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.

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.