Lesson recap

So let's focus on more positive things, shall we?

Saturday we had a lesson.  I got up really really early to get there on time, got lost, but managed to get there.  Thanks to the generosity of those at the barn, Violet was groomed and just waiting to be tacked up when I got there.  It was a pretty cool morning, but beautiful and blue.

There is nothing like walking up to the ring and being greeted by other riders who you don't know.  These are probably grooms getting the horses out for schooling.  Or maybe trainers getting the horses ready for this weekend's show.  Either way, they are always so welcoming.  It's so refreshing.  In the hunter world, I experienced a lot of "you can't ride that pony, you're too fat." or "why should I watch out for your green 4yo, you should get out of my way.  Your horse isn't worth anything anyway."  Seriously, some of those people get really vicious.  Since I've been out and about amongst the event world, though, what I usually hear is things like "what a beautiful horse" and "you are such a quiet rider" or even "what a beautiful day".  Very nice.
So that's how the morning started.  We ended up in the "big ring".  We started at the walk as usual, working on getting her working off the leg pretty quickly.

Happy happy pony

Our trot work consisted of a lot of changes.  We did serpentines both directions up and down the ring to get her moving off the inside leg and into the outside rein, and for me to work on steering with the outside instead of relying so much on the inside rein.  For someone who overthinks everything, this truly was a difficult exercise.  I kept getting my leg confused, although I did better with my hands.

We incorporated trot-walk-halt transitions, working on continuing the contact through the transition to help her step up under herself for them.

We worked on leg yields off the quarter and center lines both directions, working on the yield part of the leg yield.  I also have to work on being more refined with my leg on those.  It used to be that I had to really put my leg back, which caused an issue with me collapsing through my hip, but not so much anymore.  I'm getting better with the legs, but I'm still struggling with the half-halt on the yield.  I tend to either get her counterbent or she just trots on a diagonal.  Too much or too little.  Still working on getting the middle ground.

We worked on counterbend to the corner, bend through, send on the straight wall to rebuild impulsion.  All while not dropping the inside hip.

Then we moved to canter work, concentrating on not overthinking the transition.  We continued to work through the whole ring, not just a circle, concentrating on thinking about pointing my chest to the outside to keep the inside hip raised, and then add in the counterbend/bend concept to encourage straightness.  At one point, there was so much going on that Violet broke because I was still at "point chest to outside" and hadn't thought about "use the inside leg to support shoulder with the lead".  We won't go into hands.  I'm hoping that if we do this all enough, it will just become a natural thing, and quit being something I have to think through so much.  It's like this huge checklist of stuff and I have trouble with getting all the way through the list with the quick stride of the pony-girl.

All in all, it was a great lesson.  Violet was very well behaved.  I was told that she got to jump all the Novice cross country stuff during the week.  She's just so happy, and looks fantastic.  Riding her is what it is supposed to be, a treat and a joy.  I wish I was more than once a week, but so happy that when I get the chance, she's so good.

We'll see you next weekend, Mom!