Discipline...Or My Use Of It...

I decided to make this entry about discipline. This comes about because yesterday, I did some housekeeping on the blog. Now that I understand the concept of tags I went through every old post and tagged them more selectively. I thought that as I start riding and taking lessons it will be useful to be able to reflect back on specific movements or issues and see everything I've learned about them thus far, or something like that. One thing that I have trouble with, and has so far been a little bit of a recurring them, is discipline.

I don't mean discipline in the way that I would if Sophie had just barged into me while I was leading her because she got distracted by something to the right and her left shoulder bulged into me. I'm talking more about *my* discipline. To expect the best and keep going for it, to not settle for good enough and to seek to do better than the last time, everytime.

So, on to my ride. It was hot and I was given permission to sweat as of today, so I made up a ride plan in my head and went over it with Sophie as I was grooming her. Before heading out I read Lessons With Lendon, exercise one, which is called "Can You Do Nothing?" It basically covers expecting your horse to respond to basic commands, and you not getting in its way. In other words, work on getting the horse to walk/trot off of your seat, but don't pull on its mouth as it takes off. Also, in downward transitions, get them, if you ask the horse to walk, it had better walk and ASAP. That was one of the most difficult things to get over once I started taking lessons. I was more of the opinion that it was ok to take three strides to get to the walk when cantering, or two to get from trot to walk, but why? What does allowing my horse to take those extra steps accomplish? So, if my instructor says it's not ok and Lendon Gray says it's not, I'm not going to allow it.

It's funny though, because the first few transitions are horrid. They aren't pretty, the horse isn't soft and supple, because you haven't trained it to respond quickly or that you have an expectation of an immediate response. But, after you sit deep and follow up with your hands the horse gets the hang of it real quick. Same thing with trotting from the halt.

So, needless to say, my plan was to work on getting Sophie lighter off my leg and seat, and to work on our trot/halt and halt/trot and walk/trot transitions. We started out ok, Sophie had definitely heard me talking because she was much more willing to trot. I wasn't sure how she was going to be, so we did 20 meter circles, practicing changing the bend and flexion to switch directions. I tried to keep my hands soft and giving and Sophie was shifting between braced and round. Then I started utilizing the half halt while also moving the bit in her mouth through wiggling my fingers. It was like magic, she softened at the poll and melted into my hands. Suddenly, my goals were forgotten. I asked for a 15 meter circle as opposed to 20 meter and worked on giving the inside rein, checking to see if she kept the bend and circle. She did! I was very impressed, especially when I asked for more trot and she took bigger strides (though after a couple of quicker steps). We did this a few times in both directions, also working on transitions at various points.

Next was the big test, while gently wiggling my fingers I slowly started letting out the inside rein, then the outside. She stayed soft, round, and slowly lengthened her frame, reaching down for the bit and we were doing a lovely stretchy circle. We did it to the right first, because she showed the willingness to do it there, giving me the idea. I could even get her to trot a little bigger, as long as I "played" with the reins while I asked. To the left it was a little harder, she isn't as willing to bend in that direction and my right leg is stronger, so it's harder for *me* to encourage the bend in that direction. But she did well, and seemed to enjoy it.

It was 90 degress today, though not too bad in the indoor. We took a quick walk break and then I decided to work on shoulder in at the walk. We walked laps around the arena, doing 10 meter circles at the walk in the corners to establish bend and help me position myself, and then shoulder in from there. Ironically, she seemed to do much better going to the left with the shoulder in. We only did two long sides with 10 meter circle breaks throughout the long sides and then switched to do it to the right. We only did one long side as I think that she has it enough to benefit more from doing it at the trot than the walk, due to the greater impulsion. I was able to release the inside rein often when doing the shoulder in, but she came off the track a bit, I think due to my leg not being on enough. But, she's the first horse that I've really *gotten* that the outside rein brings the shoulders off the track. Once I build up my stamina enough for a lesson it'll be nice to see how correct it was, because for a few steps it seemed pretty good, but I can't tell if the bend is there, or if she was just doing a sideways leg yield.

I wasted a lot of time warming up today, because I was just being a passenger. Sure, I was asking her to bend and be engaged and doing things like serpentines and circles, but I didn't really have a plan for how to make my plan happen. Only by really engaging my mind and recalling past lessons was I able to do a proper warm up, and actually get Sophie working better. I'm going to do that from the beginning tomorrow, so that we can do some more shoulder in work than what we did today. Due to the weather and the fact that neither of us are used to riding I only rode for 20 minutes today. But it was really good work, and hopefully we'll be able to do stretchy circles prior to the end of the ride!

My most recent eye appointment was this morning. I no longer have to wear the eye shields at night, or use the antibiotics/steroids in my left eye. The right eye is another story, the inflammation is much better, but I still have to use the steroids and antibiotics in that eye. But, I'm allowed to sweat! I still wear the goggles for grooming (though they didn't say I had to) and will continue to for the next week. But, I don't wear anything on my eyes because when I rode yesterday I wore my sunglasses and there wasn't any dust on them when I was done.

That's about it, I'll try to get good pics of the cats tonight, last night they weren't doing much when I had the camera. Elphie is scared to be outside but it seems to work to let her just be lose, with the leash on, and the back door cracked so she can go inside if she wants to. Kitty is happy as a clam on her tether in the yard. Though she doesn't like it if you stand inside the house, at the backdoor watching her, she just stares at you and meows. But if you sit outside with her she just explores the end of her tether. She did get to stalk a bird yesterday though, she loved it, even though she wasn't anywhere close to it and the bird was outside the end of Kitty's leash range to boot!