Tuesday 20 November 2012

Lesson #17 Dressage

I look forward to my Dressage lessons more than anything else because i feel like i am doing more than just riding and i can tell after my ride just by how my horse looks that i worked his mind as well as his body. (i was going to post pictures but i cant get them to rotate...)

Anyways i was running late so i had to ride my dressage lesson in my all purpose saddle. Everything started out great he stood perfect at the mounting block (both times) because i forgot my helmet the first time. I started warming him up and he was very fiesty he wanted to go and wanted to work i loved that, i loved feeling like i needed to bring him back to me as opposed to pushing him forward.

We worked on flexion on a circle making the circle bigger and smaller, when my coach noticed that G was fighting the bend to the right she wanted to work on that during the lesson. (she also corrected my possition i tend to ride with my legs to far forward and again my posting is awful).

We started down the long wall doing a leg yeild with his nose facing the wall at a walk he didnt want to move off my leg as usual so we tried it at the trot and he was much more responsive but i had a hard time keeping a rhythem and stop him from running away with me we did it quite a few times around the arena then we started on single bending lines.

Single bending lines go from one letter to x back to the same wall at the last letter G did very well with this exercise 2 weeks ago but my coach wanted to incorperate the canter so we could work on our canter to trot transitions. So the idea was to canter the short wall and do a single bending line at a sitting trot down the long wall to pick up the canter again at the end and repeat.... it didnt work out quite that way...

As i mentioned previously G has decided that kicking out and bucking is a really fun way to try and intimidate me and help us change up the exercise it didnt work in his favor because we pushed through the kicks and the bucks and even though it wasnt pretty it improved greatly by the end... anyways it usually went like this

ask for canter-buck kick---canter---ask for trot---ignored still cantering to x----ask for trot again----get some head tossing then trot--- and repeat....

Again this is not an injury thing or a soreness thing because when you push him through it a few times he gives up... also my dressage coach is a myofacial... something or other (equine massage therapist) so please dont think it is a soreness issue because he is completely sound believe me that and saddle fit was the first things i looked at.

I am quite proud of myself that this did not intimidate me and we were able to ride past it but my back has been sore the last few days as well as my inner thighs from the change in position and the balanceing a horse off my hands.

This week is going to be really busy but i am hoping it will look like this...

Tuesday- Off
Wednesday- Off
Thursday- Lesson with Nat
Friday-Off
Saturday- ride
Sunday- ride

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