Lesson Wrap-Up: More of the Same

Last night in my lesson with my regular trainer, we continued what we started on last week, which was turn on the forehand > change bend, walk pirouette > trot or canter out of it.

The idea is that we are taking the ToF NK has me do, focusing on position and not pulling, and adding more to it.

Not perfect, but effective.

The canter felt really good to me coming out of the walk exercise, but my trainer accurately diagnosed that his hind legs weren't "punchy" enough in it.  Pretty easy to see in the video.

Oops, posted the wrong video earlier!  This is the correct one.

To work on that, I focused on half halting on the upbeat, giving a gentle bump, and keeping my hands in that "tray carrying" position NK put me in.

You can tell we're both starting to get tired here, and we lost the bend coming out of the corner.  Also I was UNSPEAKABLY sore for this lesson thanks to Bulgarian split squats and bodyweight sled pushes (MY NEMESIS!) the day before in CrossFit.

Overall, he felt fantastic.  My vet happened to be out at the barn during my lesson, and she asked me afterward if we were showing right now.  I told her we'd taken the season off to get the basics down at Second and she said it looked like we were schooling Third.  We are nowhere near Third, but after feeling down about riding for so long, I will totally take that compliment!

I think NK would say my torso is moving with him here...I think.  She would also tell me "needed a couple of half halts across the diagonal."

Of course, the season's not over yet, and now that I'm feeling so much better about how he's going right now, I'm seriously toying around with hitting a show or two before the end of the year.  We'll see!