Best Lesson Evah!

I have a feeling this title might get used quite a bit in the next few days. I had another lesson today, it was 21 degrees when I drove home from the barn, but still 30 degrees in the barn/indoor arena. I got Sophie ready and all was well. Warmed her up while Kim finished her lesson with a little girl learning stake and bend. Sophie and I just free walked for a bit and then leg yielded at the walk a little. After that we started trotting. I did a few leg yields and circles, but I mainly tried to stay out of the way and give Sophie a chance to warm up her muscles.

Kim had us do some leg yields and then we walked some while she helped the little girl untack the lesson horse. Then we went straight to shoulder in, which went really, really well again. Sophie is picking it up soooo quickly. I'm working on not leaning too far to the side and getting my inside leg far enough forward. I asked Kim if we could work on travers a little, if she didn't think it'd confuse Sophie, since I haven't done shoulder in/travers since last winter, with Jessie.

So we tried travers, and it just confused Sophie, she kept trotting with my leg that far back and my inside leg asking for bend. We tried it a couple of times and she was still confused, so we gave that up, and instead started to work on renvers! I guess there's a movement in Second Level where you move from shoulder in to renvers on a long side. You have to do it in the trot for the test, but we did it at the walk. At first it was hard to visualize for me, especially since I've never ridden renvers before. So Kim stood at the halfway point against the wall, so that I could change Sophie's bend around Kim and then kind of "slide" over her. I probably can't explain why it worked so well in my head, but it did. It was amazing, Sophie is a renvers pro. Of course, after doing that she was wiggling her hind end all over the place, anticipating doing more renvers.

After that we picked up the trot and worked on getting Sophie up, since she kept getting too low. It's odd, because I have to make sure my reins are short enough, or she gets low and BTV. So after lots of half halts we were ready to try shoulder in at the trot. It went ok, I was having a lot of trouble with my left leg, it was shot after trying shoulder in for so long at the walk, then the shoulder in to renvers exercise made it worse. But we did pretty well overall.

Then we cantered, and that went ok, our transitions were much better at least. Sophie was very forward (though not rushy) so we tried lengthenings across the short diagonal and she did sooooo well. It was a little strung out, on the forehand, but she lengthened. She did even better the next two times we tried it. After that we had another walk break and cantered in the other direction.

Unless Kim decides it's too cold I should have another lesson tomorrow, and one on Sunday. I don't know if I'll have one next week, since I'm going to be having a D&C sometime next week and I'm not sure if I'm going to feel up to riding after. Kim's leaving on the 11th now, so I could have a lesson Monday/Tuesday depending on how things go.