First Week of May so far - Catch Up

Not lazy, just multi tasking. The longer I put these off, the farther behind I'm going to get. The farther behind I get, the more I'm going to regret not catching up sooner. So, here's the first three days after the show, in hi-speed.. Go!

5/2/11 - Romeo and I rode the Julie Goodnight Lesson #2 audio. I listened, gave commands, he obeyed. Well, mostly. All but the whole "canter on command", which became the 5/3 homework.

5/3/11 - Romeo. See above. Enter Speed Racer. I gave him a proper warmup, and his walk work was good. His trot work was good. Transition into canter? First time, squeeze. No response. Second time, kick hard and kiss. Suddenly, he was ready to obey me. We didn't canter far before I slowed to trot, and asked again. Only a squeeze and a kiss. Nice... Much better... Unfortunately, he then thought canter meant near gallop. Romeo stayed in the gait as long as I let him, but was speedily zipping around the arena. Go Speed Racer, Go!

Harley - Tacked him up dressage. He rode nicely in the tack. Very nicely. No rushing, no avoiding my seat contact, steady trot. I stayed mostly loose rein, just to encourage forward, and a nice, relaxing "uber seat contact" ride experience for him.

5/4/11 - Harley. Pretty good. Rode dressage, and asked for a little flex give to bit. Harley didn't want any part of that for the first good while, and then he suddenly remembered what he was supposed to do, and eased his neck down, poll in. Good Job!

Romeo - Less Speedy, More Responsive. He was stopping with his head in the sky, so we backed up a lot. Turn on forehand, turn on haunches, side pass. Backed circles in both direction. Back to trot, back to canter. Heading into canter was much easier, heading out he was easily slowed to a pleasure jog. Good deal.

Tonight is Harley only. Much more of the same. Perhaps very soon I'll slide my rear into my western saddle again, and get him up into cantering. I'm not in a super big hurry, but as long as he will fully trot out on a loose rein, no reason I can't start playing with his canter. Trot collected is going to take a long time, and I don't want to wait on canter until his trot is perfect.

The week of 6/ 21

The week of Ransom. *giggle* Yeah, that's a little cocky, isn't it? :)

I rode Tuesday & Thursday. Tuesday Jen and I bundled up a sweet little lesson. I gathered a few things --
Never repeat the same pattern of riding gaits & orders more than twice with that horse. He gets in a habit, and then gets crabby when the pattern is broken. We rode mostly canter work Tuesday. Is his canter bad? No... but he was in a habit of "Canter & done", which needed fixing.
Keep the reins super super short. Don't let him think for even a moment that he's breaking until he's really done.

Thursday, I took a vacation day from work. For this, I rode very early in the morning. The air was still humid & overwhelming. He was a good ride - nothing spectacular, but nothing terrible either. I rode the entire arena, which is something I'm trying to do more of. Can't ride a dressage test just on a circle, so I have been taking whatever improvements I can get on the rail and on circles in other spots in the arena.

Saturday, we all loaded up super early, and departed the house at 5am. We were heading to a new show barn, all our gear in-tow. Bring on the Show! =)

5/20/10 Julie Goodnight Lesson #2

JG posted a Facebook link to her audio lessons with a discount. I was thinking about ordering, so I did. Here’s a capture & review of CD #2’s riding lesson. I rode it first, because while the downloads worked to my MP3 player, it didn’t recognize the IDs stuck on CD#1. Well enough.. Let’s get on with it.

It starts out with about five minutes of safety reminders & disclaimers. Probably the most entertaining remark involved “having the ability to ride your horse.” Okay, if you bought a riding audio lesson, and you’re lunging? Anyways..

The audio moves along to the actual lesson. Good, solid, warm up with a long time at the walk. The walk works through circles and straights, even down the diagonal once. Julie always reminds “Ear, shoulder, hip & heel”. Here, I made one neat discovery – I can feel Ransom’s inside back muscles lift in the walk. That was cool!

Progress to the rising trot. Julie wastes no time with circles and direction changes. There’s about three to four circles each way. But don’t get comfortable at the rising trot, because after nearly one trip around my arena, the audio calls for a sitting trot. Here is where I will get my “workout” in the lesson. I was listening to the audio for direction changes and body position reminders, but I also was pushing for a nice forward sitting trot in the background.

She then allows the horse to take a walk break. Here, I got a little disappointed. She introduces that “the canter is coming” in almost a dreadful voice, like it’s the “Big bad monster Canter! Oh No!” Goodness! For the disclaimers at the beginning “You must be able to ride at the walk, trot, and canter to continue in this audio lesson”, why make the canter sound so daunting? She even consoles riders afraid to canter that “you can continue this part of the lesson at the trot if you don’t want to canter.” Um, duh.

The canter part of the audio? Short! I got about a dozen strides of canter out of Ransom, followed by one canter circle, then back to trot. A few transitions in and out of canter from trot, but those come with about 6 strides. Change direction, repeat.

And the lesson ends about there. Bring the horse back to a walk, pat him, pat yourself, good ride!

It’s short… And I expected short, but I expected more intensity than I’ve been riding. I usually spend more time at canter, and less at trot. If the trot carries well, I push to canter. Shoot, if the trot feels lethargic, I push to canter, which usually picks the trot up nicely. I hoped for a more intense ride.

On the upside, this will serve as a great “refresher” ride, and will give Ransom and me a focused ride of low impact.