Lesson recap day 1

So I managed to take two lessons this weekend.  I woke up on Saturday expecting a 2pm lesson, which means I have to leave the house at 11am, only to get a message from Marcy saying the rain was coming and I should come early, so I finished up what I was doing and headed out a bit early.  I got there in time for a lesson starting about noon.  Because it was rainy and looking like it may get worse, I shared a lesson with Ginny and Pearl.  We went out behind the barn and rode in the grass field.  Ginny and I walked around chatting and warming up before Marcy came out to meet us.

We worked on the same things we have been working on.  Stop and go.  Bend and counter bend.  We had some really nice upward transitions.  We had one or two good downwards, but the upwards were nice.  I've had to keep working on the upward transitions because, once we do the first one, V thinks everytime I put leg on it means to go up.  We have to work very hard at "no, you do it when I actually ask for it, not because you want to".  We worked really hard at feeling the back legs and making sure they were under us.  We worked on making sure that the shoulder was carrying underneath as well, but with the canter, we really worked on feeling the back leg reach up underneath in order to strike off.  It was a pretty cool feeling when I kind of figured it out.  Overall it was a good lesson.  Nothing ground breaking, but good.

Truthfully, my good ride was overshadowed a bit by Ginny.  When I share lessons with the others, I try to kind of take a backseat, since they are competing and I'm not.  Let me tell you, she had a most excellent lesson.  It was really amazing to see.  She had an "a-HA" moment like you rarely see.  After working on finding the back leg and making sure Miss Pearl wasn't throwing her shoulder, she did some great canter work.  After the canter work, she went back to the trot work and all of a sudden, she had this sitting trot that was powerful.  She starts grinning and exclaims "Holy SHIT!" as she continues in the same trot about 3 times around the field.  At that point, Marcy says maybe it's time to stop.

Like with anything, we both walked away with the hope that we could repeat some of what we did today in future riding.

For me, the bigger takeaway was a feeling that I am able to retain information in my riding from lesson to lesson.  It's always a concern to me that only riding once a week I won't be able to retain everything from week to week.  I don't get a chance to practice, so it's hard.  But I still seem to be improving.  Other than my personal conditioning, I seem to be able to repeat stuff from lesson to lesson.

So that's the big first lesson of the week.  The second was jumping.  Maybe that will be more exciting.

Because you always need at least one pic of the pony.