Small Victories

I've been bad :-( I haven't ridden since my last lesson. My excuses are (1) I've been super busy at work and (2) It's been ungodly hot outside! Even for Georgia the heat and humidity have been awful and it came on awfully fast.

I was supposed to have a lesson this morning, but was asked to reschedule until tomorrow evening -- fine by me! So, I went out around 7pm tonight to get some riding in. It was way too hot to deal with a saddle so I just put the bareback pad on and hopped on. After two laps of a warm-up walk, I started trotting her. She's back to doing her cowboy jog that I love so much, VERY easy to sit. I started asking her to stop with my seat and she wasn't listening very well so I did the tight circles that I described in my previous post. After three of those each way she was listening to my seat and the voice command "whoa". So, I trotted her straight down the rail, sat back, said "whoa" and she immediately dropped to a walk. We repeated that a few times until I was satisfied.

Then I started trying to practice the bending circles. This is HARD without a saddle (at least for me)! But it was VERY good practice for improving my seat and my balance. I only did a few of these because I was distracted... my friend who was riding with me was cantering her horse around the outside of the arena while I was working on my circles.

Watching her I SO BADLY wanted to canter too. I trotted a few more times just to make sure that I felt super comfortable with my seat at that gait, then I told my friend, "I'm gonna canter a few strides... don't laugh when I fall." So I came around past the gate and gave the canter cue. It was SO cute, Secret flicked her ears back at me and I felt her hesitate as though she was asking, "Are you SURE?" So I gave the cue again and off we went! I got three GREAT strides before I panicked, looked down at the rail and thought, "I'll break several bones if I fall and hit that!" At which point I grabbed mane and said, "whoa!" Secret immediately transitioned down to a walk (I knew she loved me!).

Given my fears surrounding the canter, this was more than a small victory for me. I feel ecstatic,  like I'm really making progress again. I remember this time last year when I did the same thing with the trot; trot four steps and stop, trot another four steps and stop, repeat. So, I feel like if I keep being brave and cantering bareback, if only just for 3-4 strides at a time, then I'll soon feel as comfortable at the canter as I do at the trot. In the meantime, Secret will be coming along and learning new things as well. For the first time in a long time, after several months of dejection, I feel like we are closer to our goals than ever!

Back to Lessons

This was my second lesson in the hackmore and since the chiropractors visit. I had told my trainer that I had decided I just didn't have the time to devote to making Secret into any kind of show horse and I wanted to spend all of the time that I do have just enjoying riding. So, we've been working on riding on a loose rein nice and relaxed, teaching her to neck-rein, bending, and balancing.

First thing we worked on was an exercise to help with getting her to stop off of seat and voice as opposed to pulling back on her face. Basically we turned a tight circle until I felt like she was wanting to stop, then I relaxed my legs and seat and said "whoa". Again, this might sound crazy-rita, but its working. At the very end of the lesson I cantered her a few laps and when I wanted to stop I just relaxed and said "whoa"... didn't even have to move my hands, she just stopped. Awesome! Homework is ten of these circles in each direction.

The next thing was working on actually getting her to bend. We did bigger (10-15meter) circles trying to get her to bend around my inside leg. So, I had to keep weight on my inside leg, move my outside leg back, turn my upper body pretty much all the way around without dropping either shoulder, and then micro-manage her -- moving her off first one leg then the other -- all the way around the turn. We did this for probably 30minutes and my legs were killing me!!! But, by the end she was actually bending really nicely, so that's homework too!

We ended the lesson with some canter work. We had done our trot work outside in the big arena, but I'm still too scared to canter out there. I had asked my trainer to get on and canter her outside, which she did, and we concurred that she is still too bouncy and pulls a little too much near the gate for me to go for it out there yet. So,we moved back into the smaller indoor arena for canter work. It was actually really nice! She is picking up on the transition cues right away now, instead of 8-10 strides away. She's still bouncy, but getting better I think. My trainer had recommended sitting a "half-seat", which is basically just forward in the saddle with ~70% of your weight in your stirrups... it's like half-way between full seat and two-point. I felt like I moved and bounced more, but since most of my weight was in the stirrup I wasn't really slamming down on her back. It was actually alot more secure for me and I wasn't as scared. We only worked in the counter-clockwise direction, Secret's good direction, but the last canter was "perfect" (a direct quote from my trainer!) right down to the "whoa". So we decided to end on a really good note!