Slowwweeerrrrrrr

Butterball and I have now taken two lessons with a jumper training. We're trying to sort out what clicks for me to get the canter right for him to leave the ground confidently and powerfully. This is a recap of the first lesson.

We started with an extensive walk-trot-canter warm up. In each gait we were supposed to slowww wayyyyyy down and then allow forward again. Initially we worked on going slower than I thought we could before allowing forward. Then we started doing about eight strides slow and then eight strides allowing. There was A LOT of swinging different pieces of pony in different directions. And apparently that's okay. I was NOT supposed to do weird things with my seat, legs, or hands trying to push or pull him straight. In the canter in particular, slower came from inside leg, the whole of it, to outside hand. The outside hand was half halting as his front feet were on the ground. He also corrected my wanting to lean back a bit and drive when I allowed forward. Instead I was supposed to just close my hip angle slightly and go with him as he went forward. And in the canter we were told we needed to practice straight lines as well as circles. Even though the straight lines are hard, we had to do them and then go into a slowwwer circle. If we only practice circles we'll never get there on the straight lines. And TBH, I feel that because it was way back in January we took a lesson with a dressage trainer who said stick to circles for now. And now we're three months later, and here we are, still weak in the canter. 

We started jumping with a placing pole and then a vertical. Initially I was posting in, but then he switched to having me lightly sit the trot in with the slow trot. 

Then we moved on to cantering a pole on the ground. With the instructions to "make him wait, fit it in". He also explained that you get ONE LOOK and said that if you look at the pole, jump, whatever, then look away, your brain already started to pick out your position and therefore your striding relative to that the first time. If you glance away and then back again, you still have the first idea in your head, but not adapted to where you are now. HUH. Looking and committing was certainly not a new idea, but the explanation of why was interesting. 

After a few figure eights over the pole, looking for essentially that second picture, we moved back to the vertical with three placing poles at bounce lengths in front of it. I immediately got nailed for my floating hands and told to press my damn hands into his neck and use my voice to slow him down if need be. 

Even then, my directions were to SLOW HIM DOWN coming into the pole. He said BB isn't strong enough right now to come powerfully and quickly. He said that will come, but not right now. It was AMAZING the rideability we got from this. And I wouldn't have said he was unrideable before this, but with this slow canter in, I could just close my knee and thigh and fingers after and he would trot or halt easily. We did do a lot of halting in a straight line after the fences. And unlike most all of our other halts, ever, he kept his hindquarters straight behind his shoulders almost all the time. 

Square behind! 

And out of that slow deliberate canter, he was jumping AMAZINGLY and LIGHTLY. 

That's very nice, Butterball

Next we moved on to singles of a line, again asking for the slow canter on the way in. When you want to leave from the base, you look at the ground line. When you want a normal distance, you look at the top rail. Okay, cool. And it worked great. Slow canter in, halt after. It all felt just so easy and light. He was light in my hand and responsive. When we put the line together we did it in either six or seven. When we moved up to do it in six, it felt so easy, just allow a little more forward down the line. 

We ended the lesson "leaving him waiting". It felt very easy to do it in six, but I had to again compress and ask for the sit behind to get in the seven. It's a cool feeling creating the rocked back power to then just allow rather than push to open up his stride. I'm excited to see how this continues to progress. And mayyyyy be getting talked into taking him to WEC in June to do a few jumper rounds in the air conditioned indoor arenas there.