In Which a Strategem is Discovered

The third blog post in a row! (Well, fourth, if you count the video I posted today). This whole blogging thing may well be verging on becoming a habit. In the spirit of learning from yesterday's lessons, I changed up my approach to my rides today. Since I had to run to the grocery store, and was rather tired today, I was sorely tempted just to ride one horse or the other.

At least, until I remembered something L taught me at the clinic this weekend: A riding session doesn't have to be an hour long. You can go as little as 20 minutes as long as you go in with a plan, and are focused. That's exactly what I did, and it worked really well.

As is my usual preference, I rode Shadow first. The plan was to work on my hands, and keep Shadow stretching in the walk and trot. That's it. forcing myself to only concentrate on two things seems to have been the magic bullet. While I was more conscious of Shadow stretching and me keeping my hands up, it seemed that the other elements of my positioning that I need to fix just sort of fell into place. Moreover, I noticed that when things would fall out of place I could feel when it became "wrong". I would then quickly divert my attention to fixing the issue, and then go back to stretching Shadow and watching my hands. I did spiral in/spiral out on the circle, leg yield, voltes with lengthening and shortening strides and a little bit of shoulder in. They weren't all perfect by any means, but Shadow was very willing, and did a good job of stretching when asked. There are two questions about stretching that I want to ask a trainer the next time I'm in front of one.

1. When Shadow will stretch, after a couple of steps, he'll pick up his head and take away contact. Is that a strength thing, or an evasion?
2. At what point do I start putting more emphasis on getting him to come round on contact?

For my ride with Ziggy, I decided I would devote my focus to my ever-present core problem, since Ziggy will stretch and come round without any problems, and I was kind of bored with concentrating on my hands. Happily, my hands mostly behaved themselves. Keeping my core engaged went pretty well at the walk, but at the trot it was pretty hit and miss, and more miss than hit. Ziggy has a much bouncier trot than Shadow, which is one of the reasons why I decided to work the core thing on Ziggy. I figure, if I'm doing it right, when Ziggy's trot gets particularly bouncy, I'll be able to actually *sit* it, and not flop all over the saddle. The good news is, I did have a few flashes of brilliance, and although I wasn't always able to do anything about it, it was readily apparent to me when I was doing things wrong.

Once, when I had a pretty good trot going, I tried a canter transition on the right lead, and just got a unbalanced, strung-out trot. I then remembered that:

• Ziggy is 24.
• Ziggy is a Thoroughbred
• Ziggy has arthritic changes in his right hock.

It was about then that 2 and 2 added up to 4 and I recognized that our best chance for success was to start the canter on the left lead. After putting the trot back together and changing rein, I gathered him up and asked for canter again. It sort of worked. I did get a pretty good uphill canter, but he snuck in a few steps of trot, which I think was me not being clear enough with the lift of my inside seat bone. The actual canter was really nice. My core stayed engaged, and I played a bit with extending and shortening strides, and even got a bit of leg yield in.

A few times when I shortened the strides, I forgot to use my legs to keep impulsion going, and predictably, Ziggy dropped into a trot. This turned out to be a blessing in disguise as I learned or, more accurately, internalized something that I've known has been a problem for pretty much as long as I've been riding. On my downward transitions, my shoulders hunch and I curl forward, which makes my lower back arch, and me a hot damn mess in the saddle. I've been hearing it in lessons and from Cash's mom for years, but tonight was the first time I was able to consciously feel, analyze and internalize the transition from everything going well, to falling apart. In an attempt to capitalize on the new information, I picked up the canter again, and re-attempted the downward transition. This time, I felt things falling apart, and was able to at least put my shoulders back into position before becoming a hot damn mess. I wanted to try it again, but by this point, I was pretty much out of light, and it'd been a quite successful ride, so I called it a night, and will focus more on my downward canter transition when I ride Zigs tomorrow.