Foiled by Fishy...

I have lost my diagonals. I mentioned it last lesson to Kim, and she said she was surprised because I normally don't have trouble with them. I was having problems today too, this time thinking I was on the wrong diagonal when I was good. Then Kim said the dreaded words..."It's because you're pregnant". Apparently she had the same kind of problems when she was pregnant.

Today Sophie was bending her neck incorrectly, she counter bends while appearing to be bent correctly (to the uneducated observer that is). So I had to do lots of half halts with the outside rein to keep her neck straight and then ask for correct bend once she was straight. We started out by asking for transitions on a 20 meter circle. I have a tendency to brace with my arms when asking for a lesser gait, which just gives Sophie something to brace against. So we worked mainly on me, half halting constantly through the trainsition and keeping my elbows loose and hands playful, not pulling, but giving and taking, with more give and very light on the take, if that makes sense.

We did this on a 20 meter circle in both directions. As she improved we started doing it on the diagonal. We started getting a nice transition, but lost the quality of the walk after the transition, so I started focusing on keeping my seat and hands following and the after got better, but the transition deteriorated. Eventually I got it and the transition and the walk were much better, as was the transition back to the trot. (We were trotting across the diagonal, walking right before reaching X, walking across X, and trotting after crossing X).

Of course, after about 10 diagonals Sophie started walking automatically because she had caught on to what we were doing. So we changed it up, but doing 3 loop serpentines and walking when we crossed the centerline, then picking the trot up right away. We did those a handful of times and then we worked on leg yielding in both directions. Sophie did much better, she was much more responsive to my leg and very even and steady in the reins.

After some leg yielding we had a walk break and talked about riding while pregnant. Of course, it ended up being a long break and Sophie was kind of annoyed by the restarting work, I think she thought she was done, lol. After I had a nice trot going we worked on the canter again. It was much less barrel pony on crack and even could be considered training level dressage horse canter at times.

We cantered in the other direction and she was a very good girl, so we let her trot again and do some stretchy circles in both directions. Then I walked her for 15 minutes and put her away. It was a shorter lesson than normal, but we covered a lot and made a lot of improvements. I'm going to focus mainly on transitions and leg yielding during my off time.

I also discovered that I've been placing my foot on the stirrup wrong. Instead of keeping my foot toward the inside of the stirrup I keep it pressed against the outside of the stirrup which encourages me to toe out. I tried fixing it for the canter work, which I think is part of the reason why Sophie had trouble getting back into the swing of things. I can feel the different strain on my leg when I have them in the right place. So for now I'm retraining my feet/legs while walking (part of the reason I walked for 15 minutes after the lesson, to practice keeping my feet in the right place). After I get better at the walk I'll start adding some trotwork too. It might take all winter, but I *will* stop toeing out!