Conformational Sink Hole

On Friday I had my second lesson with the new remote trainer and my first lesson ever using Pivo Meet! I have been so hesitant to try it out but it ended up working out perfectly, we were on the call for almost two hours actually (we are chatty lol). I'm just glad our lesson was in the morning because it was cooler, that was my only concern with it because my phone will often overheat in the middle of the day. I definitely want to invest in a little Pivo Meet station in the corner of the ring where I can put a little umbrella/fan/misters? or something. 

Anyway, my main goal for this lesson was to get some clarification on TC's posture in his work. For our last lesson, we used zoom and I guess the video wasn't so smooth. This time I was hoping the video would be smooth so that she could see his posture change throughout the ride. She only said the video got cloudy once! So that was great. 

Why is my horse so cute about cows?
My theory is that he lived next to them
as a baby horse so he watches them the
same way I'd watch 90s cartoons lol
bovine nostalgia??

This lesson was so good for me mentally. It really called me out on a lot of my own mental hang ups about the sport of dressage, which I will go over eventually, and it also just put into perspective who TC is and how much I am allowed to expect out of him and out of myself as we move up the levels. 

We began with me basically just dumping onto her how frustrating everything has been. Then I picked up the trot and she was super happy with what she saw. I had put my soloshot in the corner (the only downside of Pivo Meet is that you can't record lessons!) so I watched the first few circles of trot and like... he's not as good as he's ever been but it was perfectly acceptable, especially given that Thursday's ride was kind of a disaster. Kate watched the video from Thursday and thought he might be a little sore so hopefully he felt better. He's been galloping around every morning with Rico so maybe he pulled a muscle. Both are seeing the acupuncturist this week, TC because he's in work and Rico because TC's implemented a fitness program for him apparently. 

This day wasn't bad (this is from a different day)

I told her that I felt like I only had a feel of his mouth, not of his entire topline, in my hand. Like if you were to chop his neck out of him and it was just his head floating in space, I'd have no change to what I was feeling. She wanted me to play around a bit with movements and bending exercises to see if there was any way to get that to change. I don't know how much that changed in the lesson, but I will be experimenting with it in the future for sure. I want to figure that out because then I'll just clicker train him giving me more feel. 

I then complained that he was kind of ruining my feel because of shit like this. Like I shouldn't have to clicker train the horse to let me in, I'm a nice rider, he screams at me every day, we are a good team. But I can't trust what I feel anymore because sometimes he feels fucking amazing and then I see the video and I'm like "whoa... seriously? yikes..." and other times he feels... fine.. nothing special, and I see the video and I'm wishing he could look like that all the time. She said no, TC is not ruining my feel, it might feel like that right now but she firmly believes that TC is going to help my feel. After him, there won't be a single horse I struggle on (honestly I'm feeling that already, every other horse has felt pretty straightforward recently). 

She told me something that made me so hopeful, she said "he is going to turn you into the ride you have always wanted to be." She is so unbelievably positive, it's exactly what I need right now. 

Speaking of amazing things she said during that lesson, she told me that TC was a conformational sink hole and I should never blame myself for his postural issues. We will go days, weeks, months, years with no issues and then he'll randomly just struggle with it. If you build even the best foundation on a sink hole, you'll eventually have foundation problems. She said that I'll be nearly constantly going around patching things up in the foundation and then probably also having to restart at times, like we've done this time around. She said that I'll sign up for shows and then his foundation will crumble and I'll scratch. Other times I'll sign up for shows and the foundation will hold and we'll go out and do well. I can't put my self worth on how good TC's foundation is at any given time, just like I wouldn't place my self worth as an architect on how well a building survived being built over a sink hole. 

His neck is staying long rather easily right now but
I am also not asking for too much

From there, she liked how he was doing and so wanted to play with the lateral work. She says the posture should get better as he shifts his weight back so we need to start playing with that. But she says that he will always be the kind of horse who gets short in his neck and drops out from under me. So the plan is to do some lateral work and then stretch and then do some lateral work and then stretch. 

We did some of that and then we got onto the topic of "trick training" the movements. She says that she firmly believes this is what the top trainers do. She read a book about Anky's training methods and, rolkur aside, she read that the trainers would tell people to pull on the inside rein to ride a volte. She was like "no trainer in their right mind would say that, but what I think is that they've simplified the aids a TON for these upper level horses and riders, basically they've trick trained the Grand Prix." 

And that brought me to tell her about my trainer who got me to the Grand Prix who chased me around with a whip and then asked me why I don't have my Gold yet, who told me that "pirouettes are easy, Megan, you just canter, collect the canter, and turn." I've always laughed about that because pirouettes are NOT easy and that is NOT all you do, and chasing Rico around with a whip was NOT going to solve all our problems... but I think the simplification of the upper levels is really helpful for a lot of people. And horses, honestly. It definitely paid off for me in the end with Rico. 

Then we talked about the Grand Prix zig zag, a movement that she says she just can't figure out and I said "that was my easiest movement!" and I told her it was because I didn't use my legs or my seat in the movement, I just steered with my reins. I taught Rico to change leads in a half pass and go the other way if I swapped the bend. She thought that was hilarious (especially because it drove my trainer at the time NUTS "don't let him change when you straighten him!" but why not?) Trick training. My easiest movement and the one I walked out of the ring confident I'd earned an eight... I trick trained that movement. Interesting. 

Trick train your animals - USDF Gold Medalist

So we looked back to TC. Is there a way to trick train TC to do dressage? Absolutely. How about simplify the aids for the movements so much that I have all my aids available to help him in his basics? Do it. So we played with the shoulder-in to half pass. Can I sit to the outside in the shoulder-in and then train him to half pass by shifting my weight to the inside. Sit inside = half pass, sit outside = shoulder-in. That's it. That's the aid. It's not about my legs or my seat bones or my reins or figuring out which lateral work gods to pray to at each given moment. It's just a weight shift. 

That would mean that all my other aids will be used to keep him connected, to ride his neck longer, to keep his back up to keep him collected, you know. Sit inside = half pass; sit outside = shoulder in; sit middle = go straight; everything else = connection, throughness, smiling at the judge so they know that I'm good at dressage and don't hate it, collection, impulsion, contemplating what to cook for dinner. 

It will obviously take time, but one of the ways I can start doing it now is just repetition at the walk. Teach him the weight aids. 

This brings me back to this post about the baseline gaits and how I preached about simplifying the basics so much so you can just focus on the movements. Well, I guess in this stage of our time together (why? No idea still), TC is teaching me how to do it the opposite way. I will have baseline movements and then use my aids to help him through the basics. Could you teach a horse, maybe a horse who is better built for the sport, to simplify both the basics and the movements? Is that what our top riders do? Is that the secret to getting an 80% at the Grand Prix?

Sorry for all the walk work we are about to do, buddy

The other big thing we did was a TON of stretching work. She wants him to become a "stretching monster" like nearly constantly asking me if he can stretch. The whole time during a test she wants him being like "can I stretch?" and me saying "not yet just hold on for a moment" throughout. 

In order to do that, we need to stretch him down a TON so that he knows it's a thing that is likely to happen nearly constantly. Every movement is followed by a stretchy circle. This exercise led us to talk about how hilarious it would be to throw in stretchy trot in upper level freestyles. We talked about what a stretch circle being required at the upper levels would mean for riders and it was fun to think about. I also had this moment of imagining my warm up for TC's future PSG debut. One of my students just earned her USDF Silver medal, I warmed her up and everyone (including her) was going around doing fancy movements. But there I'd be doing a huge amount of stretchy trot and then heading into the ring like "I'll pick him up later" lol, I love that. 

Anyway, once he's so used to stretching that he becomes demanding about it, that's when I know I've got it right. The plan is to basically ride through the movements preserving the connection as best as possible but KNOWING that he will retract slowly over time due to his conformational sink hole and that is NOT my fault. Then on the short sides, let him out a few inches to stretch before starting the next movement.

Such a cute pony

I love this plan and am excited to get started. I definitely want to take weekly lessons with her for a while. I'm going to start clicker training movements based on weight shifting (she literally said she taught her horse to do extended trot based on how she was breathing, this is exactly the kind of outside the box thinking I need in my life) and various other oversimplified cues. And turn him into a stretching monster. And we just start chipping away at everything we stopped working on last year. 

Because he's still not showing the ideal posture just yet, I'm also going to chase down any physical reasons for why he might not be able to give me that. I feel like it was better in June and July than it is now. Is it actually that he hates this saddle? Maybe. Is it that he hasn't seen his acupuncturist in a while? Also maybe. Is it that he hasn't seen his PT in a while? Yes, maybe. Or maybe he's been in a low grade amount of pain for a while? Well, we'll know later because he's going on prevocox this week to see if he improves. 

Or maybe there is no ideal posture and my mental game is super off. That's a definite possibility!