Mid-January Dressage Lesson Recap

I know I know, this is so overdue I almost didnt blog about it...but the footage from this lesson is just way to epic and funny not to share. (in hindsight is funny).

So back when I thought Tillie was broken and my house was in shambles, I begged C to let me still come take a lesson on any horse she had available. See the intro and background story in my past post here.

I was glad I went to get my mind off of everything and it worked because I ended up getting really frustrated in my lesson...so not exactly a good distraction but one that is a step towards growing all the same.

C has a retired 3rd level pony horse (youll understand this description in a mere moment) that I rode in this lesson. While tacking up C starts warning me of all the devious things this horse does and going down a laundry list of do's and donts and I finally ask her "Should I be worried?..It sounds like I should be worried" I have heard this horse is quite particular and another friend rode her and said she felt like she didnt know how to ride all over again. LOL oh joy.

Walking Star between trotting

So, I do as I am told and walk Star all the way around the ring since she is also really spooky and proceed to get on. I was pleasantly surprised that not only did I not die, Star was ok...ok as in I could ride and maneuver around in the walk without much drama. I did get a lama/giraffe mode for a circle or two, but even C sounded surprised when commenting how much Star seemed agreeable with me.

I knew the real test would be once we started to trot. She did revert to a giraffe a bit just to establish I really dont know what I am doing but fairly quickly and without much fuss started working for me. Probably because I was thinking so hard about not losing my stirrups...idk what the heck was up in this saddle (not mine) but I felt like my ankles were so loose! C even thought they looked TOO short! I managed to just grin a bear through it, but do think it made me less noisy or in Star's face which came to my benefit.

so fancy!

I remarked at how similar of a ride she felt to Tillie...a bit picky, sensitive at times and then stubborn / ignorant others. Just all around a but finicky but I LOVED the challenge. That is until we started adding in lateral stuff.

Leg yielding was fine, just worked on really making sure the shoulder doesnt lead and her body remained straight. This was great for me to feel since I am also starting to set this boundary with Tillie and take her leg yielding to the next level.

Then we started working on shoulder in. On Tillie, I can shoulder in in my sleep...and I often times accidentally get her to, especially tracking left. Oddly enough, I did the same thing on Star warming up to. BUT ask me to do it on purpose on Star and I turn into a blubbering idiot apparently...LOL.

It was not pretty at first and Star wanted to make sure I knew that SHE knew her job...that it was me that needed to pull it together. I started scraping a few together and of course C goes and makes it harder by telling me to sit Star's incredible hard to sit trot to do it.

LOL by the end of the long side C told me to post before I would die...whew glad I survived that one!
But seriously, this horse has the most springy and active movement through her back that sitting the trot compare to Tillie took every ounce of concentration I had.

Because of my extreme focus on that, I somehow missed the memo we were transitioning to working on half passes (which I expressed interest in learning the aids for) If you get a chance to watch the video you can even hear me ask, "wait are we trying to half pass?" to which C explodes in laughter, "UH YEA!!"

This marks the point I was starting to get frustrated and luckily didnt have much longer at being tortured before we cooled out and I felt like I didnt have enough brain power to control all the million different parts of my body at once. I know its from a lack of trying this movement that the body control and coordination just isnt there, but when you know what it looks like and studied it so you conceptually get it but cant put it into practice...well that just sucks.

All in all, I decided I need to force myself to keep taking lessons on Star once in a while...it was a bit refreshing to ride something I didnt have such a history with as well as one that is trained so highly to teach ME for a change.

Hope you enjoy! I did put amusing music to the video to drown out my trainers voice...she would probably kill me if I didnt...