February 13, 2011

Group lesson! Yay!

I can't thank you enough for participating in this lesson. I felt it went really well, and I am excited for more in the future. I was nervous about how to make it all work, but I felt everyone did a great job. I'd have liked to do about 10-15 more minutes, but because of the warmth, Dillon was already pretty sweaty!

Because you shared this lesson, I just wanted to work on the basics. Gait development can do nothing but help, and I thought you achieved some great work in the trot and canter transitions today. I thought it was good that you had a little warmup to begin with and then we started the lesson. This will be wonderful for when we begin introducing lateral work (and expecting it to be stronger). The faster we can warm him up and condition him to that level, the easier the rest will come. We didn't get to much lateral work because of the time constraint, but I felt that you did a great job of showing how he's sticky to the right (and then we fixed it, yay!)

Your position was strong today. A little bit of added pressure with a photographer and being videod probably helped. Let your ideas be as strong as your position. Don't be afraid to ask, tell, demand. He makes you keep asking every time... he's training you to let him be lazy, but that's not going to fly for much longer if you'd like to accomplish 2nd level. You're almost there with these concepts, and I saw them start to bleed out today (good thing, bad analogy). Quicker, stronger corrections are okay once you KNOW you've established something. Maybe I'll just have to start growling at you ;)

Now, for using technology to our advantage, a few remarks on some of the photos Leah took. I'm hoping that seeing the photos and actually analyzing them will help. Not a lot of riders use photos to see what their horse is telling them, so don't take offense and don't let my feedback detract from your good ride; but as always, we went to make it better and I'm here to help :)

This photo is pretty good; it was from the warm up stage and you can see that by a little bit more EQUAL loading of the diagonal front/hind. Ideally we want to see the hind end loading first or more than the forehand; this tells us he's traveling in an uphill balance. With your position, I'd push your hands forward and close the elbows - but this doesn't mean clamp. A loose elbow and an effective leg will allow you to be more upright like this one below:

See the difference? Now, I'd love for your lower leg to be a little more forward but here it's your outside leg, so I'm not going to harp all that much. Your hands are more even and he's traveling nicely. Finding your spine in the saddle will help you engage from a stronger half halt. I'd also love you just a little further back in the post, more upright, but again, here's where you have to argue that it's a still frame and not a video.

In this photo, I see where you're making those concessions with your position to help him. This is where he's training you - it's a lot more work to carry you instead of let you help him with more weight to the forehand. It's not a hard thing for him to put his head down, it's hard to carry all of that on his hind legs. So, letting your position become more upright and your leg be long will help to train this more effectively.


Hope this helps. More later, promise!

LD

February 12, 2011

GREAT job today!

Blue likes to start out stiff and a little short behind - he's old, we get it - so encourage him to stretch early on and keep the suppleness as you ask him to stay light off your leg aids and through the bridle. Work to establish a strong outside rein, and when he allows, raise the hand so that the rein and bit are talking to his lips instead of the bars of his mouth. This in itself takes some training of the horse, but soon he'll figure out it's much more comfortable!

Good work with control of the shoulders today. The inside flexion stayed and was much easier to attain - several times I even had to say let the neck stretch out. The square exercise was a good one for you two, however it lost its clarity around the corners. Part of this was traffic, but the element that is important to maintain is accuracy. So, make sure that if the exercise is corner-shoulder in-straighten-corner, that you are just as deliberate about the straightening as you are about the angle and topline through the shoulder in. The last piece down the rail was BEAUTIFUL and would have marked well in a test. Remember, short, correct pieces are better than longer, strung out ones.

In the walk-canter transitions, I saw some REALLY wonderful improvement today. To the...right? (I think??) he really worked for you when you were able to control all aspects of him. Managing the shoulders, the flexion, the frame, and the correct lead are all little pieces in the big picture and I know when you're both learning this can be especially difficult. I had you lower and widen your hands several times in order to help him with this, and it worked very well to show him how to come a little longer in the neck and active from the hind leg. The left (second direction) was a little stiffer, and he used the trot-steps evasion more in between the canter walk and walk canter, but this is normal. One, he was probably tired, and two, the old dog is learning new tricks, so give him some credit :)

As far as your position, I would say that in your shoulder-in work, you must mirror the angle you'd like more with your shoulders and keep the leg long. In the canter, make Blue respond to an outside leg that is a few inches behind the girth - though you are wonderfully flexible, touching him in the flank is a little too much of an aid :)

Overall, I felt today went wonderfully. The gaits are really starting to develop, and some of the canter today was show-ring quality. I am excited for your progression and I think we will start using more lateral work here fairly shortly to see what we can't knock out this show season.

Love the new saddle!

LD

February 4

Dillon:

I saw great progress during this lesson! Dillon was throwing a little spook at you in Rowland, but you did a great job of learning how to cope. His mentality and breeding make him a little hotter like this, so you can expect that tiny issues like this may crop up in unfamiliar environments like a show, so knowing how to deal with it (in a classy, subtle manner) is an EXCELLENT skill!

I saw your efforts to correct the impulsion behind were much faster - before I could say it, I saw that you'd developed the feel in order to correct it yourself. This is AWESOME, because chances are I can't talk fast enough to tell you when you need to do it anyway - a correction aid two strides late isn't very effective.

We started to make the shoulder in really work for you in this lesson. By staying off the track, the outside hind had to keep working. I made you think about that outside hind by asking for a little bit of shoulder-in to half-pass at the walk. I did this INSTEAD of the haunches-in because he will tend to use this as an evasion in the canter, and we'd rather him be shoulder-fore or even straight in order to strengthen him from behind.

As far as the canter work, the last few minutes were where I saw the best canter (go figure - this is normal for this stage of training though!). You did a better job of ensuring that he kept his frame in the up transition, but be sure that once you KNOW he's taking the lead, ask him for an extended canter. REALLY exaggerate it! He's willing to give you one OR the other; the frame or a ground covering stride. You want both. Don't be afraid to ask for it! If he pulls, we talked about an effective half halt through the shoulder blades to correct it.

Dillon also tends to fall into his down transitions, and give up when he comes into the walk. Training him early to truly respect what you're asking for is important. Correcting him with a -tap tap- if he wants to be rude about yanking - we can't have him ripping the reins away in the middle of a free walk, or when you try and pick him back up!

This was a great lesson, and you two both worked hard but accomplished a lot!

Sunday January 31

Hannah!

I hope this provides an easy way for you to reach and check on the feedback from our lessons. I will do my best to update this as soon after every ride, but in case I am late, the title of the post will be the day the lesson was given. Since this is between you and I, please ask if you have any questions regarding shorthand if you catch anything that is hard to understand. These are just the basics, and include any factors that I feel effected the ride, both positive and negative. This may or may not include rides in class, but definitely all tech lessons outside of class will be recorded.


Blue: Aiming to work in a consistent frame which remains supple and uphill in transitions both up and down through the gaits. Always carrying more forward with a quicker hind leg in order to achieve better gaits, transitions, and carrying power. Establishing an honest reaction to the aids: a messy reaction to the leg is still the correct answer if he went forward! Rider positioning needs to focus on sitting in the tack, letting the horse respect the seat and the appropriate suppleness through the bridle. Elbows up, inside rein indirect across the neck if necessary to keep flexion against a solid outside rein.

Dillon: think QUICK from the hind leg! Ride excited to get what you want! Bigger steps into the canter, looking for a more supple, swinging trot. Using haunches-in, shoulder-in on a circle in order to achieve balanced, correct canter lead. No mistakes today using these exercises, knowing Dillon is sticky to the right lead.

Good efforts in these two lessons! Rowland was incredibly crowded so it took some finesse to find circles and paths appropriate to the exercise. Know that sometimes you have to do an exercize right then even if it won't be pretty ; the idea will set in and will develop into what you are trying to achieve but this will rarely happen on the first try. Don't be afraid to make these mistakes - just don't make them twice. This is where the training of Blue and Dillon will help to establish what you'll need in the ring. If on your own, something particular isn't grooving the right way, save it for a lesson with me and we'll either work to correct it or find something else.