Ironing It All Out

We interrupt this Mary Wanless week of posts to talk about TC because he's a GODDAMN GENIUS of a horse and we had a great lesson last night. Also, my last Mary post is about the canter mechanic and I need to compile a TON of videos, so that's my Sunday project this weekend. Keep an eye on my instagram to get a sneak peek, I'm sure I'll be sharing there first.

Thursday afternoon, I headed back over to ride with Tanya! Her homework last time was basically to address the issue with TC's accelerator and also to work on his suppleness. We came out guns-a-blazing and she had to tell me to freaking half halt before I bombed around in medium trot the entire ride. Excellent.

I was a little concerned about my SI recovery, so I warned her that I felt wobbly and that I might need some help with that. But the entire ride, it didn't bother me at all, I was occasionally unsteady, but that's what bearing down is for. So I'm super pleased, I will hopefully have another PT appointment next week so we'll keep working on it all.

Being so cute after the lesson

We started out talking about some of the stuff that Mary had said. The biggest thing Tanya took away was tucking her boards into her horse's shoulders. If you're unfamiliar with Mary's boards, here's how she describes them: a sophisticated way of working with asymmetries. Instead of dividing the body into halves, we divide it into thirds, taking lines which follow the line of braces but which continue right down to the bottom of the torso. It is as if a board joined the rider's front to her back along each of these lines. Keeping her spine vertical is very much easier when those boards are firm.

Okay so you take your boards, and you ask yourself, if I can extend those forward, would they be tucked in behind the horse's shoulder blade, or are you losing a board outward? I definitely lose my right board outward away from TC's right shoulder.

And thus began an entire lesson on straightness!

Happy pony

TC has always wanted to duck out his right shoulder, which is where I leave a door open anyway, so he's honestly well within his right to do that. When that happens, his haunches fling themselves left and his nose gets pulled left too (erm, to clarify, I pull his nose left). Tanya pointed out that when I go to straighten him, he often just flings his entire body left, so it discourages me from riding him straight because then I can't keep him on the rail. She put us in renvers to the left and had me make sure that he kept his haunches on the rail while I pushed his withers into the left rein.

We also played a bit with riding shoulder-in in each direction. To the left, I needed to essentially ride more renvers to get him to stay stepping into the left rein and to actually bring his withers to the left (vs his favorite, a neck-in). To the right, she wanted him to flex more right. He's very happy to bend his neck and body right, but he stays a bit stuck in his poll and doesn't really come through. That's caused by him, again, not stepping into the left rein. I sense a theme.

Hi, do not want to connect to left rein, no thanx

In canter, Tanya was happy to see him actually really forward. She had me get on his case about the connection, getting him more INTO the bridle to the right. She wanted him to stand more upright, which she had me address by getting a better feeling from my right leg to my left rein and insisting that he not only bend right, but he shift his weight left. When he did this, he felt so much BIGGER and way more upright, almost narrower. Like everything squished together and got taller. Tanya said it looked like he dropped some weight (he isn't fat, but he is big boned, literally, you can feel his ribs, his knee joint is the size of my head).

To the left, we rode a diamond, which one of the other long term Mary participants had Tanya do on her horse at the workshop. It was really fascinating, and very hard for both of us. I essentially rode him in renvers again, pushing his withers to my left hand and not backing off the contact. Tanya was on my case about that, she said that her guess would be that he's a bit too light. Understatement of the century, Tanya.

Once again, his canter TRANSFORMED. I've never felt him like this. It was amazing, I had him completely underneath me and he gave me so much access.

At the end of our canter work, Tanya wanted to see the changes! With this new, more upright TC, he was ON IT and showed her the two best changes (one in each direction) that he's legit ever done in his life. She seemed excited about them. I told her he was super easy to put them on but that he was still green, of course. She said there was a lot to like - they're clean, they're uphill, they're on my aid, and he doesn't dick around in them. She wants me to hone in on being able to keep him straighter so I can just shift his weight and change (right now it's a lot more of a change-the-bend, so they jump a bit sideways, not too much, but I certainly am not on the exact same line), as that is going to be key for tempi changes. But that for where he's at in his training, she's very happy! YAY!

I need to take more pictures of this animal so I don't constantly
reuse them for this blog. 

At the end of the lesson, we talked a little about TC as a whole. TC scored very well at Training and First but we chatted about how he's just really flow-y and I'm not in his way and the high scores came from what a nice picture we gave. He was a VERY good First level horse and I know how to ride a good First level test. But a good First level horse doesn't make a good Second level+ horse. And that's what we're after now. I did point blank ask Tanya if she thought he could do the upper levels, she said yes, that she wouldn't give up now. I had an inkling he could do the upper levels, but it's nice to hear from my trainer that I shouldn't sell him as a lower level horse and get something more talented.

But TC needs to give me more access now and he's a little bit unsure of that, especially in canter, it's a lot of effort on his part. In addition, when he gets to the place he needs to be, he feels like he's about to launch me. I've spoken about this before, so it's just more of that, I need to ride him in a way that's on the edge of my comfort zone. That's excellent! But it's hard.

Overall, it was an absolutely fabulous lesson. I love how he's feeling these days with Tanya's training plan. And it was great to see how much access my new wobbly SI joint gave me. I need to work harder in my riding than I have in the past, but I can actually do everything Tanya is asking now! Hopefully tomorrow we continue to build on these concepts, I'm so glad I signed up for two lessons this month.