Emergency Lesson

My lesson last week was just as difficult and unspectacular as the one before.  My trainer diagnosed that after so long of being each other's one-and-only, Connor's exploitation and reinforcement of my bad habits, as well as my giving in his, was causing some serious problems in contact consistency and impulsion that are just holding us back.

It was time for an emergency lesson (my husband joked, "Someone get this woman on a horse, NOW!") on a skilled horse.  Meet Connor's best friend and pasturemate, T:

Swoon.

He's my trainer's imported Lusitano.  I have no idea exactly how far up the levels he's trained, but it's far.  The amount of subtlety and core activity required to ride this horse is incredible.  Every piece of your body means something to this horse, and he listens for and reacts to even the slightest movement.  It's one of the coolest things I've ever felt.

Also an XC machine, in addition to being a kickass Dressage horse.

But that doesn't mean he's easy to ride if you're an adult amateur with body awareness issues like me, which was entirely the point of riding him.

He told all of my positional sins to my trainer like the greatest tattletale that ever lived.  I was being called out on things that I didn't even know were problems.  "He's going to react and reward you when you do things right, and Connor can't do that yet."  She was right.

I couldn't get him on the bit or through for the life of me until we were on a 20m circle going right and my trained told me to push my torso up closer to my left elbow - this was a push in the forward and outside direction.  Turns out, I have an outside shoulder problem that negatively affects the connection.  I also have a turning right problem, a using-my-shoulders-instead-of-my-triceps problem, and a keeping-my-hips-moving-during-lateral-movements problem.  He told on me for everything!

We had only planned on doing the one emergency lesson, but the results were so good (she said I was sitting straighter than ever before at the end) that she wanted to do more.  So Connor is getting some lunge work in the meantime, and I'm developing feel for an educated horse that will help me translate it to him.

Hopefully this pushes us off of our plateau!

Gratuitous photo of my barn mate's baby Husky.