My lessons for the past few months have been focused on the very basics of jumping:
Path: Straightening the horse out once you're on your line to the jump (Path)
Pace & Power: Getting the rhythm right - not letting the horse get strung out on speed, between or after jumps. This means I'm still very often heading to a jump at the trot, then regulating the canter, or even going back down to a trot between jumps. Sometimes I'm supposed to do this and still mess up a bit
Position: I think I am more able than every to have the right position over jumps, but with all the other things going, I flop around a bit. For example, I can be focused on half-halts to get the horse under control between jumps so he doesn't take the long distance, but then my body ends up behind the motion when he does take off at the base.
All these things aren't quite there (maybe they'll never be perfect), but yesterday I realized how much progress I've made when we started building up to a course.
I was with the advanced students who can jump 3ft up, but we focused on what was basically an 18" course with a couple 2ft jumps as the final line. The course had a lot of turns, but my horse was a bit more of a school master than than theirs, so it was a level playing field. One had to ask a younger horse for flying changes clearly, while another was moving a horse up a level from the baby jumps.
I was surprised that I survived doing the course. One time I goofed a bit and the horse got strung out on the last jump, but all in all I pulled it off. There were turns I wouldn't have gotten in the past, and I felt less flustered in between jumps, like I actually had time to re-organize.
Path: Straightening the horse out once you're on your line to the jump (Path)
Pace & Power: Getting the rhythm right - not letting the horse get strung out on speed, between or after jumps. This means I'm still very often heading to a jump at the trot, then regulating the canter, or even going back down to a trot between jumps. Sometimes I'm supposed to do this and still mess up a bit
Position: I think I am more able than every to have the right position over jumps, but with all the other things going, I flop around a bit. For example, I can be focused on half-halts to get the horse under control between jumps so he doesn't take the long distance, but then my body ends up behind the motion when he does take off at the base.
All these things aren't quite there (maybe they'll never be perfect), but yesterday I realized how much progress I've made when we started building up to a course.
I was with the advanced students who can jump 3ft up, but we focused on what was basically an 18" course with a couple 2ft jumps as the final line. The course had a lot of turns, but my horse was a bit more of a school master than than theirs, so it was a level playing field. One had to ask a younger horse for flying changes clearly, while another was moving a horse up a level from the baby jumps.
I was surprised that I survived doing the course. One time I goofed a bit and the horse got strung out on the last jump, but all in all I pulled it off. There were turns I wouldn't have gotten in the past, and I felt less flustered in between jumps, like I actually had time to re-organize.
