Look Ma, No Stirrups!

I think I have finally discovered a formula that works well for riding on the week nights.  When I get home, I'm usually pretty tired, and it's still rather hot, so I sit around on the computer for a while until it cools down.  Tonight, instead of doing that, I curled up on the couch and took a brief nap.  Wouldn't you know it, when I woke up, I wasn't tired any more.  I went out and saddled up Zigs not quite sure what I was going to work on. I toyed around with the idea of setting up a few jumps or trot poles, but since Saga's mom might be coming over this weekend, and since I'm still pretty green at jumping, I like to do it when there's somebody more experienced to watch me and let me know if I'm doing something wrong. So I opted for flat work. I spent most of my warm up trying to figure out what I wanted to concentrate on, and I finally decided that I'd work on sitting trot without stirrups, since it's been a while since I last worked on it.

It went pretty well, although not in the ways you may think. For the most part, I kept my position, and was able to stay with him, although by sitting the trot, I was able to discover a couple of subtle problems I've probably been having for quite some time now, but didn't really notice since I'd spent so much time doing posting trot.

1. Zigs has a nasty habit of speeding up when I point him back towards the trailer


2. My half halts in sitting trot aren't very effective. No, I have no idea why.


3. I'm doing something that causes me to occasionally bounce out of the saddle to the outside.

That being said, I have made significant progress since the last time I performed this particular exercise. I can sit a much bigger, bouncier trot than I used to be able to, and I was able to maintain my position. It went so well, in fact that I decided to do a few trot/canter transitions without stirrups. Those went considerably rougher. I started out on the left rein, since that's Zigs' easier lead. For reasons I can't figure out, when I gave my canter transition, I got a really fast trot that I had some trouble bringing back down. But rather than get frustrated, I kept working at it. Eventually, when I finally stopped thinking about it, and just did it, I got a good canter depart. Ziggy made it clear that he wanted to go off to the races, but I half-halted for everything I was worth, and managed to keep him in a forward, but sane working canter. After a few canter circles, I dropped backdown to walk and changed reins. My downward transitions from canter still suck. I keep totally forgetting to ride once I get the trot transition. Let's call that item #273 on the list of things to fix. ;) The right rein went pretty much exactly the same way. I kept at it until I got a nice canter transition, and walked Zigs out. All in all, it was a good ride, and it was nice to see some progress in the sitting trot. To be honest, I've lately been feeling sort of stagnant as far as my riding progress goes. But hopefully, by the end of the year I'll have a new job, so I'll be back in lessons. Until then, I'll just need to be patient.