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.