So Many Transitions

On Saturday I did a bunch of chores and then headed to the barn for more chores. I cleaned all my tack, my boots, and brushed TC's huge tail out. It gets a bit neglected during the week because I don't have much time.

TC was very eager to get ridden and marched around the ranch happily until he spooked hard at someone dumping a wheelbarrow. He continued this spooky behavior for the rest of the day because he knows that I am a fragile person who needs to be saved from all sorts of scary things.  

I bought bandage liners from Peony and dressed
TC up like a fancy European horse. It did not work.

In the arena we started at the walk. Luckily for me, every lap around the arena is a brand new terrifying experience for TC, so he doesn't mind doing a hundred leg yields. He seems to be a bit like a gold fish that way. After having some trouble with the canter leg yields (again off the outside leg- a half pass with no bend), I took it down to walk and discovered that neither of us are currently feeling comfortable with the leg yield off the right leg. I'm struggling with where to sit and he's struggling because his rider can't figure out where to sit. Also I think he's a little tougher on that side in general. Bringing the right hind to the midline is tough because he disengages from the right rein, and that makes him crooked. He has to stay up to the right rein and cross over. This is really hard for him. 

After a LOT of leg yields at the walk and me finally figuring out how to get myself to sit correctly (imagining I'm doing half pass with no bend is really helpful, if I think leg yield I get all wonky), we went into trot. 

His trot felt really great. He's letting me put my leg on but isn't behind my leg. He reaches super well into contact now AND leg means that he takes more contact rather than just scrambles faster. He picks up the trot from the walk by stepping into the bridle (still working on a really good downward transition, he stays on the bit but it's not a *good* transition) and pressing into trot, versus having it start from him pulling himself into it. And most importantly, I can sit the SHIT out of the trot. Well, mostly. 

Walking around the ranch

For the trot work, I mostly just worked on the connection. I find that he's still in a place where the connection is still something that we both need to think about. He needs miles going along in this connection before I can easily add other elements (like lengthenings, leg yields, all the stuff I want to be doing in a couple of months at our first show... maybe we'll wait a bit longer) without risking the connection. I've been having some dedicated days to perfecting all the easy stuff and one or two days a week where we branch out and I push him for a bit more. 

Once as the connection felt solid, I decided to do a bunch of trot to canter transitions. These historically have not been good. His canter in general has not been good. Now the canter itself is good, so it's time to get the transitions under control. The main issue in the past has definitely been my inability to sit his trot. Well, I told myself in the fall that since we were done with Training (well, we might do one show), that I basically had to learn to sit his trot in the next year or he'd have to be for sale as a First level horse. I don't want to sell him because he's really turning into an amazing horse, so I have been working REALLY hard to sit his trot. And it's working!

Now that I can sit his trot before and after the canter, working on the transitions has been a lot easier. I can catch any issue that arises much faster, and like I mentioned in this post, it's not about me skating through the movement anymore. So on Saturday I really packed the pressure on myself to get my timing quicker and ride him more through during the transitions. 

Looking around after our ride

While working on the transitions, I sat the trot in between, and that really helped me discover a couple of minor things going on in the sitting trot (I'm sure there are other things too), like the fact that I'm chronically slightly behind. You can see this in my lower back getting a bit round. I need to get my front line forward. I thought about what Tracey used to say to other people (since I had a tendency to arch my lower back in the past), imagine there is a piece of glass in front of you and that you're pressing up to it. 

So I thought about that and TC's trot really did transform quite a bit. The transitions were much much easier as well. I know some of it is strength for him, but a good lot of it is me not being in the optimal place for him. I'm sure in the future he'll be strong enough where I could be hanging off the back of him and he'd do the transition just fine, but until then, I need to stay with him and out of his way. 

The canter itself was back to normal after the day before's bout of soreness. Kate and I talked a lot about his tendencies the other day and she suggested I try kinesio tape, so I ordered some from Amazon and will try to coerce her into putting it on him. We're thinking that he's got tight hamstrings and that this is the reason why he struggles to get his hind end under him. I've always thought he had issues in his lumbar area, but as a person with tight hamstrings who also has problems in the lumbar area, the two are for sure related. Tight hamstrings could explain why he doesn't want to step under and flex his lumbar. So we're thinking about putting the tape there. Though I'm open to just wrapping him completely in tape to see if it helps him. Might keep him cleaner too. 

Thinking about itching his face with his bridle
on but then stopping when I told him no!

Generally the ride felt SO good. He's really stepping up his game and I'm trying to as well. This winter has been a really good one so far for progress, which is funny because I definitely did not plan on doing this much dressage. So it goes. But I figure if he's good, he's good, and we'll keep pressing forward. If I start to have problems, we'll take a step back. No big deal. First show isn't until mid March (and that's up in the air with the job search) and it's a schooling show. First rated show could be at the end of March but I could also wait until June! All I want to do this year is get my First level Freestyle score. Maybe qualify for All Breeds. Other than that, we're just having fun.