A "simple" (two areas of focus) lesson

It's simple in the sense that we really only did two things, but they were two very complex things that were hard for me (and obviously Willig has already been trained to do them - the sneaky rat!).
First, Mike gave us a "baby" exercise for shoulder-in and leg yield. We head towards the wall, hit it at about a 30 degree angle, and then move at the angle down the wall. This requires careful coordination of the aids - too much leg and Willig's head obediently (and oddly) smacks into the wall, too much "outside" leg and his angle gets too severe and he can't move "forward", too much "inside" leg and he gets too straight, too much right rain and he gets to bent and can't move, too much left rain (inside) and he straightens out. We are practicing this both directions 30x each way! Woo-wee. It gets boring very, very quickly, which ... makes Willig more than ecstatic to come off the wall and work off the wall or leg yield to the center line. And at about the quarter mark, when his haunches start trailing, I just think of the feeling of being angled at the wall, and whoosh - we're right back on track.
The interesting bit about this was that going with his left shoulder leaning (I'm heavy on the right hand), it was easy and fun.
With his right shoulder leading, it felt all weird and cramped up. Mike said Willig is moving exactly the same way on each side - it's my weird, distorted senses (my words! not Mike's!) that make it feel that way. So these exercises, in addition to helping us do leg yield without trailing haunches, also help me recognize, and ideally, correct, that weird feel I've got.
We did it at the walk, then at the sitting trot, which is harder and also much cooler.
Then Mike explained the difference between shoulder-in, haunches-in, renver, and traver - which are actually four different moves, not just fancy-pants frenchy names for shoulder-in, which made sense while he was explaining (and demonstrating) but which were slippery for my tiny brain. I'm going to have to look at them and draw them and mimic them by marching around on the ground pretending to be a horse. They are about which way the neck is bent and whether haunches or shoulder are on or off the "line".
Then we worked on counter-canter, at my request, since it is the "last" 1st level move that I don't know how to do. This gave us another interesting insight. Well, a few. First - Willig already does it like a champ. Especially when I get out of his way.
So I can scoot him in and out of the centerline on his right lead super easy. When I do it properly (not by scooting my outside leg further back, but by bending his hindquarters out - which is an aid I will need later for flying changes, and lord knows I don't need any more sloppy bad habits to have to fix in the future), it's a little harder but he still does it like a champ.
But when we switched to left lead? Oh my lord. My inability to bend him to the left because my right hand is like a greedy, iron clamp, is suddenly demonstrated for all the world to see. First, I twist to the inside (point my right shoulder back towards his right hip) asking him to pick up the canter, which throws his haunches out, which means he has to pick up the left lead canter. When I twist myself all in a pretzel facing the "wrong" way, he lifts right into the right lead.
When we come around the corner and I push him over to the centerline? As soon as we straighten, ker-flammo! - he falls into the trot. Mike says I'm throwing him away, but I suspect it is also something to do with that pesky right hand that has a mind of its own. Willig was like an x-ray machine today - showing right to my bones where I was making the errors.
Mike put us back on the angly line, and then back into counter canter, but we were at the end of the lesson, so it gave me the tools I need to work on it until my next lesson. It was fascinating how different my right side and left side are.
And just because I haven't mentioned it doesn't mean Mike hasn't - my pesky heels still spring up every single time a single brain cell stops focusing on them, and I am having to think much harder and work with more delicately-tuned aids now, which means I can't get away with as much (that I never knew I was getting away with before).
Mike also gave me a tool for Willig's latest hijinx. Instead of blowing his nose vigorously at the start of the ride (and yanking my shoulders out of their sockets - which Mike fixed a while back with "pretend like your arms are side reins - they would stretch but not drop the contact with Willig when he blows his nose"), once I started to implement that, he started a nose blowing/head toss thing. While I was warming up, he actually spit and then managed to land it on his own forehead. So Mike said he gets a firm "leg/hand" connection - the jiggly reins/jiggly legs, and when he gives with his head, big pats - and if he gets naughty about it - a smack. We're starting to "ride his haunches" in that canter work and our future work, and this is a disconnect and an effort to avoid taking up the bit at the start that is a naughty-can-be-punished (although probably also my heavy hands and weaker legs when we are just getting going).
Along those lines, in warm up, in addition to thinking about my &*#&*(&# heels, which I am beginning to loathe, we are working on "too bent - relax - too bent - relax" so that he starts getting a bit more round and connected and holding it for longer. Willig is such a trooper. He's actually quite a nice, willing worker, aside from how he's scared of the far end of the arena once again.
I also think I'm going to join a nearby gym and work out on my way to/from the barn (depending on how quickly I can get out of work) so that by next spring I've got good aerobic capacity, better muscle tone, and have lost some pesky weight for those white britches.

1 Success; 1 Failure

We did some work jumping a little cross rail and vertical on a bendy line (they were actually in a line, so I had to turn left or right like I was on a tight circle), and maybe because the walls created, well, walls, but Willig was calm as could be. We did about 20 jumps without stirrups, and probably 15 of those were solid. Go rock stars!
But then I was giving him his next level of trace clip, and he loves it - like he's at the spa - even when the hay went around he was cool with being clipped. But then the grain came out, and he was like "ok, this is enough of this grooming stuff, I'm ready for dinner!" and while the clipping itself is easy, the matching both sides of him is surprisingly hard, so I think he's a bit mis-matched.

Nuances

The middle two weeks of this month, Willig was a bit of a pill. Even J commented on it, and she's pretty unflappable. I think it might have been our weird weather - he had been shedding a bit before that and then it got cold and crisp without a lot of mood-dampening rain.
This week he seems to be back to normal.
On the drive out, I was thinking about work and other boring stuff, and I got to wondering if maybe he's such a challenge for me because he's too much like me? We're both on the high-strung neurotic type A (if a horse can be Type A, it's Willig) side, and maybe, just like in relationships, we do best with horses who are kind of our complement, although not too far. I enjoy riding fiesty horses more than I like lazy horses, but I like a trooper who doesn't need a lot of delicate handling, because **I** need a lot of delicate handling. Just like I do best with a boss or a relationship where the other person is firm but easy going.
We've also finally hit another roadmark that I've read about but never understood: riding isn't enough to keep you fit enough to ride. I always assumed it was because I was kind of a twitchy, reasonably-fit person (and I have definitely had my fitness slip in the last few years), but I think I just wasn't really riding at a level that needed fitness. Working our three "speeds" at the canter completely wipes me out - I pour sweat, turn bright red, get out of breath, and my thigh muscles start screaming. I am finally going to have to buckle down and start finding time to do my regular workout (running, yoga/pilates, and some weights at home) or else my fitness is going to hold us up. That's pretty cool, although whew - yet more time.
Willig also, by the way, gets sweaty. It's not just me.

Shoulder-in, small canter, and general mushiness

We had another wowzer of a lesson with Mike today. I started by listing the issues I thought I had with the 1st level movements: I don't know how to counter canter (ignoring the entire movement on the wrong lead at Training 4 a few weeks ago), I don't "know" how to do the trot-halt transition, when we leg yield, Willig's back legs trail, and I'm having trouble getting the "floaty" canter to trot transition.
We worked primarily on two things, the first of which took me forever to catch on to, but when I did - once again, angels were singing and I was just grinning ear to ear.
Ok, so for hind legs trailing at leg yield. To teach me how to avoid the hind legs trailing, Mike taught me shoulder-in. This required MUCH demonstration on his part (trotting around on the ground) and then physically moving my body, which stubbornly refused to catch on for the first 30 minutes. Mike has the patience of a saint.
As we got to the point where I could move and try it (vs. just dumbly stare at him from a standstill), I had to ride with my tongue sticking out because I was concentrating so hard.
And all I can really say is ... well, you had to be there. Sort of. I don't know if it's because we're moving into uncharted territory for me, but it is so much more a feeling that I don't know how to describe it well.
A leg yield is walking, then holding the outside rein constant, squeeze and release on the inside rein, and then asking for him to move his hind leg under when it lifts up. (I need to go back and work on making sure I've got the feel right for when that leg is lifting.) Sounds easy, right? While Willig is a champ at it, everything has to be just so or it doesn't work right.
A shoulder-in is very similar, but produces a very different response. It is outside rein constant - kind of lightly pressure on his neck, the inside leg is like a pivot pole that is nice and solid, and then the inside rein bends his neck to the inside with the squeeze and release. And when you get this one just so - which is purely a feeling - I have no words to describe how it is different - just Mike's vigorous demonstrations - Willig goes on two tracks - when the wall is to the right, his right front and left hind leg track in the same track, while his left front and right hind have their own individual tracks. In the mirror, I can see the one line for those two legs, and the other two legs out to either side which is just crazy!
So, like I said, it took most of half an hour for me to catch onto that, which is just crazy and new and I just need to time to work on it and start to feel it and make it a habit.
So then we worked on the "float" transition from canter to trot. Mike had us get on a small circle around him (I suspect, although don't know, that it was smaller than 10 m), and then I'd ask Willig to canter, and then do a LOT of asking with my inside leg while I "lifted" with both hands. This was crazy hard, but then his back and shoulders would lift up like he was a hot air balloon blowing up, and then (most of the time) I'd get so excited I'd drop everything and we'd plummet into trot, but a few times (bless Mike's sweet patience), I'd hold it together long enough for him to talk us into the trot, and we'd float, like a leaf falling onto a still lake, into the trot. HOLY COOLNESS.
It was the craziest coolest thing.
And then he had us do it to the right (my dominant side), where I had another breakthrough. Willig had a harder time picking up the canter this direction, which was weird since it's his "easy" bend side since I overbend him by riding all heavy on that side. Well, on the little circle, another flaw of mine popped into view - to encourage the canter, I twist to the inside. Sweet sensitive Willig feels that twist, and has to throw his butt out to the outside to compensate for it, which makes him off-balance and have to pick up the wrong lead. Which he can't do when we're on a tiny circle. When I twist the "wrong" way, so I'm looking over my outside shoulder, he moves his butt almost into the center of the circle.
It did a great job illuminating Willig's patience with me. He's a nicer horse than I've ever owned before, and I'm sure that the last couple years with me, being ridden by me has been like somebody playing the radio at full blast between two stations. I'm all over the place! He can stop on a dime when I just stop the motion with my hips, and just a year ago I was flapping around like a wet noodle!
Which brings me to being grateful. I am so fortunate to board at a place that has such amazing facilities and such spectacular care. I am so fortunate to be able to ride with someone like Mike, who has brought me in a year farther than I went in the first 20 years. I am so fortunate to have Shannon for jumping, to help me build confidence without pushing me so hard we both get scared. I am so fortunate to have Jess, #1 in the nation!, able to ride Willig once a week to build an upward spiral of confidence for both of us over fences. I don't understand how a few flakes of hay and a roof could possibly make things even between us and our horse friends, but I'm grateful every time I get out there and get to mash my face into Willig's neck. He has been a huge challenge for me, but now I'm grateful for it. He's pushed me harder than I would have pushed myself, and he's making me a far superior rider than I ever would have been. This stuff is really, really cool, and right now, this is the most fun I've had riding in my life, and I just want to do more of it every day.

Jumping sans stirrups

Per Shannon's sage advice at my last lesson, I tackled a tiny cross rail without stirrups today. A mere two of my ten times over it were not me jumping ahead. So, this will be the new jumping de rigeur. (Although I like being able to count the good ones, because now I can track it as it improves and feel like I'm actually making progress objectively.)
We hit the weather just right - although the outside arena was soggy, the sun was shining, a weird number of birds (like Hitchcock lots) were out, and Willig was a goof with Jessica earlier in the week, so some lunge manuevering around the bigger puddles and then me slamming around was enough for him to think about. But then, because another part of Shannon's advice was to force myself to do what I need to (see above, jumping without stirrups) after my stirrup-less work, I worked him on a bendy circle over some poles on the ground, and poor ding dong had such a difficult time with that. He wanted to spook at the brick wall, then the birds, then a puddle, then the great outdoors, then we were back at the brick wall and it was still scary ad nauseum both directions.

He also got his first clip of the year yesterday, and a fellow boarder commented that he's getting some nice muscles and looking bigger. THAT'S why his butt has been looking so big! Unfortunately, mine has too, but not for the same good reasons.