Effortless
We--me and Clover, that is--had an awesome lesson. Fall is really Clover's time of the year; the temperature has fallen, the bugs are gone, her itches have stopped, her hair has stopped shedding, her cycling has chilled out, so the riding gets better. More energy.
I've missed the previous two weeks of lessons because of the cold I had, then the truck's brake lines had to be replaced, so I was a little nervous and tense warming up. I always feel like I need to perform well in lessons, to minimize mistakes to show that I've been applying myself in between, even though Michele is always telling me if we were already all perfect riders, we'd all be in the Olympics. So Michele told me to relax my lower leg and get my heel out of Clover's side, otherwise we'd get back into the nagging/tuning out aids cycle.
So I'm not freaking out about warm up any more, it's warm up, I have to do it and use that time to figure out how to get Clover forward and listening to me with a minimum of fuss and resistance. It's teaching me to be really clear about the aids, and also to not panic or stress out, to just deal with it. It's just something we'll always have to do--no horse comes out of the box ready to piaffe, right? So, it's getting better. Something that's helped me outside of lessons is going back to spiralling in and out of circles at the trot, I know I mentioned it recently, but that exercise really gets everything together for me, aids, contact, and gets me organized for other work.
I told Michele that I stopped doing the flexion exercises she wanted me to work on, I was overfocusing on them and starting doing them incorrectly. She told me to just do a smaller flexion to one side, back to the center, then focus on a flexion to the other side, not just go back and forth. The point is to gradually reduce the request to flex to a bare finger motion. It actually was better last night, but I had wanted Michele to see what I was doing before I tried any more.
As we've worked through this year, Clover's issue has gone from having a weak left hind to diving in on her right shoulder. I've gone from having to carry the whip mostly in my left hand to my right hand, so I can tap the right shoulder if I need to. To keep Clover from tanking me around corners, Michele had me trot right up to the wall and halt with Clover's nose resting right on the wall, execute a gymnastic right turn, and trot off again to halt at the next wall. The first few times, Clover tried to wiggle out of the halt so she could keep going around the turn to the right, so our halts were much less than square, and our turns out of them were far less than gymnastic. But then as I got organized, they became square and the turns more fluid.
Michele had me ride around the arena, deep into the corners, and Clover made nice turns, off of her inside shoulder, with slack, no, elasticity in the rein. Woo! From there we did some canter work. Ever since I got the Isabell, the canter work has gotten much better. It's the first saddle with a deep seat that I've ever liked, or been able to ride in. I guess I'm ready for it or something. The canter work was pretty good, Clover was in the contact, I actually had to use some uphill half halts! We did some spiralling in and out of the circle, and a couple of canters down the diagonal to X, trot to the next corner and pick up the new lead in the new direction. I think those were the most accurate changes of rein at the canter I've ever ridden.
It turned out to be one of the best rides I've ever had. After cantering to the left--which is still the more difficult direction, I still need to work on fine tuning the half-halts so they don't become down transitions--Michele had me do some sitting trot, and that's when everything came, or actually, stayed, together. We were doing 3 loop serpentines, then going up the quarterline and leg yielding to the wall and starting another serpentine, and it was taking me barely any effort, in fact, if I did too much, the leg yield turned into a haunches-leading mess. Keeping Clover forward took no effort, riding the serpentines, going up the quarterlines and doing the leg yields only took so much effort as to think how much aid to use to bend or seat--that's right, seat! I experienced effortless. Me! The crap kick and yank rider.
So, the dilemma becomes, how do my hands and feet survive the cold so I can keep Clover going enough to not go backwards this winter? I just want to maintain, but I don't want to suffer like I have in past winters. I need electric gloves. I have the heater packs and winter riding boots. It's the hands I need to keep warm, so they don't become claws.
I've missed the previous two weeks of lessons because of the cold I had, then the truck's brake lines had to be replaced, so I was a little nervous and tense warming up. I always feel like I need to perform well in lessons, to minimize mistakes to show that I've been applying myself in between, even though Michele is always telling me if we were already all perfect riders, we'd all be in the Olympics. So Michele told me to relax my lower leg and get my heel out of Clover's side, otherwise we'd get back into the nagging/tuning out aids cycle.
So I'm not freaking out about warm up any more, it's warm up, I have to do it and use that time to figure out how to get Clover forward and listening to me with a minimum of fuss and resistance. It's teaching me to be really clear about the aids, and also to not panic or stress out, to just deal with it. It's just something we'll always have to do--no horse comes out of the box ready to piaffe, right? So, it's getting better. Something that's helped me outside of lessons is going back to spiralling in and out of circles at the trot, I know I mentioned it recently, but that exercise really gets everything together for me, aids, contact, and gets me organized for other work.
I told Michele that I stopped doing the flexion exercises she wanted me to work on, I was overfocusing on them and starting doing them incorrectly. She told me to just do a smaller flexion to one side, back to the center, then focus on a flexion to the other side, not just go back and forth. The point is to gradually reduce the request to flex to a bare finger motion. It actually was better last night, but I had wanted Michele to see what I was doing before I tried any more.
As we've worked through this year, Clover's issue has gone from having a weak left hind to diving in on her right shoulder. I've gone from having to carry the whip mostly in my left hand to my right hand, so I can tap the right shoulder if I need to. To keep Clover from tanking me around corners, Michele had me trot right up to the wall and halt with Clover's nose resting right on the wall, execute a gymnastic right turn, and trot off again to halt at the next wall. The first few times, Clover tried to wiggle out of the halt so she could keep going around the turn to the right, so our halts were much less than square, and our turns out of them were far less than gymnastic. But then as I got organized, they became square and the turns more fluid.
Michele had me ride around the arena, deep into the corners, and Clover made nice turns, off of her inside shoulder, with slack, no, elasticity in the rein. Woo! From there we did some canter work. Ever since I got the Isabell, the canter work has gotten much better. It's the first saddle with a deep seat that I've ever liked, or been able to ride in. I guess I'm ready for it or something. The canter work was pretty good, Clover was in the contact, I actually had to use some uphill half halts! We did some spiralling in and out of the circle, and a couple of canters down the diagonal to X, trot to the next corner and pick up the new lead in the new direction. I think those were the most accurate changes of rein at the canter I've ever ridden.
It turned out to be one of the best rides I've ever had. After cantering to the left--which is still the more difficult direction, I still need to work on fine tuning the half-halts so they don't become down transitions--Michele had me do some sitting trot, and that's when everything came, or actually, stayed, together. We were doing 3 loop serpentines, then going up the quarterline and leg yielding to the wall and starting another serpentine, and it was taking me barely any effort, in fact, if I did too much, the leg yield turned into a haunches-leading mess. Keeping Clover forward took no effort, riding the serpentines, going up the quarterlines and doing the leg yields only took so much effort as to think how much aid to use to bend or seat--that's right, seat! I experienced effortless. Me! The crap kick and yank rider.
So, the dilemma becomes, how do my hands and feet survive the cold so I can keep Clover going enough to not go backwards this winter? I just want to maintain, but I don't want to suffer like I have in past winters. I need electric gloves. I have the heater packs and winter riding boots. It's the hands I need to keep warm, so they don't become claws.
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