Cob Jockey

Yep, I know I still owe you all some more clinic recaps.  Honestly, I'm waiting to write them until I review the videos during my next couch lesson.  Since the clinic, I've substituted lessons on the horse for lessons on my couch (with wine because duh) where my trainer and I go back and watch my clinic videos together. 

Enjoy some pictures of Connor, who is ridiculously gorgeous right now

The couch lessons ensure:

1. I won't totally butcher Mary's theories when I recite what I learned back to my trainer
2. She gets to actually see what Mary did with me
3. It gives me more time to play with Mary's concepts on my own and hopefully solidify them before riding in a lesson setting

 And I think it's safe to say we are both enjoying the couch and wine time!


In the meantime, I've been riding on my own.  The things I am mainly focusing on (some of which I've written about and some of which I haven't and you'll have to wait for an explanation on) are:

1. High internal pressure
2. 80% of my weight in my thighs, 20% in the feet/bring knees closer to chest
3. Lean into Mary's hand forward/accurate vertical balance
4. Holding the reins the way she showed me (she totally changed the way I hold the reins!)
5. Keeping my seatbones paddling like a duck (yes I will explain this later)

Almost at the very beginning, Mary's first book talks about identifying which new positional cue you're most likely to cheat on, and focusing on that one.  For me, that's internal pressure.  I forget about it constantly, but when I remember to do it, a number of other things naturally fall into place, such as accurate vertical balance (it's very noticeable when I am not upright when I have high internal pressure) and not pulling anymore (I can feel my high internal pressure holding the resistance that my arms otherwise would be). 

(I don't feel like it's totally accurate to use high internal pressure the way I am here, most people would say "core", because there ARE active muscles down there and it's not just the pressure, but that's what's working for me so I'm rolling with it)


The other thing I've done is stop riding in my Dressage saddle.  I can't ride in that and work on what I learned from Mary, as scary as it is to ride in a setup she hasn't seen (my jump saddle).  My jump saddle isn't ideal, but it gives me a lot more freedom to play and adjust and make mistakes than my Dressage saddle does. 

Plus I may or may not have a test ride scheduled for a Dressage saddle built on the same tree as my jump saddle so...😁  (Yes, that is the sound of money being sucked out of my bank account, pray I luck into another CWD unicorn like I did with my jump saddle or this is going to get expensive fast).


If you know of any children or small adults in need of a Dressage saddle, send them my way!