the nicest canter I've had.

I was so proud of both of us that even with a very challenging and scary start we ended in a good place. Adrenaline and having scary moments usually really brings out my frustration so I was especially proud of how I handled this the whole time and that my thought process remained that it was my fault for not working her consistently and was focused on helping her be my partner again rather than getting angry at her for "doing something wrong". After all we're trying to be stubborn together ;)