Back to Basics

Today I asked to start the lesson with a focus on the most basic body position because one of the themes I've noticed through the lessons is that I make a lot of stuff up - things that it seems like I should have been taught when I started riding, never asked about, and have faked my way through it so far. And now that faking is starting to catch up with me - I can't get Charlie truly collected if I don't use my core as the brake. So I sat on Charlie at the halt, and we went over correct position of my heel, toe, leg aid, seat, hands, arms, and shoulders. Then we did it at the walk, and then we tried to do it at the trot. At the trot and canter, it became wildly apparent how ingrained my bad habits are, particularly for my toe (likes to point out to the side instead of forward), leg aid (I like to scrunch my heel up into Charlie's side, instead of squeezing with my leg in its correct position), and right hand, although actually I think this is the left hand (left hand likes to turn sideways (knuckles up) and inch forward, which is why Charlie always looks bent to the right - my right elbow is next to my hip, but my left elbow is way out in front). What's embarrassing about this last one is I've been looking down and seeing how I've got both hands on the same place on the rein, but not noticing how my left hand is like 3" further forward than my right. So we worked on walk/trot/canter/transitions with and without stirrups (the final five minutes without stirrups pretty much turned my legs to jelly) and my toes and lower leg (pointed forward, long and down) pretty much ignored my brain the entire lesson. There is a lot to work on there! My goal for the winter is to retrain my muscle memory on all these aids, so that I have nice lower legs, nice aids, even hands, and use my core as the half halt and brake. I'm going to work on these every ride, and on Willig rides, and also do at least 5 minutes without stirrups each ride and using the mirror to help remind me to stretch that leg long and get my toes forward. And then I'm going to practice coming from a trot to a halt without any hands at all, to teach my core how to do it. It was a good lesson, but kind of humiliating because I couldn't even make my body do some of the things - so that also prompted me to finally buy Beth Glosten's book - I suspect part of the problem is tight hips from all the sitting I do in a terrible chair at work, and so I'm going to add that into my routine also for the winter and hopefully that will help too by next spring. I don't want to handicap Charlie at all for next season!