definitely appreciated the shade - it was HOT out! |
She noted that especially while cantering I get my whole body off to Isabel's left side and directed me to do the same thing C did: put the left side of my seat in the middle of the saddle.
we had the whole ring all to ourselves!! (but mostly stayed in the shade to the left lol, except when jumping) |
Really tho P wants me to raise my expectations for the flat work. I agree... but really don't know what that means for schooling alone. I don't know how to do any more advanced movements and am hesitant to try schooling them lest I do it wrong... but idk we'll see.
isabel was not pleased when i took the hay away to hang it back in the trailer so we could leave. obvi she can't be without hay for even just a minute! |
The jumping was mostly fine - tho when we went through the whole course I progressively got farther and farther up Isabel's neck and the wheels started falling off a little. I need to remember to keep my legs down and feel that 'bounce' in my heels to help support my upper body, rather than letting my legs slip back and upper body tip forward.
lol she's one smart cookie tho and only banged her face once before figuring out how to pull the hay net out |
After fixing the two later lines in the course we called it a day since it was pretty hot out and Isabel was working well. I'll be out of town and will miss my lesson next week, but hopefully once I'm back we can settle into a routine and start looking forward to a few shows!
Sounds like a fun lesson, good for you for getting it done in this heat!
ReplyDeleteomg the heat tho... borderline murderous !
DeleteCOUNTER BEND YASSS. Sorry got a little overexcited. But my trainer had me start doing that and suddenly we weren't bulging through our turns and got straighter to jumps even on short approaches, and sparkles and rainbows starting raining down from the heavens. I'm a big fan of *slightly* counterbending through turns.
ReplyDeleteit's not the first time i've heard about it, but maybe the first time it's value was soooo obvious in a ride haha, esp since we kept on eating that one jump but then adding stronger outside aids really helped. go figure!
DeleteProps for surviving the heat. It was a rough weekend.
ReplyDeleteha seriously - i may or may not still be recovering lol
DeleteYour coaches comment about thinking slightly counter bent makes a ton of sense. One of my past coaches told me this awhile ago and it works like a gem! It did great things for my loss of shoulder lol.
ReplyDeletegood to know! i'm definitely excited to get the hang of how/when/why to apply it during a course!
DeleteAmen about turning from the outside aids - something I've been working on myself! Also I like the "feel the bounce in your heels" analogy
ReplyDeletethanks - i'd actually never heard the analogy before but as soon as she said it i thought 'YES - that is exactly what i need to be feeling!'. hopefully i can remember it lol
DeleteI often forget my outside aids when turning on a jumper course too. So much to think about!
ReplyDeletemy tendency far too often is to just pull the inside rein and pray lol. remembering all these little tricks is so hard!!
DeleteGreat lesson! I love that she tied the flat work into the jumping re: Isabelle's shoulders. As for flatting on your own you don't need to do fancy stuff, more like be more demanding that her shoulders go where you want them, your transitions are good every time, etc. At least that's what I shoot for.
ReplyDeleteinteresting - and perhaps that's what she meant. i tend to be a little wishy washy and almost always have to repeat our transitions bc the first is shitty... so yea, sounds like a good starting place!
DeleteBy being more demanding, possibly she meant getting quality movement sooner or holding it for longer, not necessarily asking for new things. Sounds like a productive lesson!
ReplyDeletei suspect you're probably right - especially now that we both sort of know what we're doing, we should be doing it more often i guess haha
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