Friday's lesson was good - intense. We worked with longer reins, which warped my mind a bit. At one point Pro threw a fit about something, and I was so focused that Gayle had to remind me that she was trying to teach me how to fix him, if only I would stop having a stroke. ;) So I had to disengage emotionally, which is really hard. Pro is my only horse, so all of my dressage success/failure depends on his progress. So it's hard to step back and stay calm.
At the trot we worked on "sameness" - keeping everything the same...tempo, rhythm, bend, stretch, etc. As well as working on clearly differentiating between bending...and straightening...bending...and straightening and just dropping him down, down, down. He resisted a little, and Gayle said he was getting so into himself and just having fun being round and bouncy, that he really didn't want to stretch down and over himself, but he eventually got it. Once I had him, he felt like a carousel pony - we just made circle after circle of steady sameness. Muscle-building sameness!!
And we even cantered, like a big boy. :) I was quite proud! I remembered Andrea's lesson and tried to erase everything I've ever been taught about sitting the canter. I pulled my legs off of him and immediately he seemed to relax.Since the lesson he's been fairly good - my goal is to get him to carousel pony, and work him there for 10-15minutes so that he continues to build that muscle. We had talked about keeping his back up to prevent him from spooking, and last night it actually worked. After a 5min argument at the start of the ride where he just valiantly threw 50 evasions at me, one after the other in rapid succession, he gave in. But later in the ride, he spooked at one corner of the arena (I have no idea what, it seemed pretty genuine) and was only able to scramble beneath me instead of getting his head up and inverted. Pretty cool! I knew to be prepared when I passed there again, but my dizziness hit and he was able to suck back from the rhythm, invert, and spook. I got off and walked him around for a little while to regain my non-dizzy state. I really *wanted* to take the blunt end of the whip and beat him over the head with it, but I refrained. :P
I got back on, we resumed working, and he was fine. Even some carousel pony work. :)
4 comments:
He looks so cute! Weird that he decided to stay stuck round, but better to have consistent round work than freaking out forward work! Good job getting the video included.
WOW, Pro looks awesome! What a huge difference from the last time I saw video! Getting stuck round and bouncy sounds much better than inverted, freaking out and stiff, but carousel horse is even better! Good for you, IMO from just following the blog, you guys are making terrific progress with Pro! I wanna come meet everyone in person sometime! :) (Sorry I couldn't make it to the freestyle!)
y'all look awesome! I love the carousel pony description - and he is totally doing that in the video.
We should plan a 'progressive' dinner (starting at like, 6am) and visit everyone on the blog for a meal. Ha!
HAHA the progressive dinner would be like a progressive dinner weekend...
I'm so pleased I got the video loaded. :) Christie - you'll definitely have to meet him someday (Alex, too!)!
I'm just so happy with his progress. :)
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