taking a page from Ann Querbach's book

Amy and I packed up our dear creatures Charlie and Punky this weekend to ship out for a cavaletti clinic at Thornridge! And, naturally, proceeded to have our best 'jumping' lesson in a long time at this traditionally dressage barn. Guys. It was incredible!

the scene of the crime

Apparently this is a newer thing they do with boarders, and we kinda just invited ourselves to come along too. Trainer C led the group sessions, and used a selection of ground pole exercises adapted from the book highlighted below.

exercise inspired by Pole Work for Dressage Riders, by Ann Katrin Querbach
notes: thick black lines indicate raised poles. everything is bi-directional. purple = trot; blue = canter.

AND! We are super lucky that one of the boarders who rode in an earlier group was able to snap some footage for us, yesssssss! Tho -- sadly, she missed the beginning of our ride so you are robbed of any visual representation of Charlie confronting the existential crisis of hyper-short raised trot poles. 

no footage of charlie thru the trot poles, so enjoy this gif of Punky #slaying

He was so good, tho. A little fresh and frisky, and a bit 'up' at finding this familiar arena transformed for the clinic.... But so good. 

We started with walking, then trotting around the full ring as a group (5 of us), spaced enough so that we could each trot thru the line of poles you see above with enough room that Trainer C could reset anything that got knocked along the way. 

This exercise was HARD. Charlie really really struggled with the raised red/white poles at trot -- often trying to skip sections or just sorta obliterating the thing (even tho he was trying so hard). Then something sorta clicked: tracking left (so, starting with the white poles), he got to the red and white poles and broke to walk then crept thru cleanly. Then the next time -- really sat and managed it at trot. 

charles himself, thinking very hard

We changed directions, which I expected to be harder (bc now I wouldn't have the mirror to stare into and keep myself straight), but Charlie actually finally really aced the exercise. Sad to not have that on video. 

He still knocked it a couple more times, of course, bc it's legit a very hard (and tiring) exercise for him. But it was exciting to feel him so collected and 'sitting' even briefly. 

"would be easier if you stopped pulling the inside rein tho, just sayin!" - charles, probably

Next up was the leg yield exercise, which we again did as a group going all at once. I actually really liked this configuration. It's a pattern we practice at home anyway (coming off the rail then yielding back again), but having the trot poles there as an actual physical landmark really helped Charlie understand. 

It's like he saw the poles, and understood what I was asking, but also understood the urgency of having to "get there," and thus made it happen. Our leg yields aren't like, super correct or whatever. But they don't have to be for where we are. As far as Charlie is concerned, he's a genius lol.

final boss: a modified circle of death

Last exercise of the day was a cancer circle, with four poles kinda strewn at random along the circle. Not sure they measured for anything in particular, but we ended up getting pretty consistent striding more or less along the way. One set was far enough apart to be 'basically unrelated' (6 or 7 strides, probably), then it was 4 to 4 to 2 (tracking left). 

interpretive dance step #1

This is obvi a very familiar type of exercise for Charlie, but one that bears repeating -- and often. Plus it was obviously so helpful to have Trainer C there, not just bc we needed frequent clean up from knocked poles LOL. 

interpretive dance step #2

She reminded me to think more about my outside aids, and probably wanted me to be a little more "dressage-y" vs "jumper-y" in my position (everybody other than me and Amy did the clinic in their dressage tack). But eh. I'm sticking with the "we are weak" excuse for now LOL.

that's better sir! also, emma, pls consider actually sitting

And guys, omg, Charlie was SO TIRED by this point. This was, without a doubt, the most intense and taxing ride we've had since.... Hm, probably the Molly days. Not even just because he was out of work for so long, but bc heavily tactical technical instruction is hard to find, apparently.

what a good boy tho

He persevered, tho. Which was a good reminder to me. Honestly, in our schooling at home, I'm pretty quick to reward a good effort and quit while we're ahead -- before he gets tired. And Charlie, for his part, is usually pretty good about stepping up when it counts -- like at shows when he goes into pure professional mode. 

not sure my position met any expectations, but this horse 100% blew me away with his effort!

But it IS good to test the limits of our capacity every now and again. Both to help us expand in our fitness and strength, and also to give us a little practice in digging deep when we might otherwise call it a day. 

finishing strong!

And so in this ride, as Charlie became more fatigued in the circle and thus increasingly likelier to break to trot if the distance was wonky, we really had to find our determination to get one fully clean circle to finish on each lead. 

It reminded me of the first lesson Charlie had with Dan, where Dan basically scolded me. We were working on trot-canter transitions, where we were only allowed to canter when the trot was where Dan wanted it. And Dan reminded me: "This is hard for him. The longer you take to get there, the harder it'll be to keep going. Get the trot now, don't just go around and around and around working on it." (paraphrased).

video of our attempts at the circle of death, for those interested

So. Anyway. After everybody had sessioned each individual exercise, they put it together into a complete little pattern. As much fun as that looked (and it did look FUN -- and challenging, omg), I opted to skip it. Charlie was SPENT omg. 

I also suspect that the horse's sleep patterns have been disturbed lately by changes in his herd... But that's a topic for another day. Suffice it to say -- Charlie had nothing to prove, and had been an excellent pony for a very demanding lesson. Good enough! 

so so so so SO TIRED by the end <3

We really loved this lesson, guys. Amy and Punky were super stars too -- tho we already knew Punky is basically a gymnastics savant haha. It's so good to see him back in action, sound, and looking good. 

Charlie is looking really good too. All the dressage queens in our group kinda put our fitness to shame LOL, but eh, again, I have excuses and I'm sticking to them. We'll get there eventually! 

Anybody else really love lessons or clinics like this? Planning to steal any of these exercises (or all of them??) for your own schooling???