On the bit, for a bit

Sunday's lesson ended up being a private - something I haven't had in a long time. My instructor put me on a youngster who I have ridden once before, outside, who kept plunging into the forest during my lesson (ah, but that's another story). We worked on getting his head down and on the bit. My instructor has been training him to do this, which basically means he'll do it for her, but he wont automatically do it. Probably the perfect lesson horse for me to learn it on.

We started off with warming up and getting a nice forward trot. We kept to a 20m circle to work on this. I made sure my reins had even pressure and then he was bending properly around my leg and I was keeping him from falling in. The inside rein was only very lightly used to keep him properly looking where he was going.

For the outside rein, it was all about half-halts. Squeezing and releasing my grip. If I was doing everything I was supposed to, his head would go down for a few glorious strides. Unfortunately, I'm not very good at doing all of this at once and usually he'd start to spiral into the circle and all would be lost, or I'll try to widen the circle and his head would pop up. But at least I know what it feels like to do it correctly!

Oops...my hands aren't very thoughtful yet...

We also worked on leg yielding right, facing the wall. Since he's young, we didn't make him deal with my struggles for too long before letting him take a break and walk it out. I learned that I was doing it the lazy way before, just pushing the horse over with my leg, rather than make sure I can see his left eyelashes and shifting my weight in my left seat bone. The most important thing for him to understand me, though, was to look where we are going, which is so obvious, but when your instructor is point out things to you, it's kind of the last thing on your mind.

Overall, we squeezed a lot into a half-hour lesson. I even popped him over a cross rail and he was super smooth. My two point is a little more sturdy as I've been thinking of bring my seat up and back rather than just out of the saddle and collapsing forward.

The helmet works!

I got to ride Tony yesterday in a lesson with just one other rider. Tony is an appendix mix of some sort - no one's really sure. He's a great jumper, a little over 16 hands, and spoiled (in a cute way) by his owner who is a 20-something woman that was on vacation. The other person in my lesson was somewhat of a beginner, but quite a good rider all things considered. She was put on a pony named Delilah that is ridden in a hackamore and is more than a little sassy. Delilah will do anything if she is following closely behind Tony, but she is not easy for a beginner to convince to do much else.

In any case, it was kind of fun to be the "leader" for the day. The other rider told me I rode "beautifully" which just shows that I'm somewhere along the spectrum of progress. Let me just describe what wasn't so beautiful about my riding:

Cantering: as my seat and leg improve at the canter, I find myself wondering what to do with my arms. It used to be that I could just sort of rock with the horse (looks terrible, I know) and that was good enough, but now that I sit back more and keep my leg on properly, I have to follow the horse's neck without pumping my arms. So right now, that looks noticeably awkward.

Gymnastics: I'm getting better at not just leaning forward over low gymnastics when it's unnecessary, and Tony tried to refuse a few times as my instructor raised a jump in the middle of it, so I also got better and making him go through with it! However, my leg still slides all over the place and when I'm going over the jump, I'm just as likely to lean on the neck by accident as not.

Jumping: I did manage to recover after a jump, sit back and drive him forward to the next jump, but I failed to keep Tony straight after the jump. We were approaching the wall and he took a sharp turn left while I was still in two point and...that's why the title of this post is The helmet works! Because I ate it big time. And there was nothing beautiful about that fall, I'm sure.

So I guess beauty is in the eye of the beholder. I am grateful for all the focus on equitation that my first (almost 4!) years of lessons got me, but I think it's time to focus on core strength and mechanics. I really need to figure out a way to ride more than once a week because the things I'd like to work on are piling up!

I'll end with some shots of me on Calvin, my usual lesson horse.

Kneez up and shoulder rollz

In this Sunday's lesson it was a pretty big group of different abilities. We did very low bounces, some of us worked up to maybe a foot off the ground, and the best jumper popped over something around 3ft at the end. I'd never done bounces before, and I realize a tiny jump is not the same as real jumps, but the feeling of going up and down was new to me and I really enjoyed it. It also really showed how Calvin picks his feet up now. I first started riding Cal as my practice ride and he would trip all of the time, even at the trot. He would barrel through crossrails, but somehow my instructor knew he had potential. Well, not 'somehow'. She's explained to me that years of training horses with her husband and working in partnership with an awesome farrier has created a "dream team" of seeing potential in horses. Calvin was a 'companion pony' to racehorses for the first few years of his life, so he is technically off the track, but not from racing, from being the chill guy in the tense environment. And he just needed to get some weight on him and to learn his new job.

He's an amazing ride now. Not only was the bounce easy, I don't get nervous jumping him, so I focus on other things other than, "OMG We're heading for that jump! OMG we  just went over a jump!" Instead, I can focus on keeping him from drifting out, and focusing on improving my position. My instructor had me put the reins in one hand and pop over a jump while making a rolling motion with my shoulder. The idea was it set you in the correct position over the jump. I think it was also a great confidence tool. Just realizing the reins aren't helping me with my position and to literally let go with one hand was great. My confidence over jumps has been sky rocketing lately. To be honest, I'm lucky I don't own my own horse and can't go in some backyard and see how high I can jump because I'm feeling rather reckless ;)

A firm grip on Calvin so he doesn't drop and roll on his fresh bedding...He dropped and rolled mid-lesson while some poor beginner was riding him!