When we last left our heroes, their Dressage had gone all to crap and after sending up some signal flares and SOS calls to the trainer, we figured out he was piling all his weight onto his right shoulder in both directions, aka "not straight".
My rides since then have been workmanlike. Nothing as good as last week's lesson, nothing near as bad as when we both forgot what straightness was, but we made progress, and she noticed and told me so. "I can tell you've been working hard on this outside of lessons," is the biggest compliment ever.
Last night was 100% spent on a 20m circle (you're asleep already, aren't you?). The first exercise was spiraling in and out to a cone at the center of it, right rein. I had to move his shoulders out, turn his nose, and I had to do it like every two steps, which she earned her lesson fee by repeating overandoverandover. But I can't just move him out from my inside leg, I also have to catch and hold him in my bad rein, the left one.
Next, same thing, but to the left, and because his problems are the same but totally different to the left (same = he piles on the right shoulder, different = that manifests itself differently to the left). He kept trying to carry his haunches in and his shoulder out, so I had to focus on leading him with the inside (left) rein, getting that shoulder to really come through on the inside.
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| Synchronized chili vulturing on my lunch break. |
To this direction, I really have to wait him out to get him to come into the bridle, but it was worth it. It was the best he's gone in months, and we got the compliment, "Wow, that's some fancy trot, he's so free through the shoulders right now." Bingo!
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| Christmas candy practicing, (husband made these, I roll and wrap). This is why we should be friends. |
Finally, we did it at the canter. The right (always the worse direction) was motorcycleland (his favorite canter evasion) and she said he's got so much weight on the right shoulder, his left (outside) fore is actually almost crossing over it. So she had me pick up the left rein when the left fore was just about to come off the ground, and take it up and over to encourage him to do the same with his foot. It made a huge difference, and we ended up cooling out by working on that at the walk in the leg yield.
I ended by telling her I am enjoying Dressage bootcamp, and I am. When 45 minutes makes that big of a difference in the way your horse moves, how could you not?
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