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.