Letting Someone Else Make Decisions

On Tuesday, I had my first ever remote lesson! I've taught a ton of them to all kinds of people but this was the first time I actually got to be on the other side of the camera. 

Kate had taken a couple of lessons from this instructor and was really impressed so I figured I'd give her a try. She's earned an 80% at Second level in the rated ring and I figure anyone who would take the time to train a horse to the point where they'd earn an 80% at Second level is someone I wanted to talk to about the basics. She's also trained a lot of off breed horses and it sounded like she was very open to being creative to help the horses out vs applying the same methodology to all horses. What I've learned having an off breed is that I need to find someone whose butt hasn't only been on warmbloods or purpose bred horses. 

Changing posture is going to be a long slog

She was all of that and more! I was super happy with the lesson and I'm definitely planning on taking more with her.

I didn't tell her very much about us. All I told her that his tendency was to drop his thoracic sling, shorten his neck, and keep his hind legs out behind him and that I wanted some tools to help him build up in this new posture. She watched us go and told me that I'd done a fabulous job with his foundation, especially in the connection. 

Honestly, TC felt really really good that day so I was just as pleasantly surprised. I think he likes the saddle we are trying right now (more on that later) and I think he thought he was putting on a bit of a show for Kate, who was my videographer. His assumption whenever anyone is in the arena (or near him, really) is that they are there to see him, he always puffs up a bit when someone walks by, even if it's just someone walking down the road with their dog. I could go the rest of my life without showing dressage again and be totally fine, but what motivates me to get back in the show ring is how much TC loves it. 

Shoulder-in for days

She had me walk and asked me to get him into the smallest walk steps I could. He immediately offered half steps and I told her that we had started those and she thought that was excellent. She told me that what she'd like to do is utilize the half steps and walk to halt transitions to help him find the posture we're after. I liked that but kept thinking that his neck was getting too short... 

She mentioned that he might get stressed in this work and that she wanted to make sure that I kept it fun and easy for him so that I could catch him tomorrow (lol!) and I told her that I had him clicker trained and that I could just click and treat when I felt him try so that it turned into a game. She thought that was great and I took out the clicker. Immediately TC went from mildly stressed to totally into the game and she would tell me "click for that!" when he went well. I've never had a trainer be so immediately accepting of the clicker training! 

From there she had us walk, trot, and canter in shoulder-in in both directions. She wanted my inside hand away from his neck to avoid it pinning him into my right rein. Bringing that rein open a little bit turned the shoulder-in into a leg yield, but it was less about riding a correct shoulder-in and more about finding a channel where he could lift through his thoracic sling and put his inside hind leg in a bit of a deep cross over to support that. 

Finding some more sit in the canter

In walk and trot, I didn't feel a huge difference at first. It wasn't until we went into canter where I was like OH OKAY. She had me bring him onto a small circle and then spiral out in shoulder-in, asking the haunches to step out first. But before we jumped into that exercise, she assured me that horses do not cross over in canter and we don't want that as much as we want the alignment to shift so he can take some more weight behind. 

I have... never felt my horse canter like he did on Tuesday. He even got super smug about it, he actually stopped to demand a cookie for his trouble, which I thought was hilarious. 

While the canter was feeling great, it was also a bit weak, I could feel him wanting to stop, so we did short bursts of this work and then took breaks. 

Me to TC as he stops to demand cookies

After all of that, she asked if she could see his stretchy trot and I was like YES YOU CAN and he immediately trotted around reaching out to contact. After all the collected work, the stretch felt really good, he kept his chest up a bit better than usual. She then asked if I could get him to stretch in canter and so I picked up the canter and wow that is tough for him, especially to the left. We've done a little bit of it but not a huge amount, definitely something that needs to be worked on. 

I let him walk and she told me what her game plan would be with him. Do shorter, intense rides. Thirty minutes max but with lots of walking before and after of course. For the first fifteen minutes of my ride, I'm to do half steps, walk halt transitions, shoulder-in at all three gaits, and the shoulder-in spiral exercise at canter. Then I am to do fifteen minutes of trotting and cantering in a stretchy frame. Then we end our ride. That should be our next two weeks. 

After that, we start alternating between the two. Ride a highly collected movement, then ride a stretchy movement. Ride half steps, then immediately transition into stretchy trot. Ride shoulder-in in canter, then ride stretchy canter.  

From there, we start developing the show quality movements. Ride a compressed shoulder-in into a stretchy shoulder-in. Ride a half pass in half steps and transition toward a lengthening (not medium or extension, but letting him down into a lengthening) in the half pass. 

My right leg was like "spiral out? ABSOLUTELY"
and slipped back where it'd love to live for good lol

The theory is this: TC needs to change his posture for the collected work but when he does that right now, he shortens his neck too much. So we need to school the posture change to get him past our First level purgatory that I willingly put us in at the beginning of this year to deal with the intense compression we were in. But we also need to address that shorter neck. For now, build each up individually in those two fifteen minute sessions. Get him as comfortable in the collected posture as he is in the stretching and vice versa. 

Then start to alternate more quickly so that he can easily go from one to the other and back again. To the point where when I'm asking him for his collected posture, a bit of stretching lives in it. When I'm asking him for his stretching, a bit of the correct posture lives in it. 

Then start to build the movements back with this work in mind. Make the stretching a reward for the posture. Bring him into half pass from half steps to make sure that the half pass begins with the correct posture, but then push it out to a stretching/lengthening half pass so that the movement rewards itself. TC will think "oh good, half pass, the first couple of steps are hard but the rest of it is easy!" and will be more willing to make those first few steps really good. And that's how we build up. 

He felt more reachy in my lesson than this but it's
at least different from what we've been getting?

After the lesson I was just... at the ranch. That was probably the coolest part of all of this. Being at a private barn means no trainers really want to come out for just one lesson and the ranch isn't really set up to host a clinic. For as long as I'm boarding there, I'll have to haul out for lessons! Or I can take remote lessons. And I think while EHV-1 is local (not as local as in March but still too close for comfort with Rico being at the ranch and me wanting to protect him at all costs), taking remote lessons would be really helpful! And then I don't have to give up my weekends or take a day off work! 

I gave TC a quick bath and then wrote all these things down in my dressage journal. Our ride yesterday wasn't anything to write home about and some of the changes that I felt on Tuesday just weren't there. Why? No idea. I didn't have video from the lesson so I sent Kate the video from Thursday to see what she thinks. Hopefully she can help be my voice of reason! We're going to trail ride today and then try again tomorrow. I might try another lesson next week and see if I can video it on my soloshot to get a good idea of what is happening IN the lessons!