Lesson 9 - Canter up, not out

Another lovely day outside, I know they will be coming to an end soon.  Today we practiced transitions within the gait, at the trot.  We rode a large circle and pushed him out then spiraled in and as the circle got smaller I asked him for a more collected trot.  The tempo changed a bit with both transitions but he was definitely shortening and lengthening his stride.  We are asking for more than we did in the last lesson, asking him to hold the collection and lengthening longer, until his holds it himself.  He is accepting the bit really well and has almost stopped chewing on it.  He now saves that for when he is really irritated, or tired, or irritated because he's tired.

The canter work made a big breakthrough in this lesson.  We have been working on tempo and impulsion for so long we finally were ready to start some collection work.  In the past Dexter was so stressed by the canter that as soon as I softened and asked him to come back he would break, he is finally moving well enough that we can bring him back, which is super exciting as it was driving me crazy letting him canter around with his nose sticking out.  We did the collection work on the circle, pushing him on then working his head to bring it in and giving him half halts with the outside rein.  He seemed to get it better going to the left.  But all of a sudden I could feel the difference, he was jumping up instead of reaching out with his front legs.  We did the same going to the right, a little more difficult as he is still unbalanced and doesn't want to turn.

Then one of our more awesome moments (in my option anyway) happened.  We went to work on the canter on the straight away, and coming back down the long side going to the left I did a teeny tiny bit of shoulder-fore and he just cantered along, not speeding up not lenghtening, not falling on his forehand, it was amazing.  Granted we didn't hold if for long but I was so proud of him.

We finished the lesson working on the sitting trot... why do we always have to finish with that?  This time she made me focus on swinging my hips with his back, it helped a little.  I still have to stick out my tongue to really concentrate on everything and I know I'm still trying to hold on with my thighs.  I just hate the bouncing, I feel like I'm not helping him at all, but he does do a really nice trot at the sitting trot so I must not look as bad as it feels.  Still we will work on it, I used to love the sitting trot, I hate posting, so I'm so glad I'm allowed to now.