Wednesday, May 20, 2009

5/19 Lesson - Inspiration

Warmed Ransom up, and jumped on pretty quickly. Before my lesson began, we worked on a solid amount of collected walk, a little light trot, and a tiny set of canters. At the trot, as long as his neck was low, I left the reins really loose. When he'd toss his head up, I was right back on contact, waiting on the relaxation. At the canter, I focused on myself, pushing him forward into the strides, making sure he was actually going to canter in my lesson.

For the lesson, I showed Jen most of the things from my BRM lesson that I could remember. Elbow -not wrist- for moving the bit and getting flexion at the poll. Sitting underneath myself, pushing forward with rein & leg. Ransom collected himself beautifully at the trot, and even a little at canter.

After demonstrating all I knew from BRM, we focused on transitions walk to trot, and a few light sets at canter. Again, some of the transitions were beyond ugly, and a handful were very nice.

Total lesson (including warmup) was about 1hr 20minutes. Ransom didn't seem incredibly tired, but a little wore out, which was to be expected. We did a lot of collection work, and now that Jen and I know what he's capable of, I fear the big bay monster will be doing much more of this work in the months to come.

Homework.. hmm.. homework. Darn ! I honestly don't remember.. I'm sure Jen will pop in here soon to read, and will comment on what I'm supposed to be doing that I don't remember. *grin*

2 comments:

Yankecwgrl said...

ok, bad me for not getting here sooner!
Transitions I think would be great homework, and pushing him a little past his comfort zone, right? When he THINKS he's done, make him work a little longer.
He seems to be getting habbits very quickly, so work on not always asking/doing the same thing in the same spot......sound good? Shoot me an email if ya have questions!

Jennifer said...

Thank you ma'am.