getting everything from her

These photos (from Liz at In Omnia Paratus!!! THANK YOU LIZ!!!!) have been edited and ready to publish for... oh basically since the day after our clinic with Stephen Birchall last month.

i like to talk at great length about our goings on. stephen listens patiently. isabel is less interested haha

The write up has taken longer to write bc.... eh. The words aren't really coming. I made the foolish mistake of not noting everything down right away. And then two really unpleasant schools later and I haven't even put a bit on the horse since. We have been exclusively trail riding.

hands-on teaching is effective teaching

So it rang somewhat dishonest in my head to sit down and write this gushing dressage clinic post when our rides since have been anything but. And thus, the post never got written.

Austen calls this one the "Puppet Master"

But just bc I'm bitter about my own riding shouldn't change the outcome of this clinic tho. This clinic was INCREDIBLE. I basically want to kidnap Stephen and learn every last little morsel of wisdom he has to teach.

mare worked so well

Fundamentally, we just worked on just improving the connection and improving the gaits. Compress to ride forward.

ears always listening

It was so interesting during the ride to feel how at the beginning, we had to compress so so so much before riding more forward. And that later in the ride, the same squeeze with my hand would much more instantly produce the same quickness and activity in the hind end - the same increased engagement - without needing to think as much about being 'on the spot.'

also isn't this arena so pretty?

Tho I also think that's a little bit where the lesson fell apart while schooling on my own. See, Isabel is a very quick study and figured out that after I asked for compression, I would ask for forward. So she anticipated the forward. And the compression became more braced and jiggy.

sunshine through the tail!

But during the ride, it was like magic. We suddenly had so many gears in the trot - this highly active almost-half-steps trot where the horse was so coiled up and into my hand could transform immediately into the fanciest of mediums.

we had a lot of fun motoring around

I'm not even trying to brag - Isabel was just on fire and working so well. Not without questions, and not blindly going where I told her to go, but getting it done when I managed to get myself (mostly) correct.

pretty at the canter (!) and walk

After playing so much with compress then forward, Stephen had us halting from a more working trot, then reining back, then trotting on again. Repeatedly. At first Isabel wasn't super fond of this game, and each step elicited some, er, feedback.

not to say that there wasn't any resistance tho - something i need to remember

But actually as we kept practicing, it got better. And Stephen deployed a tactic I wouldn't have thought of. In fact, I likely would have avoided it all together had I thought deeply about it. He asked for the halt and rein back in the same places every time.

bc izzy WILL have opinions (often very fair opinions lol)

My thoughts would have been to avoid associating any one place with a halt, given Isabel's history of gate sourness. But actually I see the value. She learned the locations, and figured out what I was asking more quickly. Then began to respond more correctly, after which point the same request in a different place was met with a nicer effort.

it's a conversation tho

Canter was a whole different ball game. In the best of ways. We got hands-down our best canter work EVER in this lesson. It felt incredible. Started off a little rough bc Stephen wanted me cantering from a walk. Something I get, ehhhhhh, a little panicky about. Not sure why. (And neither is Pig or Rico, for that matter - but they are just as unappreciative of it as Isabel).

and usually we can come to an agreement

So I would be big and dramatic into my canter aid bc omg canter from walk, guys. But then Stephen would have us come right back down again bc running is bad, and would tell me to thump her with my outside leg as a reminder (or use the whip if she raced off in trot), then ask again.

good mare

And whadya know, eventually she departed in the nicest of fashions into canter from walk. And we even got at least one semi-fantastic canter-trot downward transition too. It felt GREAT.

pretty awesome video clip here. you can get a very 

true sense for how Stephen teaches by listening

And it also felt so simple. I like to complicate things - make them bigger or more complex than they need to be. When, really, it's just a canter depart. It's not a big deal. But I ride it like maybe we might die or something if we don't make it happen.

Idk. I (half-heartedly) blame hunter hack classes for this lol. Like, "Omg omg the judge is probably gonna call for canter soon, better get ready, get ready NOW, omg THERE SHE SAID IT CANTER NOW FOR THE LOVE OF CHRIST!"

lots of pets

But this lesson proved that it's probably not as big of a deal as I like to make it. The horse is such a fast learner. I just need to keep up.

Oh, and Rico also just reaffirmed that so many of my canter issues are ME, and not Isabel. So those terrible no good made me wanna cry rides we had after this clinic were... ya know. Probably rider error. Le sigh. We'll see. Maybe I'll try again soon.