practice assess modify

Hope all of y'all in polar vortex zones are staying warm! It's prettttty cold around these parts with more expected snow as of this writing... Bleh. 

We have fun activities tentatively planned throughout the month, so actually this weekend was our best bet for the next Trainer C Dressage lesson too -- back-to-back weekends, woot woot! 

take your best guess: did she or did she not poop on her friend's blankets lol

So for Saturday's solo ride at home, I wanted to focus on simple basics. Enough to get us moving around and practicing our skills etc, but nothing crazy given the conditions. 

Tho we're still kinda figuring out the best way to get our work done during high traffic times of day... On this particular day, the lower indoor was open while the upper indoor was occupied. Benefits of an unoccupied ring include being able to set up whatever exercises I want! 

inspiration pic for the ride --- distances not super important, using the whole length of the ring, focusing on balanced canter

Which, was exactly what I had in mind, yay! This ground pole exercise seemed like just the ticket for practicing our balance in canter with landmarks to keep us honest. Also seemed like a useful way to practice bending lines / related distances while encouraging patience. 

Tho... Downsides to selecting the unoccupied lower ring include that this ring just seems spookier to Doozy. It sits kinda in a low spot on the farm, and has weird acoustics where you can hear all sorts of activity around all 4 sides of the ring. Plus there's more traffic passing by the doorways, and for some reason this seems more alarming / distracting for Doozy since we're kinda looking 'up' out of the ring. 

technically walked in about 3ish strides, but with indoor canter etc rode fine as a quiet 4 too

Add in the crazy wind that kept banging against all the doors and.... Yea. Not an easy set of circumstances for poor sensitive Doozy. Sigh. 

But eh, we persevered. At least this exercise was kinda perfect in that it was enough to give her something to think about and focus on, and enough to keep me riding my consistent steady rhythm, but not so overwhelming or intense that we ever got frantic or disheveled.

trot circles!

Tho. Eh. I still kinda need somebody yelling at me in real time to make me ride just that titch more proactively. Recording my rides helps to a certain degree -- when I know I'm being recorded (even if it's just an iphone on the wall LOL) I will usually try to pull myself together a bit. 

canter circles!

But y'all know how it goes. As it was, Doozy actually kinda nailed the exercise in canter. Like, didn't rush at all -- good girl! Like she doesn't even really look tense or upset or spooky in that gif. Just looks like a horse cantering around somewhat indifferently. Progress, yo! 

iphone field of view missed the first pole, womp

Idk, tho. I keep trying to make this ring happen for us lol, but maybe it's just not gonna happen lol... Or at least, maybe not when we're alone. Doozy enjoys riding in company, and honestly seems totally at ease riding among lesson groups. Everything in moderation, I guess!

you get the idea tho

Anyway. Saturday's ride was all it needed to be ahead of Sunday's lesson. Trainer C has been amazingly accommodating in scheduling us considering she already has a steady roster of weekly lessons... Sometimes that means she's squishing us in pretty early tho lol, esp in frigid conditions omg and given trailering time etc... But c'est la vie, right?

good girl tried hard even tho she maybe just doesn't like this ring

The lesson was really interesting too. It's so rare that Trainer C gets to see us back-to-back weekends (and by "rare" I mean... maybe has never happened before?) that it felt like a chance to push the momentum. Meaning bringing our new quiet-riding bit, the nathe, and actually opting to run the metronome in my pocket too -- just on a lower volume. 

rolling into the fancy dressage barn lookin like hobos in 19*F

I've never used the app in a lesson before but maybe that's a mistake. Like, why waste this training opportunity working on details I can practice with the metronome, right? Trainer C can only say so many words in one moment, let's get the best out of it!

And in any case, she actually remarked on the quality of our tempo before I sorta sheepishly pulled out the (quiet) metronome and she was like, "wow actually that's a great idea!"

literally wearing all our clothes haha. but hey, this is the only pic we get so....

She also declared the nathe a winning solution for us at this moment in our training. It was her perception that Doozy was more relaxed, less tense or frantic, and less anticipatory of whatever is coming next. She also felt like I was able to be less dramatic about slowing the mare down. 

This was fascinating to me bc **my** perceptions of the mare were actually quite the opposite. It was my sense that Doozy was actually a bit more tense than normal -- perhaps a hangover from our ride the previous day in the spooky indoor? And I felt like I had to do at least as much, if not possibly a little more work at times to keep our rhythm. 

#stalkercats

It's obviously entirely possible that my perceptions are a bit skewed, tho, right? Like we ALL know it rarely looks the way it feels. But my honest impression is that... The nathe bit makes such a huge difference in reducing noise in the signal for Doozy. 

It still feels like I'm riding the same horse, but the impression from the ground (perhaps from the judge's perspective?) is a little nicer? Like it feels the same to me, but she's not reacting so dramatically to my riding and therefore presents a more pleasant picture?? Idk. We'll see haha. 

Regardless, it was interesting. Doozy was super for the whole lesson, really tried hard and had some of her best and most consistent moments of inside bend -- our holy grail for the foreseeable future. 

It's exciting to keep nibbling away at the edges, esp given the season lol. Anybody else feeling a bit of momentum going into the new year? Or are you taking it easy until conditions improve?