Sticks and Sand - Lesson Recaps

Two weeks ago, Butterball and I squeezed in a jump lesson on Thursday morning before I headed out of town. It was good, but also frustrating. Like, do I have to be reminded how to ride this pony once every two months? The issue this time was 1. not using leg and 2. jumping up his neck. Which got me in trouble and almost landed me on the ground when pony noped out of the second jump in a combo because see 1 and 2. After that I got myself together and started using more leg. And he jumped great. 

It was quite a fun course, lots of turning. Other than our one oops, everything went great. 

Then last week I had a dressage lesson with a new trainer who is less than 30 minutes from my barn, YAY!!! 

No lesson media so have a picture of the frost/ice in Ben's roached mane Wednesday morning

The take home message from the dressage lesson? Just keep riding the canter. We did the same rapid fire transitions JT has had us doing to strengthen the canter. And she got very exacting about SLOW IT DOWN after the down transition to trot. I'm not allowed to let him trot off in a sprawling, fancy, too forward trot for two circles before I control the tempo. Even if he loses the softness/roundness, half halt IMMEDIATELY and get the slower trot. 

After the rapid fire transitions, we did something she said she likes to use in warm up: walk leg yield into turn on the forehand that is basically a walk leg yield around a point. Ben and I had done something similar to the turn on the forehand/leg yield and it was great for suppling him completely through his back. With Butterball it revealed a few holes in his response to lateral aids. There were a few moments of "I don't wanna". I typically start with very shallow baby leg yields in the walk to warm up. She said those were for four year olds. Not that they're bad for the very beginning, but then move on to bigger. Actually get the hind legs crossing. We didn't quite get the leg yield/ToF feeling right, but I've felt it on Ben and I'll keep working on in before I see her again in two weeks. 

Then it was back to the canter, this time slowing it down. Creating more than one canter. Again, similar to what JT has been having us do (it's really nice when trainers independently have the same ideas). Then once he had slowed down and lifted a bit, softening my hand, letting him know that I will not hold him up there, he has to hold himself. It wasn't pretty and it still feels like I'm doing SO MUCH to make the canter happen. But, perhaps, maybe, I need to do that much right now. Her idea though was also some personal responsibility. He has to stay in the canter unless told otherwise. This is where she differed a bit from other trainers - if he broke he needed to pick up the canter IMMEDIATELY. Her point was that he doesn't understand that he is supposed to hold it if it takes me two circles to get it back. Which makes sense. I certainly sacrificed some quality of the transitions though to make that happen. Something to think about - which school of thought do you fall into? She definitely hit the nail on the head that I've been riding him softly and kindly and that those are fantastic things that I shouldn't change, but that we need to set the bar higher because he is more than capable. And also more than capable of hanging out at my very low bar and being very happy about that LOL.