Good Rides + Media!

Every single ride since the clinic has been good(!). Our rides have been short and low key because of the cold, but in each one we have had good quality work in walk and trot. Our trot work hasn't been this consistent in... ever, and I'm really excited about it.

Possibly my new favorite photo

Lest anyone thinks that we are doing grand fancy stuff, we are not, we are working on 10 and 20m circles in walk and trot, and the dressage pyramid elements of rhythm, relaxation, and straightness (bend).

I'm not being too fussy with the quality of the connection at this point. when she is relaxed and bent correctly, she is soft in the bridle and accepts the contact which is good enough for now (no more gaping with her mouth!). She'll poke her nose forward or backwards sometimes but it's not in a resistant way.

I'm also not asking specifically for impulsion. I'm finally at the stage where I'm not having to slow her down into a smaller trot, and her automatic trot right now is a reasonable working pace where she is tracking up and balanced. I'm hoping to be able to play a bit with the impulsion soon and explore transitions within the trot. The test will be adding more impulsion without losing all of the other elements.

Unlike CobJockey, I sadly didn't get a fancy robotic camera setup (I want one!), but I did ride with my friend S yesterday and convinced her to take some media for me!

She took a 2 min video of me at walk and trot in both directions. I was pleased to find that it looks similar to how it feels. There were lots of decent screenshots (so I included way too many in this post!). You may notice that most of the screenshots are taken in a similar part of the arena, that's just because it was less blurry there, she was equally good around the whole circle! I'd even be comfortable posting the whole video on here (but I haven't succeeded in uploading it yet so that will have to wait for another post, sorry #technologyfail).

My position still needs some work (and probably always will). I was posting the trot and I can see that I sort of collapse forward with my upper body during part of the motion. However, my arms aren't twisted across my body in weird ways anymore. My lower leg is much steadier and closer to where it should be. There's actually times where there's the proper elbow-hand-bit line, and times where it looks like I wouldn't fall over if my horse disappeared from under me. It's progress and I'll take it!

There were a few times where she brought her head up and sped up a bit, but I just have to slightly increase the inside bend and she settles back down into a relaxed frame within a couple strides. A big improvement from our previous giraffe running.

This is as giraffey as she gets these days

The walk was good too, but we've had a good walk for a while so the trot is way more exciting! (Hence why all screenshots are of trot). Now we just need to get this at the canter and we might actually be a legit training level pair... ;-)

My legs are actually on the horse!
This is a huge win for me!