Glancing Upwards

We left off yesterday with a good warm up and then some walk pirouettes, today I'll go over the second half of the lesson, which was a bunch of Second level stuff! Again it's riddled with gifs, blame Peony for letting me borrow her Pixio, I'm obsessed! 

Also obsessed with this trot, we're on our way to having a fancy
shoulder!

Back in trot, we did a few circles of sitting trot, working on getting my fatigued triceps and lats to turn on and get my elbows by my sides (we had minimal success there, I was so sore!). Then, we started in shoulder-in, and pretty immediately, Tanya was really pushing us in it. For a while it's been like "do a shoulder-in" and we've made minor adjustments, but it was like she came out this lesson and decided that rather than a First level horse schooling some Second level, TC was a Second level horse schooling some Third. There was a moment where I thought she was going to have us do a change he was set up so well!

To the left, the shoulder-in didn't have enough angle, so Tanya wanted me to use my inside leg to really get him to drop his inside hip and bring the left hind under and feel the connection to my right rein. I was not coordinated enough to get this at first, but then figured it out and the shoulder-in flowed a lot better after that!

Shoulder-in left, which was feeling really good! Though I am
glad that we're still a good eight months away from Second...

To the right, the shoulder-in had too much angle and bend (yay I guess? I've been working on getting him to lift his ribcage that way, maybe too much now) so I was to keep my outside leg back to hold the angle, and then straighten him on the outside rein. It all rode super nicely after that and he was keeping his trot in it very well. I have always kind of been taught that it's okay to slow a horse down in the lateral work and Tanya is NOT about that, she almost wants the lateral work bigger than the regular trot (or so it seems).

Shoulder-in right, which is a bit weaker generally

While changing directions each way, Tanya had us do a half pass. I have been occasionally working on half passes with him, but we mostly have been doing haunches-in at the walk and trot. Since he was so committed to forward by this point, the half pass flowed super nicely. It's not ready for the GP by any means, but it is quite good! To the left I felt like I had to lug him over a bit, so we'll work on that, and to the right he got crowded on my right aids (which is normal for him) so I had to keep him off my right leg a bit more in it. Time for a bunch of half pass to leg yield zig zags.

Half pass to the left (from afar lol)

Half pass to the right

At the end of all of this trotting, she had me do a couple of medium trots, sitting of course, why would I post them? We got through it but it showed me that I very much need to make these things more of a priority. She wanted me to get all the energy I needed in the corner, and then just allow it out across the diagonal. I felt like it was that way for... a quarter of the diagonal? Before I had to put my leg back on and push him more. I don't want to feel like I'm shoving him along in the mediums.

TC: weeee
Megan's abs: NOOOOOOO

We took a walk break after that and she told me a bit about an article she read on sitting trot. I guess they compared the mechanics of three types of riders - beginners, intermediate (read: you and me), and professionals. Apparently the professionals stabilized their spine near their upper back. I dunno, I need to read this article, but it reminded me that I need to work on my backline a bit more. It's getting floppy again.

From there, Tanya had me canter. I asked whether she wanted to see a walk to canter and she said sure, so I messed it up by not waking him up enough at the walk. Then we got it though, and Tanya said it was quite good!

I want more throughness eventually but we legit just started to
put these in our regular work

We started with some 10m canter circles, which I have only really done when he's been bad. To the left, they were the actual worst because he wasn't coming off my right side enough. To the right they were surprisingly good! Sounds like we have a lot of 10m canter circles to the left in our future...

Double circle to the left because he started out a bit hollow in
his first one

The right one was quite good to begin with! Still obviously
needs more throughness but I'm super pleased with the rideability

Tanya had us do an exercise in canter where you basically turn from A to R and then slowly turn it into a leg yield at the canter. Historically I've felt like canter leg yield (from the inside leg) is kind of silly just because it happens in the moment of suspension and so it's just kind of teaching them to jump sideways the wrong way... but for a horse like TC who has been pretty resistant to being pushed sideways generally at the canter, it did feel like it helped a lot.

To the right, my damn left hand ruins everything

To the left, much easier

After a few of those, we were to go across the diagonal and ride a half 20m counter canter circle. I made a mistake in these. TC has counter canter and totally gets it, doesn't try to change or break or anything. But I haven't done them in a court before, so I was so focused on the geometry that I kind of dropped my leg off of him at the very end of the half circle, so after all the hard stuff.

My mistake was telling him it was okay in a nice voice and therefore praising him for breaking. It's not like I should have gotten after him for my mistake, but praising that move meant that from then on, he'd get through the hard part of the counter canter and then trot and be like "yes?? good at dressage???" Soooo I had to redo that a few times to get him to not think that trotting in the counter canter was part of the movement. Then he caught on and was great!

Let's just pretend that he didn't totally break after this

This way (the second direction) went a tiny bit better just because
I was more committed to the movement

After all of that, we were done! I was super proud of him. He's stepping up to the Second level work really well and is taking the pressure of it better than I thought he would. I think it helps that last year we were touching on a lot of these movements already, so he's familiar with having to hold his counter canter and do shoulder-in/half pass. But it's still really cool to go over it all in a lesson!

I love how he's going and while we've got a TON of work to do, I'm so happy with how far he's come already this year. I'm really curious to know, given where he's at now, if Tanya thinks he could do the FEI levels. But I'm a little nervous to ask. We'll just keep plugging away! I certainly think he's going to continue to be a bombing lower level horse.