Transitions: A Lesson in Difficulty

I had no idea riding could be hard . . . I knew it could be sweaty, long, hot, cold (depending on time of year), exhausting, demanding. All of that is true. But it is also hard. Difficult. Exacting. A huge part of learning dressage, which in my case currently, is teaching both Ashke and myself how to move shoulders and hips based on leg and seat cues, at any given gait. And keeping all of his body parts within our ever shrinking box.

Amanda explained it this way:

When you first start riding dressage you are riding down the middle of a road and your horse has the area within that road to move. Then as you advance, you move to the sidewalk. Where Ashke and I are now, we are expected to ride on a single track mountain path. Amanda at almost Grand Prix, is riding a tight rope. 

What this means, practically, is that he is not allowed to bulge a shoulder or throw out a hip. I have to provide the parameters of that space with my legs, seat and rein. It means riding every single step. And being aware of how you ride those steps.

I finally figured out why every canter-walk transition we had in our last dressage test said "on the forehand". It's because I get to the transition and stop riding. I release my hands, have already taken off my leg, and I slump in the saddle like a sack of potatoes. Ashke dumps onto his front end, because why not? I'm not supporting him any more, so why should he continue. Last night I recognized what I was doing, and instead of letting us both "dump" out of the canter, I actually rode into the transition, keeping my seat and legs active and just slowing the canter until we were slow enough to walk.

Its so damn hard.

I finally realize that mentally I see the canter-walk transitions in my test as a moment to take a break from riding because exhausted, when what I should be doing is seeing them as an active moment in the test. Which is what it is. I'm an idiot. My horse is reaching saint like attributes.

We also worked on a lot of lateral movments: shoulder in to half pass to shoulder in at the trot. (No canter half-pass until Ashke recognizes the need to keep his body straight not bent around in haunches in at the canter.) This was a moment when I could feel Ashke trying to figure out what it was I wanted and getting really wiggly. He seemed to be saying, "What the fuck do you want, woman?!" I stopped for a moment after our first attempt, patting him on the neck, and told him he was overthinking this exercise. He didn't need to try and predict what I wanted, just wait until I told him what I wanted. He was better and less tense after that. He really just wants to be right and do what I want.

Then we worked on canter leg yields. This was really a first for me and Ashke. The last time we tried any canter leg yields it was over a year ago for the Novice B test and involved maybe three steps from the quarter line to the rail, which at that point was too much for his hind end. Last night we were doing them from one side of the dressage arena to the other. My biggest thing to work on going forward is keeping my outside leg cue that asks for the canter continuing to do so even when we are yielding in that direction. Yes. That is much harder. However, Amanda says that I don't want to create a grey area where he is taking the canter cue from the rein or what we are doing. He needs to listen to the leg cue in order to work on counter canter, which we haven't tackled yet.

We did some work on developing the medium canter and then going back to the collected canter. Again, another exercise that is damn difficult. But we focused on our single track, not giving away my hands, riding each step and driving with my seat.

I was shaking with exhaustion when I led him back to the barn. He was warm but not sweaty, and pretty damn proud of himself.