On the Other Side

For the most part, my teaching job doesn't feel like a second job. It's like a hobby. That I get paid for. It's a nice contrast to my quiet office job. First, I get to spend time outside, which is awesome, I love outside! I get really cooped up if I'm inside too many days in a row. Second, I get to yell at people. This weekend I yelled a lot. Not in a mean way, just in a this arena is too big and I'm bad at projecting my voice sort of way.

The storm coming in at TC's rehab center, obviously it rained
all weekend and now that I'm at work all week with no ponies,
it's been warm and sunny. 

Lots of lessons meant no Rico this weekend, so sad! So my plans of dragging out a week's worth of posts for one weekend already failed miserably because the only thing I really did this weekend was teach and hang out with my brother and SIL.

I figured I'll go through some lessons this week, since I don't have a week's worth of content without talking about my lessons. Also it's been requested more than once, so here you go. Buckle in for some theory, yo.

New wall art = Rico at Grand Prix :)

The first lesson of the weekend was with the leaser of one of my favorite horses of all time, a horse who I've had in my barn for maybe seven or eight years? I did all of his dressage training (he had jumping training before, didn't go on the bit but did wtc) and I know this horse extremely well. Usually when the kids say something is going wrong, I know exactly what is happening. This means he's a fun one for me to teach on, even if he's a bit quirky.

For example, he does this thing that I like to call "inducing chaos" where he makes quick turns and pops his shoulder and zips around like a nut. By doing this, he gets a rider to ride him reactively, which then he takes as a personal insult. He's stumped even my upper level riders with this behavior because it's kind of unnerving- it feels very out of control and makes you feel like you need to scramble lest something scary happens. The solution is to just sit your ass on him, tell him to get over his shit, then "take over" and ride proactively.

And obviously I had to frame this picture

Another thing he does is negotiate. He manages to make you feel like you're right on the brink of getting him round at all times. He will get riders to make small adjustments or wait him out. Or he'll negotiate a longer neck or a lower frame in exchange for him not throwing his head in your face. He also fakes being round by coming out SUPER hollow at first, then slowly allowing the rider to feel successful as he transitions from hollow to being on the muscle. He did that to me in the first year or so I was training him.

He also fake stretches, if the rider lets go, sometimes he'll start to stretch, then "hit" your hand and pop his head up all upset like. So he encourages a rider to let go completely, where he dumps his hind legs out behind him and sniffs the ground like a bad western pleasure horse. He trained a student to warm him up like that once. She told me it was for his back and I watched as he trotted around nose on the dirt with his back all tight and hind legs like a sewing machine. So sneaky.

Love those little ears, even if between them is a conniving little
paint horse

One of my favorite things about him is that there's a special middle ground between laziest-horse-ever and complete-loon where he is shockingly rideable. When he's like that, he's probably one of the most rideable horses I've ever had in my barn. I can get him into canter with just moving my inside seatbone forward, I can get him to go from a medium canter to a school canter by scooping my seat in a different way. Lateral work is a matter of shifting weight.

BUT this special middle ground is in between two very fine lines. On one side, we have the world's most lazy animal. He will not move, even if you poke him with spurs or smack him. Sometimes he kicks at your leg or even your seat instead of going forward (cannot shove your seat on this horse or he will balk and kick at you- yes the saddle fits, he just doesn't appreciate butts). On the other side, we have the world's most reactive animal, one who you have to be so so still on lest he get insulted that you want him to go straight, do a lead change, and get even more insulted that you "asked" him for a lead change.

No more media, enjoy some pictures from last winter

When my student told me that he was feeling heavy in the bridle, I selfishly (he is so fun) offered to hop on. I had a couple of ideas as to why this was happening. First, he lost some fitness during my student's finals, so he's not super strong. Second, he's being ridden once a week or so by my newest bronze medalist, who is a fantastic rider, but who has always ridden strong horses and tends to ride the little paint slightly heavier than his rider does (actually where I like a horse like this to be- he used to nod on the contact). Third, and this is the one I wanted to make sure wasn't happening, if you get rigid in the hand, he will lean. Guess how I know that, me desperately trying to step down from my throne as the queen of rigidity in the last several years.

Luckily when I got on, I realized that I was both right and wrong. The first two are true- he feels a bit unfit but I could get him very well connected. The third wasn't happening- my student maintains a very steady but light connection, there's no bracing there. He wasn't dead in the connection (he actually felt amazing, props to you, teenager with very minimal dressage experience), so that told me that she hasn't been braced on him. I expected that, she is a good rider.

Trees!

Too... good. As when I got on him, I realized that she had stumped me with his crookedness. The horse was leaning on his right shoulder, but my student was hiding that a bit from me (not a bad thing, she's able to keep him straight enough where I wasn't noticing it because I didn't look for it).

He's got a weak left hind leg, always has, so his weight gets distributed onto his right front leg. This means that he leans on his right rein a bit. Now, student said that he was heavier to the left, which makes sense because he's quite well trained (ahem) and he takes more weight on the outside rein when being bent to the inside pretty naturally (he doesn't tip his withers). When he was tracking left, he put even more weight on the outside rein. Tracking right, he evened out a bit better, and my student could use uberstreichen to get him even lighter on that heavier inside rein.

Love these trails

At the canter, my student said that he's easy to the left and hard to the right. Before I explain, something to know about his canter is that he's very sensitive to the seat. If you half halt and then sit the canter that he gives you, you can basically canter him in that same balance on a loose rein. So to the left, he's better because a) you can really half halt that rein that he weights (vs on the other side he would just fall in with a half halt on the outside rein) which b) means that he's easier to keep straight and c) he will willingly take weight behind. Which then you can keep by riding him on your seat and lighten your hand and poof- self carriage.

To the right, he struggles for several reasons- first, he doesn't take weight on his left hind as willingly, which makes him crooked, which makes you fall in the hole he creates on the left side, which makes you stand on your left stirrup and pull on the right rein to keep your balance, which further encourages him to lean on the right rein. So to fix it, I had my student sit on the right side of the saddle, bend him to the inside, uberstreichen the inside rein, connect him on the outside rein, half halt the outside rein, and activate the outside hind leg. Also rub her stomach and pat her head. Yep.

Need to get back out there

I could get the canter really great both directions, but my student, still learning about the biomechanics of the rider's seat at the canter anyway (and also who doesn't naturally tip left like I do- which made me feel like I was going to fall off if I sat in the hole), struggled to the right. But it was still much better.

I love these sorts of lessons, and this lesson shaped the rest of the weekend's lessons too. Understanding the biomechanics and how that relates to straightness and connection. Ah I love my second job. But boy am I happy sitting in this nice cozy office right now though!

My favorite tree!