Piecing it Together

I was at a show with clients this last weekend and had a blast, they did really well! It did not make me itch to get back into the show ring any time soon though, so I think my plan to wait to show until winter is the right one, even if we might need to warm up in the rain sometimes. 

Even though I just posted about my lesson yesterday, it happened late last week and I rode TC Friday through Sunday and then I'll ride him today after he gets shoes. 

My ride on Friday was short but I wanted to drive home what we did in my lesson in the walk and trot. That's where we make it or we break it. It was fairly successful, a bit underpowered though. He honestly felt way more "drapey" with his neck that day so I'll take it.

Saturday, I just never got there. It was mildly depressing. I thought I got there and then looked at the video and it was a big fat nope. Oh well. 

Getting there

Sunday though... Sunday was the closest we've come to getting what we get in Tanya's lessons. I realized Saturday that I didn't spend enough time in step 1 and then overpowered him and he got rigid in his neck and dropped his butt out behind him to deal. So on Sunday, I did a truly insane amount of lateral work and bending exercises in walk, then the same in trot, before I added power. 

It wasn't so pretty. Once I challenged us with a lot of bending exercises, I realized how unbelievably stuck this horse can get when changing bend. So if you're just riding around, you may notice, sure, he may get a little tight changing direction, but how often are we really doing that? It's easy to overlook, especially because of how soft he already is. The difference between 0% rigidity to 5% rigidity feels like going from no contact to an okay contact. Until you ride a hundred changes of direction and realize that it happens every damn time and gets worse and worse. Well, fuck. 

So we did steep leg yields, serpentines, shoulder-in, circles, among other exercises, one after the other. I didn't care about forward except that I didn't have to kick him. I just cared that he stayed pressed into contact evenly wherever I put him. 

Canter left on Saturday

I spent way more time on this than Tanya would have had me spend, but by the time I stopped and cycled power through him, it definitely was better. Not perfect. There's still a missing piece there. But I was able to actually RIDE him through some test movements and not feel like I was pushing an overpowered sewing machine on a highway onramp hoping to merge. 

The highlight of the day was him giving me his very first set of four tempis! I had worked a little on the changes with Tanya's advice to quicken my aid and keep him supple. I need to get him confident with her favorite exercises (changes on the rail and changes over centerline on serpentines), but I couldn't resist trying the tempi changes. 

So coming into this week I am feeling much better about everything given how good the ride was on Sunday. I still want to get better/quicker/less disorganized with the warm up, but the fact that by the end of the ride, it feels like... 80% there, that's good news!