Lessons 2-4ish

Being that I started these lessons back in August and am just not getting around to documenting them, I don't exactly remember when each lesson occurred and what we learned in each, but here will be my attempt to sum up what we've learned so far and what exercises we have been given.

We continued to work on forward, pushing Dexter out to the bit.  When he still got deep behind the bit I used my inside rein to lift him up, correcting him instead of rewarding him with no contact. We stayed on the circle for a few lessons, then started doing straight work.  We then found out that Dexter doesn't like to go straight, or at least he isn't used to it.  We did some straight to curve exercises to help him with his balance from that transition at the trot.  One exercise was to go around the arena and do a 10-15 meter circle at RSV&P.  Another was to trot down the center line, 10 meter circle one way at I and 10 meter circle the other way at L.  Eventually I could feel that instead of pulling Dexter around the circle I was pushing him.

We worked a lot on getting his body lined up on the bend.  He was very good at avoiding the bend by either swinging his hip out of popping his shoulder out.  At this point we didn't focus on contact much, just balance.

At the canter we continued with forward movement.  And also with straight lines vs circles, although we didn't do 15 meter circles we did more of an egg shape around the arena.  Dexter still allowed his back end to fall behind on the straight away, causing him to use his front end more and really run hard.  He went around the arena with his head up and back end way behind him, I'm sure it was a pretty sight, but the majority of the work was to get him fit so we could start to shape the canter.  He went from being able to do half a circle before having to break to being able to do several eggs. 

We also worked on stretching down at the beginning and end of every lesson.