The Meat of the Lesson...

These pictures are of the meat of the lesson. Once we got really working. We started on a 20 meter circle and then moved on to trotting around the ring, and then leg yielding down the long side.



Coming past our mandatory walk through the sunlight patch...

The was the worst BTV moment we had, there were very few pictures as BTV as this one was.



Around this time I started sitting the trot and was able to start producing better corners as a result. I have a lot of trouble with some things while posting (leg yielding specifically) so I did some sitting with Sophie. Which means I hunched my lower back a bit but it does seem to be better in some of the pictures.




Leg yielding...




Leg yielding again...using a lot more hand than needed...


Giving the inside rein while leg yielding. Something we worked on was giving both reins a little (not as much as pictured here) to give Sophie extra release as a reward. We already do a lot of giving the inside hand, but this is going to take a lot of muscle memory, because it's supposed to be quicker and a shorter release, I'm used to doing big releases.

Having just finished a leg yield I think...

I'm not sure why I have so many more pictures of us going to the left than the right, that may have been the time that Craig's kitten invited himself to the lesson and Craig stopped to visit.

Cool Down and "Spook" Pictures...

So that the posts are in order for viewers I'm starting with the end of the lesson and a couple of random pictures. First, our cooldown, ie, stretchy circles! Sophie loves stretchy circles, especially after she's been working hard.

Overall, I think that my position was better as far as sitting up straighter and looking up, but I kind of forgot about those things when doing stretchy circles, I was too busy watching her reach for the bit!







She really didn't want to go past the open door because not only was it open, but a truck was parked right there too! Oh my god, oh my god. The first two times she stopped to look and then walked on, and it slowly got better from there (we were trotting around the whole arena at this point). However, I'd like to point out that upon reversing I had to walk her the first time and then after that she trotted just fine, so she did learn something, lol. And after 7 or 8 laps she was trotting past it just fine in the first direction.

Cheez Its=Yum...Scooby Snacks=Yuck

Today Sophie got to try Cheez Its and Scooby Snacks. She *loved* the Cheez Its. The Scooby Snack she deftly spit out while Craig and I watched without actually seeing her do it. She begged for more Cheez Its, which is fine with me, since I eat the Scooby Snacks and Craig eats the Cheez Its.

I did have a lesson today, it went pretty well. We warmed up on a longer rein and then went to a shorter rein for the real work. I'm also going to have her seen by a chiropractor to ensure the bendy neck isn't due to pain and just muscle memory. She doesn't seem to be in pain as she will work correctly without any fussing as long as I ask properly, but we'll see.

I do have pictures, but haven't had a chance to get them posted yet. Hopefully tomorrow!

Quick Update...

I was out of town for the weekend and had no power until this evening due to Ike making his way through Ohio. So, we'll see how Sophie is doing tomorrow. I have no idea yet if I'll be having a lesson on Thursday or not, I cancelled last week's lesson due to school interfering.

Cantering Pictures...

Oh boy, you guys are in for it. The rest of the pictures, all of the cantering pictures. Fun, fun, fun.

First, our canter transition, the first one and it was wonderful. It may not look wonderful, but, all I had to do was sit deep, slide my left leg back and poof, canter, it was the next stride and I didn't have to kiss. She came a little above the bit, but is normally much worse.

Of course, this was us just a few strides later...

And then, just some more cantering pictures. Obviously I have a much bigger problem with riding defensively when cantering. Next time I ride I'm definitely trying to sit up more. I do have a shoulders back device that I might try strapping on too, lol.




***********************Begin Canter Sequence***********************
In this canter sequence you can see the problems we have with BTV at the canter. I guess my problem is that I don't push her forward enough and maintain the right jump at the canter, but honestly, it feels plenty forward to me when we're riding! I'll probably hold off on doing a lot of canter work. I might do some work on transitions if we get too bored, but that's it.











***********************End Canter Sequence***********************

Even More Pictures of Our Ride...

First, the trot pictures taken after we cantered. I think she looks better in these pictures, but maybe that's just becacuse she is in more of a dressage frame? I'm still not very good at judging correctness from pictures, other than BTV and the like. I know that my reins were shorter after we cantered than they were before we cantered. Part of my fear with lessons is that I may be keeping the reins too short and holding the horse in a frame. I do release the inside rein a lot, but I don't know if it's enough. So should I ride with my reins this length more of the time or the longer length I had in the beginning trot pictures? Like I said, right now Sophie pretty much fills up whatever rein length I use (within reason), but I'd like to keep that, unlike my retired horse who went great on one length but didn't adapt to longer reins very well.
Giving the inside rein...


Here she was asking to stretch, she was definitely in stretchy circle mode when I shortened the reins a little in preparation to canter (we cantered to the right first, so these trot pictures were before we cantered to the left).

And this sequence is a demonstration of going into Sophie's problem corner of the day. These and the following sequences are trot pictures taken before we cantered, which is why they look different, lol.
Starting to realize we're coming up to the corner...
Aack, the corner! No idea what the problem is, but for the first half of the ride she does this in the same spot of the arena (it moves about from ride to ride)...this is about the worst she would do with me and you can see that it's more of a gradual raising of the head, not a serious head flip at least...
Coming into the corner again...
Still coming into the corner...
Uh oh, getting closer!
This one wasn't nearly so bad, I think I nipped it in the bud earlier as well, you can see me squeezing her over with my inside leg, too bad I can't do it without turning my toe out...
Still inside legging it and moving on from the problem area...
Look, a new corner, straight ahead!
Grrrrr...
That didn't take too long to "fix"...
It's like nothing happened...

I don't know, maybe I should get after her more when she does the head raising and tensing up bit. I mainly tend to ride her forward, using a lot of inside leg to push her over and inside rein to ask her to soften. When she acts as though she's going to rear I push my hands forward so that she has no contact and a wide open door, push her forward, and within a couple of strides she was trotting like you see in these pictures. Once she's trotting I ride as though she didn't just think about rearing, but just like we're on a regular ride and nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But does that mean she doesn't learn trying to rear is bad? And it's not an issue solely because the inclination doesn't come up in her head again, not because she knows better? I just don't know.