Karen and I made plans to come ride with Julie Zapapas at Jumping Branch farm. I always have fun with Julie and it's been great to hang out with Karen again. We always have so much fun together. We decided to do an overnight and squash three lessons in two days in.
We started off with dressage this morning. Fleck was pretty darn good, despite being obsessed with Grant and pining after him. We worked on the basics really... We started at the walk and Julie was quick to point out some imbalances in me. I need to keep Flecks mane in the middle of my hands.. his mane should be centerline and my hands at the rails (on my imaginary dressage field in my lap) when we're going straight. When he's bent to the inside, the mane should push over to the quarter line. My inside hand should NOT come over to the mane in an attempt to get him to bend/straighten him/or accomplish anything. In fact, if my hand is coming over, its an indication that I'm attempting to get him off my inside leg and instead of effectively doing that.. I'm collapsing. Which in turn, means my inside heel has come up. Which means my leg has come off and my seat bone is no longer on the saddle. BUT... when I want Fleck to bend.... if I close my entire leg and thigh, pushing into the thigh block, and keep BOTH seat bones square on the saddle, making sure my upper body is level, keeping my hands even and not dropping my inside hand.. he comes onto the bit quite nicely. Inside leg to outside hand works!! And his mane will go to the outside quarter line. :) Aha!!! But I need to make sure I'm not collapsing. I also need to think about putting my inside leg more forward. I tend to draw it too far back. When I think forward, it's actually just at the girth where it belongs. And I need to think about scooting my outside pocket back a little and bringing my outside leg back a bit to help the bend. It seems totally counterintuitive to me, but it works! Fleck bends nicely around my leg that way. The other visuals that helped me were to point my boobs out. I was turning my upper chest in too much. To drop my outside shoulder because that in effect made me raise my inside shoulder and sit evently on both seat bones. It almost feels more like I'm sitting more on the outside, but in reality I should be even. I think I'm just that crooked so now it feels more outside than it is. And I need to keep my thumbs up. Phew!! And this was just at the walk. Ha! She then had us do some leg yielding on the circle and back (sorta a spiral in effect I guess). Then we moved onto the trot and it was more of the same thing. She was big on telling when he was right and wrong. Not only by releasing the pressure, but a nice scratch on the wither (Inside hand... don't drop the outside reins connection) or a verbal "eeehhhh (that's a hard word to type out... basically the NO PONY noise) when he's naughty. She said it's like giving them a test and telling them they missed three of the five questions but not telling them which ones they missed. Makes sense. :) We then worked on leg yielding from centerline. She said to really get a good one we need to essentially be leg yielding from the start of our turn. As we come down the rail, start leg yielding but block it with the outside rein, then start the 10 meter circle to centerline, still leg yielding but blocking, and then as we turn onto centerine, start leg yielding but opening the outside rein and taking away the block. We technically should have a straight horse prior to the start of the leg yielding but if we've already established the intent, it usually creates a better leg yield. Oh, and I need to ride with a whip, just to help encourage him to cross over more. So then we did some leg yields to the rail, back on the circle, back to the rail, back to the circle, etc and then we did leg yield to the rail, then shoulder in. Oooooh... HARD!!! Fleck kept wanting to go haunches in. This is where my desire to not put my inside leg forward became blatantly obvious. But it is sooooo simple and easy when I do. When we hit the rail off the leg yield, if I continue to keep my inside leg forward (which is really just at the girth), don't collapse, and sit evenly on both seat bones (which for now is more about focusing on the outside seat bone), Fleck gives me a lovely fluid shoulder in. Even the hard way!!
Then we asked for the canter. Leg yield to the rail, then shoulder in, then just lift the seat bone and right into the canter. Holy smokes!!! It makes for a beautiful transition!!! And the canter.... to die for!!! Fleck was SITTING, he was SLOW, and he was powerful! It was amazing!!! It was that slow powerful canter I've been working on getting with Cindy. And I've done canter transitions through SI, through leg yield, but for whatever reason.. this particular exercise worked today. It was awesome!! Then I just sit tall, squeeze my legs and thighs, and think of bringing my belly button back to my spine, and we had a lovely downward... but straight back into shoulder in. Ahhhhhh... Good pony!!!
SO.... I must remember to focus on those things and get Flecks legs underneath him. He's a "table" and in order to stand up straight, all four legs must be underneath him. :)
After dressage lessons, Fleck and Grant got a break in Julies new paddocks while Karen and I went for lunch and shopping. Fun!!! I was a little bad and bought a few things... a cute t-shirt, a chifney bit for Dan (muhhuahuahhaa!!), and a pair of navy gloves. And since my zipper broke on my safety vest, Mike said he'd buy me a new one, so I got one of those. Then it was back to the barn for jumping.
Fleck was a total butt!! I don't know when he decided to go back to being so herdbound... He's never to the point where's dangerous, or trying to get me off.. it's just he's distracted and giraffe shaped. It was really frustrating, so we ended up having Karen join us. As Julie pointed out.. he wasn't winning, but.. I was paying for a lesson, it would be nice if he could cooperate and rather than fight and get frustrated... So Karen was a good sport and joined in. We did a neat grid exercise from Linda Allen, a top show jumper. It's basically a circle of fences... no distances, no specifics other than some skinnies. One was a bounce (that one was measured). The goal was to jump, land, turn or do a transition, jump, land, turn/transition, and on. And most of the jumping was done from the trot. The point was that after doing that a few times, the horses learned to listen for the whisper to see where to go and the riders got quiet and still. In other words, you got MORE out of your horse by doing LESS. It was pretty cool. Grant got a bit more energized which he needed, and Fleck got more settled, which he needed. We first started by walk to trot to walk to halt transitions with just our leg and core, no hands. Fleck's actually pretty darn good at those, but I need to keep my leg on to keep it from being so abrupt. Then we added in some jumps. Egads... it was kind of a disaster at first. I took my leg off, jumped up his neck, he was bolting, getting behind my leg. BUT... as we continued on, things improved dramatically. I learned to keep my leg on, even when he was being fast, and to stay with him. He learned to wait and listen for my very soft aids. It was LOVELY when we nailed it. We were even able to trot in, canter out... think walk mid line but not walk (instead balancing the canter), and then float on softly and out over the line. We were able to do (on the second attempt.. bad me!) a nice softly leg yielding s curve skinny to skinny. And I found out.. that when I just waited for the jump to come to me... or rode the trot/canter until we ran out of trot/canter AND kept my leg on... my hands behaved. When I took my leg off is when I noticed I started to row, or pop him in the mouth, or drop him. It was pretty cool. The exercise also involved lots of tight turns and rollbacks so it made you keep them on the outside aids and it became clear when they weren't. The other thing Julie pointed out was to reward the horse and not punish him when it was my fault. I obviously couldn't get Fleck to land on the left lead... so when he jumped nicely, or bailed me out... if I asked for the left lead (or didn't bother asking) and we landed on the right.... I was to continue to the right, rather than punish Fleck by running him over to the left lead. She also said to practice landing on the left lead over small non-punishing jumps, or poles even. BUT... if I was balanced and able to bring my outside (right) leg back, he landed on the left lead. :) .....
It's simple!! It's just not easy. :)
FUN day!!! I'm looking forward to tomorrow!
No comments:
Post a Comment