Boring dressage stuff

In my post about upgrading to Fedora Core 3, it sounds as though I did nothing else while it was happening. Although I spent a lot of time checking to see if the damn thing was done yet, I actually accomplished quite a lot since I couldn’t use the computer to distract myself as much while it was busy updating itself.

Today, I went and took a lesson from my trainer on Hap. Although my trainer works with me for short periods of time on a catch as can basis, it had been a while since I took a formal lesson. Working more or less on my own, I can feel good things happening, but have missed the input from a ground person.

Since I am so far out of shape (though not as much as I was a month ago) I didn’t do any jumping today. Mainly, we worked on dressage type stuff. I do most of my riding in a forward seat, and want to develop a better seat when I attempt dressage. I’ve been focussing on this a lot during the past month, and now no longer feel as though I am leaning backward when I am actually correct.

It was a good lesson: lots of trotting and cantering, trot to canter transitions without me leaning forward to get them, and downward transitions without me clutching at Hap’s face. Aside from my position, the main focus was on keeping Hap on the outside rein. This is not a problem going to the left, because Hap likes the right rein, but he is very disinclined to stay on the left rein when going to the right.

We took a break by learning to walk on the bit. Hap has a marvelous walk, but we are used to doing it as we would in a hunter under saddle class, on a very light contact where the horse should be round and forward and seeking the bit, but not on it. I only ask him to go on the bit at the trot and at the canter, and didn’t want to work on it by myself without help since I don’t have the feel for it and didn’t want to screw up. Since I have done it now in the lesson, I think I understand the feel well enough that I can start working on it by myself.

We finally finished up by working on leg yielding, shoulder-in and extended trot. Hap does the first two quite well when I don’t screw up and try to turn him into a pretzel. He did them quite well today. We also did some real extensions, which is something we have very little experience together. I’ve only really succeeded once or twice before today on my trainer’s horse, but Hap and I clicked and were doing quite well.

Afterward, I helped my trainer with a beginner lesson. She was expecting two little girls, and only one showed up. So I climbed up on the other pony Danny (despite a child’s saddle that did terrible things to parts of me not normally mentioned in polite company) and was the second “student” in the lesson. This gave the beginner someone to follow (and lead) and also inspired CJ, the little white Arab the child was riding. When he gives a beginner a lesson and there aren’t any other horses around, he spends all of his time trying to convince my trainer that the child is too little to be more than six feet away from her. Danny quickly figured out that we were baby-sitting, and that he wouldn’t have to work that hard, despite having me on his back. We even did some drills at a trot together, and then played a bit of walking tag. Tag was a challenge since I didn’t want to catch her too quickly, or be too obvious about getting caught myself.