Witty title to be added later

Ahh,... a three day weekend ahead of me, and you can bet that there will be much riding.  Hoping to get things off to a good start, I tacked up Zigs.  I started out trying a bit of spiral in and spiral out on the circle, and was reasonably successful, but I wasn't strong enough with my outside rein and leg, so there were a couple circles that were more egg shaped.  I also tried a couple of turns on the forehand.  Those went considerably better.  I still have trouble walking into and out of them, but if I start from the halt, they go considerably better.  Since Ziggy is an OTTB, left is always easier than right.  I think from now on, I'm going to start by doing turns on the forehand to make sure that both of my legs are working, and that he's listening to them.  And, I'll make sure to do lots of them on the right rein. ;)  I also did some leg yields, and those actually went pretty well.  I'm having more success at keeping him from just popping his shoulder out and walking, rather than crossing his back feet.  All in all, the walk work we did went pretty well.

Then it was time for trot.  The good news is that I'm getting pretty proficient at sitting Zig's trot, and I actually had to let my stirrups down a hole. (yes, my heels were down). The bad news is that yet again, I had trouble with my downward transitions.  Zigs was also speeding up when we turned towards the barn, and my attempts to rate him with my seat really weren't working that well.  Unfortunately, my patience was not with me tonight (Bad week at work.) and rather than actually trying to figure out what I was doing that wasn't working, I went back to walking.  Now that I've had a chance to decompress and reflect, I realize that I was either just relaxing, which allowed him to just keep going on his merry way, or in an attempt to make a "brick wall" to slow him down, I was really just turning into a total sack of potatoes and bouncing all over the place.  The visualization I use when my down transitions have been good is that I turn my core into a set of really stiff springs that are in their stretched state during the "up" beat, and in their neutral state on the down beat.  When I ride tomorrow, I'll make sure to reinforce that image before I start trotting, so that it's fresh in my mind when I go to transition downward.  But, back to tonight's ride.  

After I'd had my fill of trotting for the day, I decided I'd try to do some canter work.  As has been typical lately, my up transition to canter was only about 40% effective.  When I worked with The Oracle last weekend, I uncovered several problems with my canter transition: 1) I tend to set my inside rein so that he can't have his head to come up and through for the depart. 2) I don't get my outside leg back so that I can "scoop" him up with my inside seat bone, and 3) I'm curling up my upper body, which totally negates what my seat's saying.  I think it's time to go back to the trusty longe line for a while to sort that out. 

Tomorrow, I will most likely ride Sonata in the morning, and then ride Zigs in the evening.   Of course, there will be a full report tomorrow night.  I know this entry isn't exactly the most coherent, but it's been a long week, and I'm a little tired. ;)