Lesson Dec.8th - Training Journal Entry #7

Well today was overall a great lesson - after we worked out some kinks.... 

We warmed up walk trot on a very loose rein and just kind of worked on settling without getting in there faces.

It was really fun because my instructor rode with us, I've seen her ride and compete so many times but I always forget just how good she is. It's also always a good learning experience to actually be able to have her show us what she's talking about.

After we warmed up walk trot, we did a very similar exercise to the one that we did last week, a serpentine with trot poles. The first part was two trot poles at the bottom of the ring and he did them very well then we went across the middle of the ring and changed our bend over a single pole, then wrapped around to trot a small 18'' vertical at the top of the ring and then came back though the single pole in the middle and then over the the two at the bottom of the ring.

At this point we were not riding it well at all and my instructor told me to just come trot a circle in the center of the ring and then had me walk.

She told me my upper body was coming forward and I kept crossing my hand over his neck and it was causing his shoulder to bulge out to the left. She told me to try and keep my hips and shoulders open so I could stay taller and to really focus on not crossing my hand over his neck, she also said to slow my posting and do very soft half halts each time I posted she showed me what I was doing wrong and how I could fix it. She demonstrated on Beau how when she crosses her inside hand over he instantly dropped his left shoulder and he went sideways where-as when she help contact with her right hand opened a bit more to the inside he was soft and had a beautiful circle, same with the leaning forward. 

After that I did my circle again and used all my brainpower to work on doing all the things she said. He felt AMAZING!!!

 I guess I just always kind of rode without even thinking about my position to much because it worked for Brooks and Cyrus, now that I'm on Sindri he's fixing my riding, and not that it was bad before but he's going to make me a much better rider!!! 

After we worked on all that we got to do some jumping, we did a cross rail one stride line coming towards the barn twice and the twice away from the barn with the second jump put up.

With the jump being put up it felt like we were flying, he naturally over jumps everything (unless we're trotting a cross rail) so it felt like he cleared the standard. 

First time

Second time

I LOVE this picture!!!

Thank you Jennie for this AMAZING picture of us jumping!! (I'm very obsessed with this picture right now)

Each ride gets me more and more excited for what's going to come in the future and I can't wait!!