I started with my leftover questions from last week. I confirmed the counterintuitive idea that you half halt on the outside, constant rein to get the horse to turn his head to the inside (away from the hand that is half halting). Mercury wouldn't turn his head, but Bob said yes, that's how it works.
A turn on the forehand has the head turned to the right if you're going left.
The moving sideways that's not a half pass that I am totally blanking on the name, head goes opposite the way you're going so that the horse can counter balance (like a baby horse who turns his head to the outside of the lead he's cantering on). So if I'm going right, his head bends left. (Half-pass is more advanced because the head goes the same direction as the body.)
Hips. To shift hips when asking for canter, for the right lead, you shift down into your right hip (so you free up your left hip) because he is pushing forward with his left hind leg. For the not-quite-a-half-pass thing, it is shifted to the outside - not the way you are going. So if you're moving left, it's your right hip that is pushing down and your left hip that is light, so he can step left. It is like pushing your leg straight, not bending over. This feels weird, so I need to practice it.
So I set up the jumps for a jump lesson today. It was a big test to see if I could go Beginner Novice at the upcoming derby (end of April), or if I needed to ride Hopeful again. I don't want to be all egotistical and arrogant, but I don't want to ride Hopeful again because I think it's for riders who are more beginner than me and for horses who are not as eager about jumping as Mercury. We certainly have tons to work on, but I think it's a special entry level category. We might have to stay in Beginner Novice a long time, but I don't think we should stay in Hopeful.
So Beginner Novice is 2'7" at this show, and that is a big change from 2'0" that we were doing last summer. So I set up two big jumps (3'2"), three medium jumps (2'3"), and one small. We ended up not using my line of 3 (24', 48'), and just using the 2 (48') for a line. There was also one oxer that was not that broad or high.
Mercury was good again. The immediate problems were the same as last year - I launch forward, pinching with my knees and letting my legs swing way up, OR I flop over and don't give him any release and then punish him with my hands by jerking on his mouth. I also tend to slam back into the saddle on his poor back. More often I launch forward, but since he doesn't really know where to take off, I sometimes get left behind.
So we did jumps at the trot, then little combinations, then jumps at the canter. What really helped was if I do a 2-point for several steps, then sit before the jump. That makes my legs stay heavy (no heels lifted which means no leg swinging up behind me). The difference is amazing, I feel totally solid and comfortable, it allows me to bend over properly (not flop forward and flop back into the saddle), and it lets me do a normal release.
My homework this week, which is unfortunately a low riding week and a missed lesson because I have to travel for work, is to practice my 2 point and pushing my heels down. If on the flat my leg is swinging, put rubber bands between the stirrups and girth (something frowned upon for legal reasons) to help hold the stirrups in place so my legs feel the proper place to be. Next lesson will mostly be dressage/flat, but Bob said we'll do a couple jumps at the end.
Unlike last week, which was apparently just my brain not working because what seemed impossible on Saturday during the lesson was doable on Sunday, I did much better with riding dressage between the jumps. I talk or count (1-2-3-4 or head-hands-heels) on the way to the jump, think: "deep, half halt, half halt, half halt, GO", and keep my head up and looking ahead. I have a very bad habit of looking down at the jump as we go over it - I don't realize I'm looking down even, but I can feel the difference in Mercury and me if I concentrate on looking at the wall on the other end of the arena.
So it wasn't perfect, but was a reassuring lesson, and then Bob raised the jump, and I was talking about the show, and saying "What if I can't jump 2'7" and I fall off?" and Bob said "If you fall off over 2'7", you don't deserve to be jumping yet anyway." He switched one of the jumps to be bigger, said Mercury would probably be nervous about it so to talk to him and ride him strongly to it (he had tried to canter a couple times and I had pulled him off the jump which Bob said to just let him canter over it because it looks big to him), and I fell off. Bob said Mercury jumped like 5', but that I was falling off while we were over the jump. I had his neck with my arms, but I couldn't get my legs around him, so I rolled off, and he just stopped and looked at me, confused becuase I was on the ground. Bob lowered the jump just a little, we did it again (really big and afterwards he put his head in the air and ran), and then stopped for the day. He said it was actually a 3'2" jump, to make up for me just asking about 2'7".
Mercury has a good heart. He is kind of lazy, but he tries hard, he doesn't refuse, and once he figures something out, he will do it again without you have to repeat every single little detail.
Charlie with the long sought after cooler
Spring NWEC 2013 Novice
Saturday, February 24, 2007
Sunday, February 18, 2007
Dressage lesson on 2/17/07 - miracle lessons are over
Well, my lesson luck has run out. After the three (or so) excellent lessons where I made huge leaps in understanding, I am back to lessons that feel like I am slogging up a hill I have been up a hundred times before. (A hundred times a month.) While I did learn a lot this lesson, it was one of those lessons that showed me just how much I still have to learn. I started out with my usual questions. I've been doing some of the exercises from the 101 dressage exercises book, but I've had problems with some of them and can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. It turns out, almost everything. First of all, a lot of the skills required to just do the exercises are way beyond me and Mercury. The example I used with Bob was the exercise where you have to halt for 6 seconds at A at the walk, trot, and canter. You leave from a halt into the walk, trot, and canter. We can barely leave from A into a trot, and no way can we do a canter. It also has you stopping on a dime there at A, and after we come around a corner, we're lucky to stop at the next corner. Bob said it is a fine exercise for warming Mercury up, but not to stop at A each time. Instead, stop at random spots. What frustrated me was I already knew that. I know not to do the same routine at the same place each time because he memorizes it, and poor Mercury, bless his little heart, gets confused and frustrated once he's figured out the routine and then I go and change it on him. It made me mad that I didn't think to apply that to this exercise in the book.
Then I got all whiny and complained how all we ever do is walk, trot, and canter, and yet there's still so much to learn just about those three and how I'm never going to progress. Bob asked to what, big fences? and I said no, even simple things like turn on the forehand we can't do. So Bob asked me to show him what I was doing, and then laughed and laughed and said Mercury was doing exactly what I asked him to do, which was only in the vaguest sense (like an apple and a cherry are both fruits), a turn on the forehand.
It turns out it has 45 steps, and I didn't understand the first one. Here they are:
1. Take up contact with the bit, flex his head opposite the direction you're turning. (I think.) The interesting, and shocking part about this, was that you flex him to the right (for a left turn), by having his nice inside right rein contact, longer outside steady contact, and by doing half halts with the outside rein. Opposite of what I've thought for, oh, 15 years.
2. Then you shift your hip. I was already lost at step 1, so I can't even begin to explain this. It is different than leaning your shoulder.
3. Then you tap, tap, tap (not constant pressure) with your right leg (to push him left).
4. But at the same time, you use a magical, unknown amount of pressure with your left leg to keep him from stepping back.
5. Then voila! You are doing a turn on the forehand. (Not exactly 45 steps, but it felt like it during the lesson.)
Hint: It is better to start with his nose against the arena wall, because then there is one less direction other than around his forehand we can move.
So after this, we tried to do half pass and leg yield, which is close to the same, but with a couple more steps.
You start by walking forward, and you do all 4 steps above, but going in a straight line, and using your whip on his rump if he is moving at an angle. We got this one at a walk and a trot, after a few false starts. Mercury caught onto this one pretty fast. But his neck was bending too much, and he forgets to bring his back end, and he starts going just sideways instead of forward and sideways, so there is still a lot to work on.
I think around this point I started crying. I was in a bad mood, and I just couldn't get things to work, and all the steps felt complicated, and I felt like an idiot for having ridden all these years and not even being able to do a turn on the forehand.
So then we tried to do ground poles, which I wanted to practice to prepare for next week's jumping lesson (the first jumping since last September). What I had expected, which was foolish of me, was that all our hard work on the flat would magically translate into effortless ground poles, and instead, they were just as much a disaster as when we quit doing them last September. We smashed through, with Mercury alternating leaping and stomping on them, and me lurching around on top of him like I was a noodle. It was totally, horrifyingly humiliating. And I got really mad, really frustrated, and really upset. We were trying to do 4, so Bob took away 2 of them, leaving the two end ones, then said just do one, and we did that one so pitifully I just quit.
Today I put one pole in the middle of the arena and we did that one at walk, trot, and canter, and it was mostly ok, and the difference was this. I had expected yesterday we would have a magical connection, and I would do nothing except point Mercury at the poles, and we would glide over them. Poor Mercury hasn't practiced a pole since then, and neither have I, so I don't know now why I would have expected that. Anyway, today went better because I actually did half halts up to the pole, and there was just the one pole on the ground.
Then I got all whiny and complained how all we ever do is walk, trot, and canter, and yet there's still so much to learn just about those three and how I'm never going to progress. Bob asked to what, big fences? and I said no, even simple things like turn on the forehand we can't do. So Bob asked me to show him what I was doing, and then laughed and laughed and said Mercury was doing exactly what I asked him to do, which was only in the vaguest sense (like an apple and a cherry are both fruits), a turn on the forehand.
It turns out it has 45 steps, and I didn't understand the first one. Here they are:
1. Take up contact with the bit, flex his head opposite the direction you're turning. (I think.) The interesting, and shocking part about this, was that you flex him to the right (for a left turn), by having his nice inside right rein contact, longer outside steady contact, and by doing half halts with the outside rein. Opposite of what I've thought for, oh, 15 years.
2. Then you shift your hip. I was already lost at step 1, so I can't even begin to explain this. It is different than leaning your shoulder.
3. Then you tap, tap, tap (not constant pressure) with your right leg (to push him left).
4. But at the same time, you use a magical, unknown amount of pressure with your left leg to keep him from stepping back.
5. Then voila! You are doing a turn on the forehand. (Not exactly 45 steps, but it felt like it during the lesson.)
Hint: It is better to start with his nose against the arena wall, because then there is one less direction other than around his forehand we can move.
So after this, we tried to do half pass and leg yield, which is close to the same, but with a couple more steps.
You start by walking forward, and you do all 4 steps above, but going in a straight line, and using your whip on his rump if he is moving at an angle. We got this one at a walk and a trot, after a few false starts. Mercury caught onto this one pretty fast. But his neck was bending too much, and he forgets to bring his back end, and he starts going just sideways instead of forward and sideways, so there is still a lot to work on.
I think around this point I started crying. I was in a bad mood, and I just couldn't get things to work, and all the steps felt complicated, and I felt like an idiot for having ridden all these years and not even being able to do a turn on the forehand.
So then we tried to do ground poles, which I wanted to practice to prepare for next week's jumping lesson (the first jumping since last September). What I had expected, which was foolish of me, was that all our hard work on the flat would magically translate into effortless ground poles, and instead, they were just as much a disaster as when we quit doing them last September. We smashed through, with Mercury alternating leaping and stomping on them, and me lurching around on top of him like I was a noodle. It was totally, horrifyingly humiliating. And I got really mad, really frustrated, and really upset. We were trying to do 4, so Bob took away 2 of them, leaving the two end ones, then said just do one, and we did that one so pitifully I just quit.
Today I put one pole in the middle of the arena and we did that one at walk, trot, and canter, and it was mostly ok, and the difference was this. I had expected yesterday we would have a magical connection, and I would do nothing except point Mercury at the poles, and we would glide over them. Poor Mercury hasn't practiced a pole since then, and neither have I, so I don't know now why I would have expected that. Anyway, today went better because I actually did half halts up to the pole, and there was just the one pole on the ground.
Sunday, February 11, 2007
Dressage Lesson - Feb 10 2007
I had another long stretch in January with very little riding. It was a total surprise when I had another great lesson. We spent some time talking at the beginning, which really helps me. And I had another huge breakthrough in understanding. I've been working on moving my hips - trying to relax them and let them move with Mercury instead of riding all rigid and stiff (but in one, proper position) on top of him. With my big "get out of shape" kick the past few months because of my workload, it's actually felt easier to move with him, because I'm kind of a big mass of jello sitting on top of him. And I was trying to explain that to Bob, and he realized that I didn't understand what it meant to move my hips. I was trying to melt into him, but it is actually the driving seat (which I have never understood) that is the hip moving. He stood next to me and pushed my hip waaayyyy more forward than I have ever moved, and it made Mercury take big long steps. It was pretty cool, and also felt awkward and hard to do, like all the other new things that end up being really great.
We worked on the trot and crisp transitions up to canter. I tend to lurch forward (both leaning and pushing) and so it's hard for him to pick up the canter on the step I ask for it. Now I am thinking lean back and ask quietly, and he just picks it up right away. The change, when I quit leaning and lurching, was pretty much instantaneous.
So we did that for a while, and then we worked on circles, me not looking down, riding the canter with the proper seat (hips go back and forth, everything else stays still), then some simple transitions on a figure 8. A few steps of trot, then pick up the other lead. Then we did some cantering across the diagnol, a few steps of trot along the rail, then picking up the other lead. It was fun, and it felt really good.
I have, in the last month, been feeling really comfortable and secure when Mercury canters. I didn't feel uncomfortable before, but I could tell a difference in the past few weeks. It certainly wasn't because I got in better shape or improved my training, so I asked Bob about it. He thinks it is the chiropractor. He thinks Mercury was just so out of alignment that it took several visits, and then the pieces started moving better. It really is a noticeable difference.
Bob is the course designer for the derby coming up in April at Happ's, and he suggested that we go. I'm not sure I'll be ready to jump, but in the next few lessons I'll do a jump lesson to see if we can get through Beginner Novice. I think our dressage has improved tremendously, and I hope that translates to over fences. I don't want to ride Hopeful again because I feel too old and experienced, but I'm actually not sure about 2'6".
After that great lesson, though, I went to do an easy, conditioning ride today because the sun was out. Of course after we made it once around the pasture, it started raining, and we went inside. But Mercury got all scared from being outside, and so he was a total nutcase inside and the ride was horrible. It is just like Bob says, he is just doing his best to keep me humble.
We worked on the trot and crisp transitions up to canter. I tend to lurch forward (both leaning and pushing) and so it's hard for him to pick up the canter on the step I ask for it. Now I am thinking lean back and ask quietly, and he just picks it up right away. The change, when I quit leaning and lurching, was pretty much instantaneous.
So we did that for a while, and then we worked on circles, me not looking down, riding the canter with the proper seat (hips go back and forth, everything else stays still), then some simple transitions on a figure 8. A few steps of trot, then pick up the other lead. Then we did some cantering across the diagnol, a few steps of trot along the rail, then picking up the other lead. It was fun, and it felt really good.
I have, in the last month, been feeling really comfortable and secure when Mercury canters. I didn't feel uncomfortable before, but I could tell a difference in the past few weeks. It certainly wasn't because I got in better shape or improved my training, so I asked Bob about it. He thinks it is the chiropractor. He thinks Mercury was just so out of alignment that it took several visits, and then the pieces started moving better. It really is a noticeable difference.
Bob is the course designer for the derby coming up in April at Happ's, and he suggested that we go. I'm not sure I'll be ready to jump, but in the next few lessons I'll do a jump lesson to see if we can get through Beginner Novice. I think our dressage has improved tremendously, and I hope that translates to over fences. I don't want to ride Hopeful again because I feel too old and experienced, but I'm actually not sure about 2'6".
After that great lesson, though, I went to do an easy, conditioning ride today because the sun was out. Of course after we made it once around the pasture, it started raining, and we went inside. But Mercury got all scared from being outside, and so he was a total nutcase inside and the ride was horrible. It is just like Bob says, he is just doing his best to keep me humble.
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