Almost there, and Indy is a saint...

Over the past few weeks we've really been working on securing my half-seat so I can feel secure cantering Indy finally!  The whole tall horse with long legs and short rider with short legs and tight muscles combination is interesting, to say the least.  I've really never (consciously, at least) worked on my half-seat this much, either.  I'm trying to remember how I rode the hunter ponies in college and I really don't think I cantered in a half-seat at all?  But we've been doing tons of transitions between half-seat/two-point and the posting trot, and a bunch of leg yields to get bend, all things I'll need to successfully canter.

Today we did a neat exercise where instead of riding a reverse, we rode a half circle into a straight line and another half circle the other direction - a sort of serpentine but going the opposite direction from where a serpentine usually goes.

And I have to say (again) that Indy is truly a saint.  It took me forever to mount today (it's hard when you can't see your stirrup clearly and can't judge any distances!) and he stood completely still for me.  Another of Mia's physically compromised students taught him how to move his hindquarters over with a gentle poke in the hips... wonderful!  This horse is great to be around and so much fun to ride.  Any horse who puts up with me and other beginners/physically compromised people deserves so much praise I can't even describe.  Love him, and have the utmost respect for him.

Simple is good sometimes

My lesson today on Indy after a week and a half break was wonderful.  We just took it really easy, working large and focusing on lengthening and compressing the trot, and doing transitions.  He was so "on" today that I got great half halts just from my seat alone.  I kind of love being able to ride a horse that other, more experienced riders tune up for me, lol.  But as Mia said, he does more challenging lessons and can "relax" and go perfectly for me and her less experienced riders.  And he is completely happy doing this.  Really, I think he is utterly content going large and not really challenging himself much at all, lol.  He could definitely get used to it, but mixing the different types of rides is wonderful for both him and his various riders.

Ole! we cantered

I've been having good rides on both Ole and Indy in the last few weeks, but on Tuesday I got to canter Ole for the first time!  Mia convinced me that I should try the canter as, right now, his canter is literally no faster than his speedy trot... and she was totally right.  His canter reminds me of the Fjord I used to ride, not dressage-y in any way, but super comfortable and easy to ride for a novice like me.  It was really fun and a great reminder to myself that, yes, I'm totally capable of cantering!  Hadn't cantered since I stopped riding Radar (in... April? May?) as Indy's canter stride is probably a bit big for me.  Sometimes I'm still not sure I totally trust Ole, but after a ride like Tuesday's where he really seemed happy and willing I'm super hopeful he'll work out.  I just wish he steered a tad bit better right now!  Think we'll reserve cantering for empty arenas for now...

Ole! A great lesson on Ole.

I'm seriously in love with this saddle.

Had a great lesson on Ole the Haflinger today.  He's still very much a work in progress, but I can totally see that in a few months he will be even more of a blast to ride than he is now.  Mia said that today he finally looked relaxed and happy, and I really felt that on him, too.  He was forward (he sort of has to trot fast right now to stay balanced since he's so out of shape!) and really willing most of the time.  He has a little pony balking action in him sometimes, but nothing that a quick tap with the crop can't cure.  Overall he's a blast and I can't wait to start cantering and jumping him sometime soon! 

Oh, and I get to ride him in my favorite saddle ever... a Courbette Pandur Spezial.  It's funny, I'm kind of a confirmed dressage rider but I swear this saddle is so much comfier and easier for me to ride in than many dressage saddles I've tried.  So happy to be in it again!

Plus he's just ridiculously cute.  He's somewhere in between the really refined and coarse Haflingers, and I think I like his build more than others I've seen.  Poor guy is rather fluffy now with his winter coat coming in, had to sponge him off after my lesson.

New horses and ponies galore!

In less than a week, I've ridden two new-to-me horses, and had really good rides on both!  One, Glory, is a Paint mare owned by another client at the barn who's working with my trainer.  She's definitely a mare, but has the best sitting trot ever.  Had a good first ride on her on Friday, even though I hope to never ride in her saddle again.  My but was seriously sore for days, it managed to get me at all the wrong angles.  Today I rode Ole, my trainer's new Haflinger pony.  He was so much fun, we even trotted over some poles, did some baby leg yields, and walked a little bit on the road by the end of the ride.  He exudes something similar to Indy personality-wise, totally trustworthy and a horse I would like to be around a lot more.  Plus we finally get a horse who likes to be fussed over!  A really good horse week.

Caveletti and Adjustability

In my lesson on Wednesday, we did more trotting poles, eventually turning them into cavelettis with one side of the pole slightly raised with a block.  Indy really had to use his stifles to think about going up for the raised pole, which was harder for him.  I had to work to get his trot both slow and animated, posting lower yet stronger really helped me do that even though it initially was hard to post low with such a bumpy trot!  It's surprising how adjustable Indy is, because on first glance it appears that he has good gaits that are very consistent but don't look like they'd be easy to adjust.  But he's really responsive, so it's easier than it looks.  It was a really good lesson.

They just know, sometimes...

Had a really bad day but a really wonderful lesson today.  Got on completely miserable, but somehow over the course of the ride I began to feel a bit better (at least for a few minutes).  Indy is so wonderful for rides like this, he's really quite happy going around basically on the buckle and does just about everything right.  We trotted him over some poles today, which I haven't done literally in years (the last few horses I've ridden I have not jumped or done any pole work with).  It was fun, I could really feel Indy's stifles pop up when he really got moving over the poles and picking his feet up.  He really seemed to enjoy this new exercise, really pepping up but not in a bad way.  Another interesting exercise Mia had me do after she was satisfied with the pole work was changing my diagonal on the up beat instead of sitting into it - with his very, very bouncy trot it does help to do that!  I just have to remember to do that, changing on the down beat is so automatic now. 

I swear Indy knew I needed a really good lesson today and was happy to oblige!  But really he's just an all-around good boy who tries his best.

Horse Personalities

It's hard to talk about horse personalities without feeling, well, a tad new-agey. I don't want to fall into the trap of anthropomorphizing too much, but it's interesting to think about. Indy is fascinating to me because there's *something* about him that is inherently trustworthy and kind, without being dull. He is forward, yet contained under saddle... and his personality kind of reflects that. I've seen both ends of the spectrum, horses that are too uppity and those that are way too dull, and he's a nice mix of the two personalities. He has a lot of Ghost's best qualities, which I'm really appreciating right now. I've been doing a bunch of lunge lessons and he's wonderful for them - really, he's so rhythmic that I find him a ton easier than some other horses and great for me right now. He's super-forgiving, too, which is always nice!

Off the lunge!

Had a good ride on Echo before the session yesterday, he's fun and relatively uncomplicated.

Today I had my third lesson on Indy and finally (eventually) got off the lunge at the trot for the first time. Thankfully his trot is rhythmic and steady, because it's huge! I think he has the longest legs of any horse I've ever ridden, hence the long stride. But I really do feel secure on him (we moved the thigh blocks around on the Wintec and improved my leg position) and am having a lot of fun. Also love the fact that people were using farm equipment and moving large piles of gravel around the arena and he didn't bat an eye. Definitely can't beat that!

visualizations

Had a really good lesson on Radar today! Both he and I are feeling and performing better, which definitely helped things. We worked on establishing the difference between being straight and bending through the corners, and how I need to ride differently to get the bend. Radar is oddly enough extremely responsive to seat aids (who would have thought?) and this really works for him. It's seriously like a light bulb goes off when he figures out "oh, I can do that!" Favorite image of today was once again the pissing dog. Love the idea of a Grand Prix dressage rider talking in those terms! But I swear, it gets me off my outside seat bone! Also got the same lightness in my seat through thinking about pliés (to get my thigh in the right position) and the concept of raising my pelvis. Ended with some sitting trot, and it felt really good from the work I'd done earlier. It was nice to have a good lesson on Radar, it reminded me why I do enjoy him.

Lunge Lessons!

So I haven't had proper lunge lessons in about three years, as none of the horses I rode did them very well. I've been having fun this week and last doing them on Indy, a huge (well, he's 16.1 and I'm 4'11"!) breeding stock Paint (looks like an Appendix QH!). He's great for lungeing because he sort of has one gait -- very helpful at the trot. His trot is super bouncy, which I kind of like for posting -- you don't have to work to post like you do on some horses. Was really able to work on isolating my core and rotating my seat bones beneath me to sit evenly and felt a lot better than the last few weeks. Hopefully I won't be asked to sit it anytime soon! But he's fun and really, really sweet. His personality is funny, though -- he alternates between being really aloof and totally in your pocket. But he's enjoyable to be around, which is always my top priority.

A change of pace

I've been riding Lacy for one and a half weeks now, and it's really interesting having to change my ride to properly ride a different horse. Lacy is so much more responsive than Radar and the other horses I have been riding -- you really have to be exact with her to achieve the response you want. She's really responsive to seat aids, which has been really fun for me. I've been working on turning her precisely from my seat, and it's really easy for me to tell when I'm giving the correct aids or not by how she responds. With Radar you can kind of muddle through, be a tad too heavy and still somehow have it turn out like you want. With Lacy, you have to be exact and precise with your aids. She has a trot that is so easy to sit (I actually haven't posted on her yet!) and it's once again all about learning exactness and applying the correct aids. It's fun to ride a "new-to-me" horse again!

When "bad" rides turn "good"

It's interesting what we categorize as a "good" ride versus a "bad" ride sometimes... Yesterday I got on Radar and was not happy. At all. He was so, so stiff and completely unable to bend to the left. I was really not looking forward to the way I the ride was going to go. But, believe it or not, we really went back to the basics (I WILL NOT hold up your head for you! GO forward!) and we had a really good ride, doing trot to canter transitions, basically no tight circles or turns or anything like that, and it was really fun. I think Radar felt better, too, getting ridden in a way that will help him recover from whatever happened after the trail ride.

Equitation!

I don't think I've done cone-weaving in, oh, about 10 years! But yesterday we worked on position and turning via a simple cone-weaving exercise. Basically I worked on the concept that legs/hip/upper body are in fact separate entities and can be used separately for the most responsiveness. Ultimately, the most effective way to do these slight turns was to focus on both moving my hips and legs while keeping my upper body straight. Weirdly enough, Radar is super-responsive to these small changes in my seat. The fact that Radar, of all horses, responds to this kind of ride is really interesting for me and makes me excited about the direction my riding is going now. Radar can be so dull and stiff that his responsiveness to the seat is kind of amazing.

Walk work & shoulder-ins

Today we tried to keep it simple (both the pony and I were tired!), focusing on walk work with the new leg position I've been working on (more contact through my thighs without gripping, my heels a tad bit "higher" to enable this contact). Radar was very responsive to this and we got some rather forward walk. Then we did some shoulder-ins, and once again he was really, really responsive to my leg. I tried not to think at all about his head or neck, and think about it all coming from the hind end. This worked really, really well and I avoided bracing or overflexing him while still getting a good shoulder-in. Did a bit of sitting trot; it went really well, too. Didn't get to do any canter work like on Tuesday, but it was a good lesson nevertheless.

Changing the posting trot & a bit of canter

Worked a lot on more posting than sitting, focusing on posting from my thighs (without pinching!) so that I avoid gripping too much with my lower leg and popping myself out of the saddle at the canter. This definitely helped the canter & I got a few really good (but short!) canters.

sitting trot, and lots of visualizations...

Did almost all my lesson in the sitting trot today, working on activating my core muscles, bearing down into my seat to regulate speed when necessary and sitting on my seat bones. Another concept that really helped was to think about activating my thigh muscles to hold, not pinch. It's a fine line between the two, though! Got some really good trot work from these little position changes. Also got good trot-canter transitions, although it's hard for me to hold that position in the canter right now.

A pleasurable hack...

I got on yesterday and really didn't feel like doing anything intense, so we worked on getting Radar into hack mode- moving forward, not on the forehand but a more open frame than we had been working in. A lot of it focused on pace and rhythm, kind of zoning into a comfortable rhythm and trying to maintain it with the least amount of fiddling around with my contact.

are we showing? who knows!

Spring weather is making me anxious! Still don't know if the show on Saturday is on or not so I can't decide whether or not to be nervous about it! Had a really good lesson yesterday after a bad one on Friday. One of the many visualizations Mia has given me recently is the concept that I'm aiming for my contact to be a 2 out of 5, strong enough to be there but light enough to not impede Radar's momentum. Regulating our rhythm is also a big idea, since I am able to get Radar moving forward pretty decently sometimes but definitely can't keep the pace steady for the whole test. I have to think about foregoing some of the power to get an even pace. So I'm totally prepared for the judge to be not at all enamored with the idea of attempting dressage on a Fjord, lol. As Mia said, with a learner judge you have no idea what you're going to get. Oh well, it's really for fun anyway. My goal is over 60%, seriously. Anything in that range or above is perfectly decent... I mean, I'm an ammy riding a 13 hh Fjord! Should know tomorrow whether this is happening or not so I can properly freak out or not...

a good lesson, once I figured it all out...

Radar was a tad backed off in my warm-up, I was pulling him back into the contact instead of pushing him into it like I worked on last lesson. Once I worked that out the ride was really good. I'm getting a lot better about not trying to learn into the circle and remembering where he wants to slow down and fall inward. Good free walk work, too, as long as I remember that the long diagonal doesn't end at B! Radar is pretty easy to push in the free walk without worrying too much about him getting too fast and breaking so I'm less worried about that than the other stuff.

Sending in my entry for the test clinic this week!

Pushing, not pulling...

So yesterday's lesson focused a lot on the idea of visualizing my hands and contact as pushing Radar forward into my hands instead of pulling him back to establish contact. With him you can really feel this, unlike on lighter horses, so I immediately understood what feel I wanted to achieve. Once again, the idea of moving my shoulders and torso a few degrees forward also really helped me and changed the entire position of my lower body for the better. It still amazes me that I have to work on sitting back a bit after I spent so much time after riding hunt seat learning to not perch and lean back! Rode most (actually, I think all) of the elements of Intro B and definitely feel very prepared. Still have to string them all together for the full test, but that will come in the next few weeks.

A great ride

Radar was so good in my lesson today, really forward and uphill all lesson. I don't know where this extra (good) energy came from, but I liked it! At the trot we worked on maintaining a nice "arc" where he was uphill and forward but not strung out and fast. Mia also had me working on not getting my shoulders behind the vertical, and visualizing my heels and lower legs going slightly upwards - however weird/incorrect that sounds - and that really helped me engage my core. Did a few run-throughs of most of test B, I got some decent free walks and worked more on circles (note to self: don't let the second half of the circle become smaller than the first half!) and diagonals (it's better to go error on the side of hitting the rail before the letter than being sucked towards the end of the arena).

a hack & a lesson...

I had a good ride on my own last Friday. I kind of needed to de-stress, so I put Radar in what Mia calls his "furry exercise machine" mode and did a bunch of exercises for myself--really working on getting my legs long and stable and doing a bit of sitting trot work.

Today in my lesson we again worked on walk/trot transitions--unfortunately for us (since they are a weak spot) they're a big part of Intro level tests. So after we (re)installed the go-or-pay-for-not-going mentality, we worked on center lines (managed to turn too early, turn too late and get a few perfect turns over the course of the ride), diagonals and circles. Working on letting Radar walk out a bit on the diagonals without getting crooked is challenging, those free walk diagonals are going to be the bane of my existence for a while. The trot work, although not perfect, is easier to organize.

transitions

So the thing I took away the most from my lesson on Tuesday was the kind of forward yet collected walk I need to achieve decent trot transitions. I need to really think about rocking Radar back onto his hind end before the upward transitions, and need a fairly collected walk to do that. To get the collected walk, though, I need a forward walk which he can collect from. So much to think about! In the trot tracking right I once again worked on getting his right leg to step under, which helps it so much. That and the visual of facing my shoulders/hips right which therefore places my right hand slightly back and my left hand slightly forward. Which makes Radar actually go straight, instead of hanging his head left as he wants to do. The other thing I'm working on and am getting the hang of is making my turns onto the diagonals into pseudo turns on the haunches, making them crisper instead of rounded. Luckily that's easier on Radar than some of the other elements of the test. Our best part is the free walk, we always seem to be able to get that movement pretty much down. So much to think about in a simple walk/trot test!

We have a date!

Well, a show date that is. Our first show together -- my first dressage show ever, not to mention the pony's first dressage show -- should be the first week of March. I did a lot of walk work yesterday, basically running Intro A & B at the walk. Made me very thankful that the circles are trot circles at this level, as walk circles take forever on a 13hh pony! I'm getting a good sense of what I need to do to get from the medium to free walk (although I have to figure out just how much I want to let him move out, I don't want to get on the forehand or get too racy and unbalanced), and working on the transition back to the medium walk Mia had me tighten my right rein first, to counter his natural tendency to drift right, and that helped my transition greatly. Ran Intro B for the first time, a little more interesting than Intro A even though that free walk diagonal change is a tad bit challenging. So excited!Oh, and the totally adorable cellphone picture was what I found in his stall when I went to tack him up. Had to get some peppermints for bribery to get him up, he definitely thought 3:00 pm was nap time!

Running the test!

So we're officially preparing for some dressage schooling shows (Rancho de los Amigos, and maybe Hossmoor) this spring and summer! I've been running Intro A in my lessons lately, really working on centerlines and straightness and getting Radar uphill in the walk and trot. The walk work will seriously be the longest minute of my life there, I mean his free walk is actually pretty nice but it takes forever on a 13hh pony! Mia was going to see if RDLA wanted to run the tests in the short court, that would definitely save a lot of time! Our circles are coming along fine, as long as I remember to face right! Mia worked with me on a concept she got from Mary Wanless, that I needed to view my left shoulder and hip as a connected triangle that needs to always feel "in front" of my right side (which is in fact straight). Once I really concentrated on that, my circles fell in much less than before).

In other news, Mia found a hunt coat in black that someone had left in her house that fits me perfectly! Even the arms are short enough, amazingly. Since I think my cheap one from college is too big, that was a nice surprise. So I'm all set gear-wise, even though I'll have to end up covering my Tipperary helmet with a helmet cover... kind of tacky but whatever, I don't feel like it's necessary to buy a new helmet when I don't necessarily need it. And I made it into the New Year's Resolution column of Practical Horseman! Kind of a boring resolution, actually (ride more and write about it!) but I'm kind of excited.