Cob Jockey

This is what I saw when I got to the barn for my lesson last night:

The grass is actually greener on the other side of the drylot fence.  Also, I hope the fact that the BO doesn't have to weedeat there makes up for the fact that Connor's popped three bottom boards off already...

After taking that picture, I got out of the car and yelled, "Hey!  Pony Yoga! Knock that off!" and I kid you not, he stood up and flipped his upper lip at me twice (which sadly I missed taking a picture of by a second):

"I was just weedeating, really."

The thing that makes my trainer so great, and the only reason I have had this much success with a green horse, is that she feels what she sees as if she's the one riding, and can then instruct me verbally as if she was in the saddle.  Yesterday, she said it's helping her such to have ridden him so often lately, because she can feel every little thing he's doing to me in the saddle.

And it's working.  That lesson was amazing  For the first time, she liked something I was doing in my warmup so much she carried it on into and throughout the lesson (small figure 8 circles along the rail with lots of changes of bend).

I explained the pelvis theory to her, and that I have been using that exercise a lot on my own after figuring that out, and she thought about it for a while before agreeing with me and pointing it out to me when I was doing it throughout the lesson.

I gave him a sea salt and vinegar peanut and he liked it.

We spent most of the lesson at a great quality canter, going from walk pirouette to canter over and over, doing large figure 8 circles with quick and controlled transitions in between leads.  He was so on my aids, you could have lit a bomb underneath him and he would have still been focused on me.  She even asked me to "think half pass" down the long side in right canter to prevent him from swinging out laterally, and we actually kept the bend and moved from the rail to the centerline, so...success?

After an amazing lesson, we popped a gymnastic a few times as a reward for us both, and as I was in the air over it, she started giggling.  So I started giggling at her giggling at us and totally failed to ride after the fence.  "Did you feel that?  Did you feel the way he patted the ground and kept his chest up?!  But next time you really need to ride after the fence."  Of course.

Tired pony.

Trainer ride tomorrow, XC schooling on Sunday either at Twin Towers or Masterson, trainer ride Wednesday, lesson Thursday, packing up and heading to Penny Oaks on Friday!

Okay, it's been one trainer ride and one lesson, and already I feel like the decision to let her ride him for a month has paid off.

This was the text I got Friday night: "Had a really awesome ride on Connor today. Helped give me a lot of insight for lessons too. Should be able to make a lot of improvements in the canter especially. He was very receptive and I LOVE your saddle!!!"

Sitting in that saddle is pretty life changing.  Also, hello new-to-me breastplate.

The day after, I had what was supposed to be a jump lesson, and I would still say it ended up being a jump lesson in that we did things that are going to improve his canter which will improve our jumping, but it was a flat jumping lesson.

She said she realized a couple of things from riding him that make what she sees me do in lessons make more sense.  First, especially to the right, he does this move where he pulls the right side of his back away from my seat and tosses me to the left.  She had me think about really sitting down hard on the right and keeping my seat in contact with him.  It honestly felt like I was sliding off of him to the right, and that my left thigh was over the pommel, but she swore I was straight.  It made such a huge difference, I can't even tell you.  The whole way he went changed.

Looking like an eventer these days

Second, she said when he's cantering to the right, he's actually throwing his legs left and moving to the left laterally, and the whole motion of the canter is different than the left lead.  It was one of those "Never noticed it before but now can't not notice it" things for me.  It really does feel weird.  She said correcting and strengthening that will make the biggest difference over fences, because she had also popped him over a couple of crossrails herself, and correcting that drift helped a lot.

She also said that to the left especially, he can get quite heavy in the right rein, and to correct that, I need to apply my outside (right) thigh to help turn the outside of him around the inside.  That helped so much with the half pass, along with her repositioning my lower calf underneath me to help him bend better.  More inside of calf on him, with my leg really reaching under his belly.

To drive those points home, we spent a lot of time doing actual half pass and actual walk pirouettes.  It was amazing how much body control I had.  We also did walk-canter transitions out of the walk pirouettes, and they were lovely. Progress!

I can really feel things starting to turn around for both of us, these trainer rides are just what we need.

Connor's breeder came out to the farm today to see Regalia, who was stunning, as always.  She was even tired today after a workout in the open field yesterday, and still looked amazing:






She's still for sale, and I'm dying to see this mare get into a good show home.  Someone buy her!

Lisa also took pictures of Connor and I, and they really helped me visualize some of the things my trainer has been getting after me about lately.  Like the fact that I need to keep my left leg by the girth, I had no idea it was this bad.  Every single picture, my left leg looks like this:

WHO DOES THIS?!  My butt cheeks are flexed, they're working so hard.

And lines in my forearms.  The two are connected.

My best friend!

No pictures or video from today, sadly, but I am definitely going to ask for some tomorrow after everyone, including Cathy, was gushing over how improved his canter is from the spring.  I can certainly feel big improvements, but it didn't feel that good.  However, my judgment may have been clouded by the fact that Connor was tense, bracing, up, tough and distracted this morning, and I really had to ride aggressively in order to make lemonade out of those lemons.

My biggest takeaways from today are:
1. Don't rush him during the canter departs: When she told me that I was rushing him during the depart and that his feet needed time to catch up to his brain (part of the reason he picks it up crossfiring so often), I giggled, because that's exactly what it feels like.  "He's a quick study in other things, but not this.  It has to get from your aids to his brain to his feet."  He looks and feels like a pile of uncoordinated limbs during the depart, and like he has to think about where each foot is placed.  This was a really good thing for me to hear, take more seriously, and work on.  Not rushing feels more like using softer aids and a better half halt.

2. We have a sweet walk-canter depart...where did that come from?:  I think we only picked it up through the trot twice, and we did a LOT of transitions.  He got it bang on every time, and is beginning to sit back and really use himself in that transition.  I think this is just easier now that he's developed more muscle, but it's also some education.

3. I need to weight my outside seatbone a lot more while asking for a canter depart: I realized today that my whole body is twisted and contorted while asking for the depart, and that my weight is often on the inside - another reason for crossfiring.

4. I'm being too polite sometimes about the left bend issue: Cathy wanted me to get firmer with him if he did things like ignore my request for a left bend so completely we almost ran into a jump standard, and she asked me to pull his head to the left.  She wants me to try a full cheek snaffle with him tomorrow, and remarked, "It is just amazing, he is a completely different horse [to the right], you were not kidding."

5. Jumping needs to become a normal thing for us: Our Dressage work really is improving our jumping, but jumping is still unusual and strange in his brain, which makes him wiggly, or makes him jump huge for no reason, or makes him hesitate.  I'm really glad I didn't enter in any jumping classes at Octoberfest - just like with Dressage, I feel like you should be schooling slightly above what you're showing, and we would not be setting ourselves up for success by showing over fences in 2012, even if they were little.

I was told that everyone was commenting on how much Connor has improved, and Cathy said that since she last saw him four months ago, he's made a complete turnaround at the canter and his "neck looks better" and that his topline has noticeably filled out with muscle.  It makes me feel good, even if it was a really tough, physical ride.

And then I got sick, and I am struggling to sit here and type this post, so I'm going back to bed in hopes that this passes by tomorrow!  I am also planning on responding to the awesome comments left on yesterday's post when I feel better - you guys are awesome!

In any physical activity that involves a learned skill, we're trying to do two primary things: develop finite body awareness, and commit meaningful actions to muscle memory.  Pick anything from marching band to golf to deadlifting 195lbs and setting a 20lb PR (Yeah, Crossfit!) to riding and you'll see it's true.  When you're first learning, though, you've got to have laser focus in order to consciously remember all the things you're trying to put together.

Finite body awareness and muscle memory: not just for riders.  Also, the same fundamental principles of good biomechanical balance are as important underneath a barbell as they are on top of a horse.

This was never clearer than last Sunday, when I got a walk-canter transition from Connor that was so good, I yelled out joyfully to the empty arena around us and blue sky above us.  We'd already done many trot-canter transitions (I see a very common theme setting up for this winter...), and after giving him a walk break, I thought, hey, let's see how this goes.  We'd done it before, but not since his trainer rides.

Because I wasn't expecting it to go well, I was hyper-aware of every little movement my body made, and my cues were precise.  Because of that, he gave me a precise transition that involved him actually rocking back onto his hocks (for the first time, really) and stepping off into a round, controlled canter.  I couldn't believe it was my horse for a moment.  Buoyed by our success with that, I wasn't as surgically precise with my aids the second time, and it wasn't nearly as good.

That's how it will go, though, just like the five fantastic trot strides were were able to get in an entire lesson last winter.  Now that we're doing entire lessons of great trot, it's hard to remember those days, but as we go through the same process with the canter, it's important to keep the process in perspective.

Nancy K clinic/lesson tomorrow night, late, at 8:45pm!  Yikes!  I'm so excited for it, though, I've cleaned all my tack and my boots.  Can't wait to see what she says about my new-and-improved Dressage pony!