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Feb. 19th, 2011 11:19 pmReally good lesson today - points to think about were 1. keeping the shoulders straight and the neck between the reins- basically, no bulging. Think about the line I want to ride and keep the shoulders on it (one on each side of my line). 2. Rolling canter.
We had a challenging but fun exercise- example- tracking right, start going across the diagonal, but at X, circle left 10 meters, and then, instead of continuing on the diagonal, head to the opposite corner (so that your figure would sort of look like a V with a circle at the point of the V) and keep tracking right. Letter-wise it goes K to X, circle at X, X to H. That way you get right bend through the corner and off the track to the diagonal, left bend for the circle, then right bend back onto the track and through the corner. Then to make it more bendalicious, we did circle right 10m in the corner, then start across the diagonal, circle left 10 m, on to opposite corner, circle right 10m. Then, to add the final twist, after that we did canter, circle right 20 m, then back to trot, and repeat the whole sequence in the next corner.
Red mare was pretty awesome at this- she was really interested in it but not stressed (attention without tension!). It gave us some awesome balance and evenness- she was balanced laterally and longitudinally. We also did some nice downwards, where we rode into the trot, instead of just breaking from the canter.
After that I did some so-so lateral work- she was good, I was a little stuck someplace so that it wasn't quite where it could have been. Cantered right- not bad, though not as quality as while we were doing all the circles. Canter left- very good, she gave me her back and was soft, unhurried, and quiet. Right again- and trainer calls out "Think of a rolling canter" and something clicked and we had a rolling canter. It was pretty big, and a little fast, but very very good quality- it started at her hind legs, rolled up over a raised back, through her body, and cycled right back through to start again.
We had a challenging but fun exercise- example- tracking right, start going across the diagonal, but at X, circle left 10 meters, and then, instead of continuing on the diagonal, head to the opposite corner (so that your figure would sort of look like a V with a circle at the point of the V) and keep tracking right. Letter-wise it goes K to X, circle at X, X to H. That way you get right bend through the corner and off the track to the diagonal, left bend for the circle, then right bend back onto the track and through the corner. Then to make it more bendalicious, we did circle right 10m in the corner, then start across the diagonal, circle left 10 m, on to opposite corner, circle right 10m. Then, to add the final twist, after that we did canter, circle right 20 m, then back to trot, and repeat the whole sequence in the next corner.
Red mare was pretty awesome at this- she was really interested in it but not stressed (attention without tension!). It gave us some awesome balance and evenness- she was balanced laterally and longitudinally. We also did some nice downwards, where we rode into the trot, instead of just breaking from the canter.
After that I did some so-so lateral work- she was good, I was a little stuck someplace so that it wasn't quite where it could have been. Cantered right- not bad, though not as quality as while we were doing all the circles. Canter left- very good, she gave me her back and was soft, unhurried, and quiet. Right again- and trainer calls out "Think of a rolling canter" and something clicked and we had a rolling canter. It was pretty big, and a little fast, but very very good quality- it started at her hind legs, rolled up over a raised back, through her body, and cycled right back through to start again.
