Lesson Wrap-up: Edges

I didn't have a lesson last week due to GP trainer's show schedule, but that was a good thing. I needed time to process that lesson on my own, clearly.

I was also working through something we had discovered in my Pilates lesson two weeks ago (I still take a private lesson once a week with my instructor even though I have the Reformer at home). We were doing a symmetrical movement series that engaged the upper abs, and by the end of it, my left upper abs were completely smoked while my right ones weren't tired at all.

A dramatic reenactment of one of the symmetrical movements just for blog media, lol

I pointed that out to her, and she had me do a couple of diagnostic exercises to see what was going on, including this one:

And to my complete surprise, even though I was focusing on it, that same smoked left side did all of the work in both directions. I could feel a pillar of strength on the left and nothing on the right, no matter how hard I tried.

So I played with it in the saddle, realizing quickly that that pillar of strength on the left feeling is my position of strength in the saddle, along with being slightly tipped forward. And every single time I engaged that right upper ab (in my head this feels like puffing out the right side of my "cereal box" as MW would say), Connor immediately lifted his long back muscle on the right to meet my seatbone and suddenly I could find his "edge" (more MW), on that side. I've never felt an edge on that side before.

How about that neck coming out of his withers, eh!

Connor has always had slightly underdeveloped back muscles on the right. Tara, saddle fitter of half of blogland, spotted it in conformation photos! So the idea that my underdeveloped ab muscles directly correlated to his underdeveloped back muscle was fascinating.

I played with it over the last two weeks and made some stunning progress. Like, finding self-carriage and feeling his withers grow in front of me. And in my lesson with my GP trainer last night, she was gobsmacked. We went from a cowboy up my-second-level-horse-can't-turn lesson two weeks ago, to her saying "There's your flying change canter!" and "Wow, that trot!" and "I don't want to change a thing, I think we need to quit here, this is amazing!"

Not from my lesson, and obviously we need more impulsion here but that wasn't the point. Look at how he thinks about plowing forward and decides instead to lift his breastplate and weight the left hind

"I really like the way you're mentally approaching riding these days," she said. "When he tries to pull something on you, you have a toolkit to deal with it and you just do it. And I wish more of my riders would work on their Dressage out of the saddle like you do."

Playing with renvers, which we need for 3-1

Feels good, man, feels good.