Cob Jockey

I haven't gotten to 1-3 yet, that's okay.  This is on my mind right now.

Stretchy trot is actually stretchy when, you guessed it, you're not blocking your horse's energy.

Apparently Connor - or both of us - just needed to sleep on Thursday's lesson.

Software update killed my phone's camera.  Anyway, Connor's all "Ladies, please, I just needed some sleep."

I apologized to the trailer-in clinic riders who must have heard me yell "HOLY SHIT!" from across the road when I got the coolest canter transition ever by moving my inside hip forward a millimeter while in a "collected" (I know we're not to true collection yet) sitting trot.  Like, seriously, how did he feel that?!  I did it a few more times to make sure I wasn't dreaming.  I've never ridden a canter pirouette, but I felt like he could have stepped into one with a canter that put-together.  The first stride was almost in-place, and then he stepped off into a dreamy, lofty canter.

The trot transitions were more of the same.  He never rushed off a single time.  And I rode without stirrups again.  It was just shocking to get that good of a ride without my trainer.  I think we're on to something.

Enjoying the brief period of time in which his drylot isn't so dry.  Eat your heart out, pony.

Warning: I had a hard time processing last night's lesson, so this is unusually wordy and devoid of pictures.  This is my brain on paper.  TL;DR: Rode from my core without stirrups and cool things happened.

Connor started out flat and lethargic for my lesson.  My trainer asked to see a few trot-walk-trot transitions, and mentioned that it looked like he was moving off my leg fine, but his hind end wasn't connected to the front end, or my core.  So the rest of the lesson was about core control, because (we've heard this before) he needs to be very in tune with my core so that the other aids are free to do other things besides keep him from getting flat and runny.

I've talked before about how I do/my trainer asks for very little no-stirrups work, and when we do drop our stirrups, it's always as a means to an end.  Almost all of last night's lesson was no stirrups work so that I was sitting more evenly and not bracing with that right leg, since weight and core were the focus.

Early morning chores from a few weeks ago

"We need to set the tone of the trot from the transition.  I feel like he gets out in front of you most of the time and races off."

To work on that, we asked for walk-trot transitions by lifting my hips and core up and forward.  As I understood what she said, in the walk, the rider's hips are sliding back and forth, but when you ask for the trot like this, suddenly that motion changes because you lengthen the muscles on the front of your body and lift both hips forward.  I was to "just keep the leg there" and if he didn't respond to the hip/core change, to bump him gently with my legs to be like "Hey, you were supposed to do something there!"

It took many many tries, and we had to gradually lessen the leg aids, but finally we got one transition where it almost felt like he sat down and then hesitated as he moved into this beautiful compressed trot.  The next one after that went back to being mediocre, but hey!  I felt what it was supposed to feel like.

Next up was canter transitions using my core.  I was to slide my inside hip forward and lengthen my inside ribcage (or "lift the inside boob!") to ask for the canter.  It was interesting to feel what else happened when I slid my inside hip forward, and why that gets translated into "outside leg".  The transition was a lot more "up" when I asked with the sliding inside hip.

Finally, we did figure 8's at the sitting trot, no stirrups.  By this point I was getting more relaxed through my body with the no stirrups work (or was that fatigue?!)  and I was really sitting with his motion.  The most interesting "new feeling" of the day was when she told me to push the new inside hip forward as we changed the bend and moved onto the new direction's circle in the middle of the figure 8.  He was so smooth with the bend change when I did that, and more balanced/less motorcycley with his body.  She explained why that happened when I was doing it, but I was so distracted with the feeling that I can't remember what she said.

I was tired.

Tired of being told that what I was doing was "good".  I wouldn't have even called it "good enough" let alone "good."

I was tired of figuring out different ways to contort my body to do what I thought was right, and not getting corrected.

And now, all of that has changed.

My trainer has the keenest eye of any equestrian I've ridden with.  Nothing gets past her, not even the slightest turn of the foot or the the tiniest misalignment between hip and shoulder.  The best part is, though, that she'll explain why correcting my body in this way matters and what it does to the horse, both at that point in my ride and in future rides.  She's never harsh, she says she wants her students to have positive associations with their riding, but she points everything out without failure, and I thrive on that.

As a result of that teaching style, I'm seeing big improvements already in my third lesson.  By "big improvements" I mean she only has to remind me not to brace through my ankles every five strides instead of every stride.  But it's progress!

Today was primarily a lunge line lesson, on Dillan in a French-made Dressage saddle (with no keepers, how weird is that?).  Now that she's gotten to know me a bit better, she had a couple of specific goals in mind for me.  First, she entirely took my reins away and worked with me on my position, and then posting trot.  She worked on getting me to feel like my hips were pushing the horse forward instead of coming down on his back, and on feeling as if my hips were a piece of toast popping out of a toaster, and they were doing all the work instead of my shoulders.  I quickly learned that if I didn't stay in the correct position with my hips underneath me and my shoulders up, I couldn't post from my hips.  Ding!  Lesson learned.  Hips, heel shoulder in a straight line, but not in a bent over straight line like in hunt seat.  Sitting back so far feels like I'm making fun of a western rider, but it's really sitting up straight - it just feels odd to me.

My ankles/feet have been a primary source of concern with how they point out all the time, and when they point out, I'm bracing.  Today I rode in tall boots, which gave me much more ankle flexibility, and I really focused on letting them relax and swing like in the videos of upper level Dressage riders I've seen.  I made significant progress here as a result.

Next we worked on sitting trot, and on feeling like my hips were driving him forward with each step rather than coming down on his back.  It made sense, especially in the context of Dillan's swinging trot.  I can tell we're not moving on from this until I get it totally right, and that makes me happy.  More than anything else, my sitting trot has been a terrible case of using my body in all the wrong ways to get something sort of passable, and I'm happy to finally be working hard at it and picking it apart like this.

We also did some canter work, which felt really wonderful, and drove home the idea of the position change.  When I got it right, the saddle felt better and the motion was so easy to sit.  It just made sense.

The final portion of the lesson was spent driving home the idea that we ride with our outside reins to inside legs.  Yes, the old Dressage mantra.  To over-emphasize this, she had me take up my outside rein, then tied my inside rein in a knot.  She took a short crop and had me hook both thumbs over it so I would get the feeling of the outside hand doing more than the inside, but both of them working together.  Then she had me move him in and out on the lunge circle using only my inside leg and outside rein, even if we were moving in.  It was amazing how something we both worked so hard on but didn't really get last time became so crystal clear in this exercise.

I'm tired and having a hard time keeping this short and coherant, but it was a fantastic lesson with great progress and I'm so excited for next week now.