Breakthroughs

The week following the Mary Wanless clinic was a tough one. I'd be riding along like I always did and then would get overwhelmed by all of the things she said, try to implement them all at once, and then get frustrated that I couldn't do them all at once or get taken off with because I wasn't paying attention. Do not recommend this implementation style.

When did my horse get replaced with a bouncy ball? Lol this was
the only part of the arena I could get good crappy screen shots

So over the week, like I said in Friday's post, I decided to just find a couple of crucial things to fix over the next month or two, then come back and reread all of the posts from last week and find a few new things. That's far less overwhelming and I'll probably make better progress doing that than trying to think of everything at once.

At this point, my goal is to find some equilibrium where I feel like I can ride my horse again, and we're definitely getting to that point.

Luckily, for the most part, TC and I are in a great place right now where I can actually devote a lot of my mental power to working on these things. Winter has been really mild this year (coulda used that last year omg) so we've been plugging away in a bit of a reduced workload, less due to weather at this point and more due to the shifted schedule to morning riding. Though I did make a conscious effort to reduce his fitness so it wasn't a big deal to miss a few days of riding, which paid off during the clinic and when everyone came back to school the week before that.

So I might be way overcorrecting my right seat bone (it will be
DOWN) but can I just have a moment to admire this trot?
This was not the trot he was born with, let me just tell you. 

Sunday I took a bunch of really crappy fence video. I haven't had any new media because I can't yet afford to have someone follow me around recording my life. Also I tend to ride at times where normal humans are doing other things, like sleeping or watching the football game.

It was really great to see, even just for the little bits where I could, what we looked like. I obviously have mirrors, but I do like slowing it all down and seeing what is going on.

A lot of good things are happening and a few bad things too. As expected, I'm way overcorrecting a few things. I'm so dedicated to being on my right seat bone that I'm pretty much hanging off the right side of my horse, so that's cool. He's not thrilled with it but he's a tolerant fellow (or he will be when I'm done with him) so he can deal. And I'm really struggling with the stability in my position tracking left, which is going to take me a long time to fix. I think it has something to do with my SI injury, and I need to see a doctor to figure that out.

The sitting trot is AMAZING. I noted the changes last post, but this time I could see them. The quality of trot has improved so much, especially when I can be coordinated (not often, yet) and really bear down AND put my leg on at the same time (pretty sure that's impossible). He's naturally so much more into my hand and so much more active. I played a bit with increasing the power coming from behind but also rebalancing him a bit more uphill with a half halt and I could really see the difference in that. And all the work in the bridle this winter means that adding positive tension like that doesn't send him into negative tension. I can really press on him (not in a mean way, he wouldn't do well with that) and get great work out of him.

New position who dis?
Sorry, it's late on Sunday night and I'm delusional. But damn.

To me, the canter feels like the change of a lifetime, though the video showed that it's still in the beginning phases, though there have been some significant changes. I was convinced I had achieved the collected canter I want for Second and... I know lots and lots of people content to take a canter like this into Second level, but I am going to be dissecting collection in a post at some point (complete with gifs of my GP horse vs my Training level horse) and I will go more into what I'm wanting him to do.

What I can say with confidence is that a) his throughness is a thousand percent better and b) he's definitely traveling in a more uphill balance, even if those hocks aren't as bent as I'd like them to be in the stance phase to call it collection. I'm pretty pleased with that. Throughness has been an absolute battle in the canter. The horse is just not built to do it. When I see Rico cantering in the pasture (well, get videos from my mom), he naturally has a round canter. TC's natural canter is a horrifying disaster that I never want to sit on again, let alone see.

So he's really come a long way since even a year ago struggling with it. But it's going to take a lot longer to develop. I'm very happy to keep plugging along with it. If this is how much I can change just by sitting in a slightly different way, I wonder how much things are going to change in the next year!

IS THAT UPHILL BALANCE IN THE CANTER I SEE?

So pretty much every day we're making really good progress. It was enough where I had a couple of people ask me who I was riding with. MYSELF through mirrors, overwhelming auditing experiences, and crappy fence videos. I do want a lesson, but that will have to wait a bit longer. For now, we're just going to keep plugging along on the first toolkit (though I slipped into second toolkit the other day and did some leg yields and shoulder-in within the new sitting trot and they were great!) and keep making steady progress.