Cob Jockey

I wish I knew someone that could take pictures for me in my lessons.  Sorry about the walls of text, guys.

Because my trainer wasn't really in a condition to yell over the rain this week, she set up a course and basically let me at it.  She gave good instruction throughout, but mostly when I rode back over to her after I finished a course.  As a result, we didn't do any Dressage and the entire lesson was just jump after jump after jump.

My new thing to focus on this week?  Setting him up for a good landing before we even take off.  Adagio has a tendency to land off-balance and then my poor riding allows him to blow through the next corner counter-bent, on the wrong lead and off-balance to the point that he ignores my request to do a simple change.  She pointed out that it was because I was letting him drift over the fence, and if I held him with my new inside leg as I was coming to the fence, I'd have an easier time of it.  Although I never got a perfect post-fence-into-corner, I made huge improvements with it immediately after she said that.  Just like the haunches-in last week (ugh, why was that so hard???) it's something that will take a little while.  Coordinating new parts of my body has never been my strong suit.

The biggest thing I left that lesson with was the knowledge that I'm so comfortable over fences now.  I'm thinking less about the jump itself and more about how I'm going to ride that jump - and for someone who has historically been afraid of jumping, that's a big deal. 

The changes she's affected in my riding are just astounding.  I'll never regret a single penny I spend on lessons with her, for sure.