I am ever so thankful for the time my coach gives me, She is an incredible woman, who is ever so busy, so I feel very privileged, supported and happy. She provides me with the encouragement and tries to ask more positive thinking from me - it's something that doesn't come really easy for me :) But there we go, I do try! For the sake of the time she 'loses' over coming out to see me and my three ponies.
So we started with JJ, who she had not met before. I had told her shortly about our issues and we started with very gently working her on walk-stop-walk transitions using corners. We did some bigger and smaller circles. Note to self: more smaller circles, she finds them a bit difficult, so.. be the constant there. Also make sure that the shoulders are turned to help her understand. And tried to catch her shoulder when it fell out, which worked fine. To be fair, she completely showed only the very very best side of her today, and that being said it made it very difficult for me to get my questions answered regarding what to do with scenarios a/b/c.. :) But I thoroughly enjoyed the ride and the lesson. I need to ride her more forward, a lot more forward. I'm so used to riding ponies that I just somehow keep ticking over with her instead of making her off the leg and getting her forward, as when I do that, it seems fast and far and quick! M. Really liked her and said she is excited to see her on her worse days! So... umm. hopefully we will have many good days before the next lesson, where she is allowed to show the more difficult sides of her. All in all very positive experience and a clever lady!
- more forward
- check own shoulders
- fix down transitions!
The next one in line was the little fat wildo. Render needs currently 5 minutes on the lunge before you get on him to avoid bucks. hurrah! Anyway, that done he was actually also a very sweet ponyboy today! Worked his little fat ass off for me and we got some rather satisfying results, as M said at the end of lesson. Due to his build and big front end he is bound to get front heavy and downhill. Also he is very much behind the leg, ignores you the first two times and zones out. So a lot of transitions! And I mean, we really really did a lot of transitions, mostly trot-canter-trot-canter on a 20m circle, at least 2-3 transitions per circle. He started to get lighter in the hand eventually and was quite a try hard! M. also said she quite liked the pony, but to be fair I think the favourite of the day was JJ (for both me and M.). Anyway, we did barely anything else, as we were entirely sucked into the transitions. Did a couple of lengthenings in the end and checked that he is getting a bit quicker off the leg, which he did :) So all in all very pleased with him, but
- more forward, more reactive (!!!)
- fold the neck more, as he will otherwise just sit on the front
- shorter reins (by a lot!!) and pelvis-elbows working together so he can't pull me out of the saddle!
- every single time you 'click' you should be using the whip to tap instead..
By the end of the second ride I was already rather tired, hehe... given that R is a LOT of work currently. Hopefully it'll not stay like this, as it's not always been like that.
Last but definitely not least was the little Peachy lady, who I have had numerous lessons on before. M knows Peachy well and has been great teaching us the ropes and supporting me through my soft moments, where she just has her tantrums and I am confused. So today we worked on softness and canter. We do a lot of quarter lines due to her being so wobbly and as always, she was very unpleased with the contact so did her head flicking and tossing quite a bit. It did get a bit easier through the ride. We also tried a bit of leg yielding on the cut corners and also on the straight lines, it went rather smoothly to the right, was a bit more difficult to the left (in trot). Canter has been a bit difficult for us, as she likes to tank off with me and dive very deep and unseat me in the sense of just pulling me out of saddle, Well, we tried to avoid these situations and it wasn't all that bad. What was bad, though, was straight lines in canter :) Oh my.. We didn't even do quarter lines, just... plain old straight down the line ones. She was throwing shapes and her head around and wobbling in and out, but eventually it also got a bit better. What we did love, though, was the canter to trot transitions! She did them AMAZINGLY! seriously! I sat, and she came back. perfectly. didn't rush, didn't panic, didn't throw her head! What a good girl! And it wasn't like a lucky one, but she constantly did good transitions from canter to trot! I'm beyond proud :) So we are going out to compete on Saturday again... :) Surely will not beat the score of the last time, as the set up is different and it will be a bit difficult for us to survive it, but... hopefully we can manage 60% Anyway
- keep the hand stillllll when she has tantrums
- support with lower leg
- try riding straight lines in canter, lift inside (right) hand, when she goes all loopy
- 10m circles to get her to balance!
- get her used to rider having a whip!
So these are the 'to-do' items for the next few weeks. I'm not sure when I'll have the chance to get the lessons again, but I can't wait. I'm even a little bit sad that it's over and am plotting to maybe take Render over to my coach's yard (and the yard I was at, before) next week at one point. Not sure, if it'll happen, but would be a good thing to try. It's just a loooong drive.
I'll add a few random pics to lighten this up. Hopefully by the time I've had the next lessons I have not forgotten that I should write down the main points to improve and maybe, just maybe... I will actually even try and write down how I got on with the ones I wrote down today!
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