Step Through

Saturday I woke up early and stuck TC in the trailer to take him back over to my trainer's barn for another lesson. This time though, Peony lent me her Pixio!! I seriously have the most amazing friends.

The drive over there was a titch rough with it being Drive Like an Asshole Day and all, but once as we got there, TC hopped right out of the trailer and was totally fine. Not impressed. One day he'll be like that even at brand new places!

Get it pony! Do more planks, Megan!

I tacked him up except for the bridle and then took him and the Pixio down to the barn. I left TC in the cross ties and then went and put everything up. Peony and Andy had stopped in (bringing me in n out!) the night before and helped me set it up in my apartment (and then Peony demonstrated some really amazing dressage moves on foot) so that I could figure out how to do it. It wasn't hard to set up, the only thing that was tricky was actually working the camera because I kept looking for a button that wasn't there. Yes I remember going over this the night before.

Back in the barn, I grabbed TC and took him out to the ring, turned on the camera, looked at it skeptically for a while, and then got on to walk him (totally forgetting about my equisense, seems like one equine-related technology is enough for me). He was just the tiniest bit balled up, but when I started trotting, he settled right in.

The first thing Tanya said about him was that he seemed really quiet! While I warmed up, she helped me with my posting mechanic. I tend to tuck my butt a little bit on the top of the rise, which is not necessary, so I stopped doing that and it made his trot feel much better! She also wanted me landing a little bit further back in the saddle. I've always been the sort to arch my back so it's interesting that I'm going in the opposite direction. Sticking with the biomechanics part of the lesson, she also wanted me to get my elbows down and my hands up a little bit. I don't normally ride like a monkey but I was really sore soooo yeah.

So he's coughing a little bit here so obviously the answer to that
is to do WILD AND CRAZY THINGS WITH YOUR  HANDS
but you can see my posting mechanic change a bit 

Immediately in the canter we had the issue I've been having - TC gets behind my leg and then bucks. Finally! I was so glad to have this happen in front of her! We talked about the whole spectrum of the canter. I've been feeling him get behind my leg, swinging to let's say the right of the pendulum, and then I've been only swinging him back to neutral, which isn't far enough, we have to go all the way to the left. I need to basically gallop him forward until he's super committed to being at neutral or above. She said to fix this now before it becomes a problem. And I was like dude it's a problem now!

Boing boing boing , you can see he does it when he's asked to
get his hind legs under him and he's like nah how about this other
shit instead? Btw he does it both ways and is not in pain, his rider
could be better though, or much worse. 

That's more where he needs to be for warm up! 

But once as TC is in front of the leg, he stays there pretty well, so that's great! We did some lengthenings down the long sides and then shortenings on the short side to really test this out and he only broke once I think. I still need to be committed to bringing him shorter, but I think I'm kind of afraid to do it because I might lose the reach from his inside hind leg. Gah I wish I had mirrors! I've been historically bad at really feeling the hind legs and yet I continue to buy horses who like to leave their hind legs behind them... Excellent life choices!

Go pony! Still working on getting him pushing from behind vs
just pulling along with the front end, so I have to keep him a
bit more compressed in these for now, one day he'll have a big
scary extension though!

We took a walk break after that, but at the end of it, she wanted to check on our walk pirouettes. I've been working on them on and off for a while and have always thought that TC's mechanic was excellent but that he wanted to just get a bit slow. The one to the left was excellent, but the one to the right slowed down. Not getting sticky or stepping out or anything other than just making it look like we were doing it in slow motion. 

Tanya had me go do a "working walk pirouette" which I have always called an "endless walk pirouette" where you're just in the middle of the arena going around and around and around. She had me put him forward 1-2 steps out of it when he'd slow down, then immediately get back in it. Hey that sounds familiar... I can't find the post about it, but I for sure took a lesson on Rico where I did this exact exercise in a canter pirouette.

I love him! The left one is easy, just need a bit more throughness
and a bit more bend for the show ring I think

To the right, what we ended with, obviously it needs a lot of
work but it was so much better than before!

The lesson continues, but that will be for tomorrow's post given how long it's taking me to make all these gifs! It's amazing to have the video though. I really need to start scheming and figure out how I can get me one of these cameras...