Insisting

Whew.

Three straight weeks of work travel is over!  And I'm back where I belong.

On this fellow!

After spending last Saturday watching JenJ kill it on Taran at USDF Finals (You better blog about that!!!!!!!!), I came home motivated to get back in the saddle and work on some concepts JenJ and I discussed, as well as continue working on the concepts from my last Nancy lesson.

Tired, shaggy, sweaty, but also foamy!

He's really getting the message about bend and engaging the inside hind on the right rein, but I've noticed on the left he pushes out through his outside shoulder when I ask him to move the left hind underneath him.  Like, he's bent, overbent, with his shoulder leading and traveling to the outside, but his hind leg doesn't move at all.  It's like his hindquarters are stuck.

"...I wouldn't do that!"

It's not like me to insist on something like that normally, I'm not confident enough in what I feel to pick a battle like that, but I was pretty sure I was right about that one.  I trotted him left on a circle, with him very worried and not getting the message, asking asking asking, until he finally gave me the right answer.

I hesitate to call it a breakthrough, but it was good for us: I learned to be firm with him, he learned what I was asking for, he learned things can get a little scary (for him) and things will turn out okay, he learned to respect me. 

Blanket mane

Sometimes you just have to have a discussion, and that was a particularly productive one.  Our next ride after that (last night) proved he slept on it and really retained it, even if it took a bit of reminding in the beginning.  And he's got some anxiety when I use my left leg.  Gotta get over that sometime though, as Nancy said, he needs a bit of healthy respect for my aids.

It's good to be back.