A Long Time Coming - Our First Dressage Lesson Back

Oh wow it's been a minute. I've been insanely busy at work and loving it, but have let the blog fall to the bottom of the to do list. 

TC is doing fabulously well though! He's actually feeling really amazing in my (real) saddle, which I got back a couple of weeks ago, and we started the collected work again and that's going SUPER well for basically the first time ever. 

Because of that, on Sunday, I took TC over the hill to ride with a trainer I've ridden on and off with for years. This was our first real dressage lesson in about a year and our first lesson with her in 1.5 years. It went SO well. I'm so glad we went and I definitely want to go back. 

Working a TON on the collection, this is from a
week or two ago, working on walk pirouette to
canter and learning to sit down a bit better

I got to the barn kind of early and it was cool, so TC walked out of his stall on his tip toes snaking his neck because he knew we were going somewhere. I decided that not dying was more important than being on time, so I let him play in the arena. He rolled a few times, ran a bunch, at one point he grabbed a small plant out of the ground and galloped around with it, flinging his head like a dog with a rope toy. Also not letting me grab it out of his mouth like a dog would. Then I finally did get it and then later, he galloped by it and snatched it up again, only to accidentally step on it and yank it out of his own mouth. Absurd. 

This paid off because at our destination, he was quiet but not too tired. He warmed up beautifully! I always forget that in better quality footing and in an arena that's actually normal size/shape, he moves SO much better. We had so much suspension and he was just RIGHT there under me. 

Don't steal my stick - TC

At the beginning of the lesson, I explained that we hadn't been doing *real* dressage for about a year, that we'd been focusing more on just having fun and trying to change the way that TC uses his body. She noted that this was good, but that he was probably going to be who he was going to be due to his conformation. Challenge accepted. Well, mostly I'm kidding, but it's a good reminder for me to remember that he does not have to be perfect. 

We warmed up and she was quite complimentary of where he was at. She noted that I'm riding him QUITE long in the neck, which she understands given how he went before but she wants him to now find a happy medium. 

There were some minor position changes, which I made sure to note: watch that my left hand does not prevent him from connecting and watch that my right leg doesn't stay too far back. These are very typical for me, but I'm always happy to hear them again!

He was paid well in cookies, believe me

The main theme of the lesson was using transitions to bring more tone into his body to help him with the collection and connection. I was SO unbelievably proud of him. He was so obedient and really stayed true to his spinal integrity for most of the lesson. The only times he slipped up was in the left canter, which is a challenge at home still anyway. 

This is a horse who has, in the past, just willingly contorted his body to do whatever I ask him to do, to his detriment and to mine as then we don't really get the result necessary. It felt like he said multiple times "I can't without compromising myself" and I was able to say "that's okay, do your best" and he was able to do that. 

I have the TCS to thank for that, it really drew my intention to the spinal integrity and I feel like I was able to call him out very early on him not maintaining it. As he got stronger, it feels like he was able to understand that yes, this indeed feels way better. 

Anyways, I figure I'll go through each transition in more details! 

He is so silly

In the walk, he needed more power and tone to stay in front of my leg. I've been told not to run him off his feet, so I've allowed the walk to be smaller and more deliberate, but I've gone in too much that direction. He is to practice his "quite good walk once he actually gets going" regularly and not "plod along as if he's on a trail ride" all the time. 

Once we had that, the walk to trot transition was actually quite good. We have done a TON of work in the creeping walk to the creeping trot, working on keeping him in his body/more like a rectangle. His tendency is to basically lean forward until he's about to fall over, like a rhombus, and then his legs pick up the trot to catch his balance. But in working on this, we lost the big, brilliant medium walk he has. He is now ready to do both, go from a prowling medium walk to a collected trot without compromising his balance in either. 

Slow walking = trail ride only

I also needed to keep his neck long but my reins shorter, the length of his neck coming from the base lifting, not from the reins being long. Right now I put him so far out that he has no choice but to keep his neck long at the base, which has been helpful for getting him uncoiled. But he does need to continue to lift his neck at the base as he shortens his frame, since that will be required for collection. 

At first I was like... I do not want to shorten his neck... but luckily the barn has mirrors so I kept looking over and what I felt was borderline too short was actually SUPER WEAK AND LONG. So that's good for me to note. It now feels much shorter than it is. 

Still though, there were moments where this felt precarious. I don't want to go backwards, so I'll be taking video and experimenting a bit. What is the optimal rein length to maximize him lifting through the base of his neck? We'll find out! 

Neck is quite long lol, I like it though! But I get
what she was saying

In the trot to walk transition, I was to keep him in front of the leg and up through his thoracic sling and poll. I have a tendency to basically let him stop the hind legs and dump a bit into the walk with his poll low. The fix was to keep him in a state of higher tone, which was tricky given that he's not carrying a lot of tension (positive or negative!) in his body. 

To me, this has been the main point of the last year. When he was in biomechanical failure, any tone became negative tension since it would just perpetuate that cycle due to the problematic movement patterns and which muscles he found easiest to carry tone in. Fixing it required me to take all of the tension out of him first, then to address the movement patterns so that he would understand what to engage when moving, then to build those (good) muscles up so that they were stronger than the (bad) muscles he was using before. 

Now though, we need to add tone in order to encourage collection in the trot. And we did! Every time we'd go to walk, if he didn't keep the tone, I was to push him out of it. This generally is one of my favorite exercises and we have been doing it quite a bit at home, but I was held more accountable for my tone and my timing. I can't just drop my tone as we go to walk, I have to hold the quality of the trot in my seat and core. In addition, keeping my core engaged also helped him stay out to contact, something that was an excellent test for whether he stayed balanced enough in the transition or not. 

So absurd

The trot to canter transition was probably our best transition. Honestly what the fuck? I mean, it hasn't been all that great at home necessarily, but it has been our main focus in the TCS so maybe that finally paid off. Or maybe he was like oh thank god if we canter, she'll stop wheezing in the sitting trot. Either way, there wasn't much to be said about it other than to watch that he wants to fold sideways to the left and pop his right shoulder.  

The canter to trot was also not bad. But different on each side. The right lead canter is so much more rideable for me, I think because the spinal integrity is so much easier for him, I don't have to manage it for him. He 

More where we want him, but to me I want his neck
the tiniest bit longer because of course I do

I was SO happy by the end of the lesson for so many reasons. 

First, TC feels AMAZING. He felt so good in his body and so good in his mind. He felt genuinely pleased to be out and doing the thing again, going for a trailer ride, having a human sitting in a chair telling me to ride better, being told he was brilliant, and going home again. His gaits have never felt better, like they've been bigger but they've never been more supple or more cadenced. We will develop the big gaits, but this time he'll be more rideable and happier than he was the last time we had the gaits amplified. 

Second, our relationship is unbelievably rock solid at this point and I didn't realize how palpable the difference was to me until we were put back into a location we'd been before we did all this work. The last time we were at this facility taking a lesson, I was a mess and he was a mess and we were completely disconnected from one another. In this lesson, it felt like we were completely connected and so much more in tune with one another. 

Still time for Friday night music even
with my crazy schedule

Third, it was so much fun to get someone else's eyes on him, a judge's eyes, and to see that I'm not insane. In the last year, I've had just a few lessons, and the vast majority of those have been on the bodywork-type stuff, not real nitty gritty dressage. I sometimes wonder if I've really gone off the deep end and if what I'm doing is even recognizable as dressage, but having her verify that he actually looks really amazing for a dressage horse was great. What I'm working on is right on track with what he needs to be comfortable in his body AND to be a good dressage horse. I didn't realize how much I needed that validation to keep going with my weird shit, but I did! 

Fourth, it was really nice to chat with someone about the prospect of showing again. I feel like I'm so far away from showing at this point. Both because we literally have been doing like... Training and First level work for so long that we have probably lost our changes and many other movements, but also because I feel a little weird about it. Being able to talk to her about showing and why we show was so nice. I left with the feeling that if I do show again, it'll be for the ritual, the experience of preparing for a show, practicing my test, braiding, showing, unbraiding, and going home. She reassured me that the comments don't have to be accurate, the score doesn't have to be what I think it should be, that there are other reasons to show. 

Reasons to show: the horse loves it

We'll definitely be going back! I don't know when, since it's a solid 3/4 day to get over there and back and ride the pony, but it's definitely worth doing at least once a month I think. And now we decide what to do in the mean time... I'm rather afraid of momentum since that's what got us trapped before. But I think I've got a good idea of how I'm going to implement some of these changes into the work I'm already doing that is working so well. Stay tuned! Or, well, stay tuned and also hope that my job allows me to post more!