There's something about following a long driveway to a barn with horses grazing on the left and a meticulously kept ring to the right with beautiful jumps and planters arranged in the sort of hunter course I yearn to show my 10-year-old horse-deprived self.
Yeah, that's great, but my instructor really knows how to get creative with cavaletti blocks. Today she slowly built up a jump by adding block and poles, including two blocks towards the middle of the jump, that served the same purpose as a cross rail, giving a narrow space to jump over. We did oxers, and she even simulated a ditch of sorts. I had to work on slowing Cal down (leaning back and lots of half-halts) otherwise he'd miss a stride.
We may have also needed a cone a couple strides after the jump to help me stop Calvin from cutting the corner after jumping. Special me! That was another thing we worked on: cantering a straight line, before and after a jump. And we started by going down the centerline, at which point I'd make it almost to the end and the have a spaz moment and not know what lead I was on (and therefore which way we should turn). And when I say spaz I mean, body almost going one way whilst horse goes other way. In this moment I could feel how keeping my heel down was keeping my feet in the stirrup and my leg from swinging wildly and...my body flying off. If that's not improvement, I don't know WHAT is.
The other thing we worked on was sitting trout on a bouncy horse. My instructor had me slow the trot way down, put the reins in both hands, get my leg and lower back as loose as possible and hold on to the back of my saddle, to really pull my butt down. It was amusing and, while I didn't feel like I was making progress, for the rest of the lesson my leg felt nice and long.
I'm also noticing how fatigue can cause you to quickly regress. By the end of the hour I didn't have quite the focus to keep Calvin cantering around the ring without cutting corners again. I'm not understanding why riders are all about ending on a good note.
Yeah, that's great, but my instructor really knows how to get creative with cavaletti blocks. Today she slowly built up a jump by adding block and poles, including two blocks towards the middle of the jump, that served the same purpose as a cross rail, giving a narrow space to jump over. We did oxers, and she even simulated a ditch of sorts. I had to work on slowing Cal down (leaning back and lots of half-halts) otherwise he'd miss a stride.
We may have also needed a cone a couple strides after the jump to help me stop Calvin from cutting the corner after jumping. Special me! That was another thing we worked on: cantering a straight line, before and after a jump. And we started by going down the centerline, at which point I'd make it almost to the end and the have a spaz moment and not know what lead I was on (and therefore which way we should turn). And when I say spaz I mean, body almost going one way whilst horse goes other way. In this moment I could feel how keeping my heel down was keeping my feet in the stirrup and my leg from swinging wildly and...my body flying off. If that's not improvement, I don't know WHAT is.
The other thing we worked on was sitting trout on a bouncy horse. My instructor had me slow the trot way down, put the reins in both hands, get my leg and lower back as loose as possible and hold on to the back of my saddle, to really pull my butt down. It was amusing and, while I didn't feel like I was making progress, for the rest of the lesson my leg felt nice and long.
I'm also noticing how fatigue can cause you to quickly regress. By the end of the hour I didn't have quite the focus to keep Calvin cantering around the ring without cutting corners again. I'm not understanding why riders are all about ending on a good note.
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