Being my own Gayle

...is exactly what I tried to do in yesterday's ride. Now that I've had time to think through my lesson last Friday, it makes sense to me logically. However, my body vehemently disagrees and has fought me every step of the way. I realized that I've been riding the wrong way for 16 years...and that's no easy thing to erase. Years and years of ingrained muscle memory! Trying to override that and make new habits is definitely difficult. So I had to "be my own Gayle" and just keep repeating instructions over and over and over...

So I tried to be super-conscious of what my hands were doing at all times. I kept having to repeat "outside out", meaning bringing my outside hand OUT and away from his neck, especially while turning. Just try it...go ahead. It's insanely hard! And I kept having to repeat "give inside" to get my stupid inside hand to stop pulling back and engaging in the pulling game. And remember to bump him with my inside leg to stop him from leaning on it, which he desperately wanted to do when I opened my outside hand out and gave my inside rein forward. We had some interesting moments...counter-bending and scurrying around like a crab.

Interestingly, he was much better going right. I'm not quite sure if that's him or me, but I'm going to go ahead and assume that it's me doing something wrong to the left. We had much more giraffe-face going left. Which made my hands go down. Or perhaps my hands going down made his head go up (haha, most likely). Actually they seem to be related so that it's a bad cycle of hands down, head up, hands down more, head up...and then my brain kicks in and puts my hands back up. A few times he didn't just put his head up because he was unhappy that I didn't let the bit drop in his mouth (which happens when I put my hands down where he likes them), but he put his head WAY up to protest. Which means I had to put my hands WAY up until he realized I'm not going to let the bit drop. And around and around we went like that...I'm sure Big Horse's owner thought we were crazy. Until he gave up and put his head down, and I put my hands back into the normal-up-ness.

Though we never made it out of the walk, I was pleased with our work to the right at the walk. He was figuring out that when I open my outside hand out, give my inside rein, and apply my outside leg aids (and move my inside seatbone toward the outside), that he's supposed to turn. Without putting his head up. I'm hoping that more practice this week will make us ready for Friday's lesson. :)