Progress

Today I had planned to surprise my mom with a half hour lesson with Amanda and then a short ride around the property. The weather was perfect and I still think it would have been marvelous, but she wasn’t feeling up to it and was really worried about her knee. So, instead I took a lesson.

We started with our lateral work: shoulders in, haunches in, and leg yields. He was moving pretty good, but there was a little something nagging. Not sure if it was the left front or right rear, although we were thinking left front. I think a major part of the hint of something I could feel is related to his feet. He is due for a shoe reset and his hooves are long (common issue right now amongst all of the horses). He gets done on Tuesday, so he will be off until they are done. I told Amanda that it felt like he was on his tip toes. He got better as we went into the more difficult movements, which makes no sense at all.

After our shoulder in and haunches in, we worked on the leg yields at the trot, then did canter serpentines which he did really well, then segwayed into canter spirals. Those kind of suck. Or I kinda suck at them. We did them better today than we have done them in the past, but I still don’t feel like I am very good at them. Ashke is getting better, although his only hitch with his hind end came during that exercise. I think moving outward, while maintaining inside bend while on the left lead really stresses his right hind and he cross cantered a step. 

We did some more leg yields, zig zagging back and forth three or four steps between each bend. Then I asked for the trot half pass. He was very solid at that movement in the trot, so we tried the canter half pass.

Moving right to left - this is the more difficult side for him to get his bend and body correct.

This is his *easy* side. You can see he maintains his straightness better and the bend

Much better the second time moving to the left

I did a better job of setting him up before asking. I had him in a haunches in as we turned the corner.

In case you were wondering, Amanda is coaching me. We were wearing her headset so I could hear everything she was saying.

We ended the lesson with two drum patterns, ridden to the left first. The rules changed this year and the drum pattern can be ridden in either direction. I completely FUBARed the pattern the first time through, because we’ve ridden it so much to the right, that reversing the pattern takes conscious effort on my part. The second time was much better. Then, because the boy was tired, we used the cones to help shape our turn on the haunches for the test, switching it up with turns on the forehand to make Ashke listen to my leg. Then we were both done. 

Dressage is hard.

I am getting better about not leaning forward, but that is what Amanda is referring to when she tells me to sit tall. I have to really concentrate to maintain the body position and to not give away my hands.

I am also completely ignoring his attempts to sidetrack the conversation. He gave a bit of a jump when we were starting some of the canter work, and I just rode through it and kept asking him to do whatever it was we were doing. He gave it up after that. He’s such a funny guy.