Aspen recap

Aspen was our second show this season, and like always, it was incredibly professionally done.  Everything ran on time, the fences were gorgeous, the courses were fun but challenging, and it was top notch all the way around.
Charlie had his A game on for dressage, and thanks to the very specific tips and exercises from John and Shannon after my NWEC dressage test, I had concrete things to focus on and practice and it really made a difference.  I felt like I fixed almost all of them - except the halt.
For show jumping, I dropped the ball.  I focused so much on going fast, that I didn't think about keeping Charlie put together until we started puking over and touching all the fences.  By then, he had taken over, and I didn't have enough space/time in between the fences to really put him back together.  He saved my bacon and we got lucky, but this is definitely where we need to work - how to ride a big canter without it being strung out.
Then, our last day was cross country, which is of course my favorite.  And Charlie was, of course, an absolute rock star.  We just cruised it!  Shannon had given me exactly what I needed to think about, but only for a handful of places so I could remember it all.
What I found really helped was that for both dressage and cross country, I visualized my ride over and over again ahead of time.  It seemed to kind of store some of the actions so that I could focus on more things during the ride.  I'm going to try to work on that more for show jumping too, and see if that helps.
The other thing I want to do is shout out to John Camlin and Shannon Morris's patience.  Without them patiently watching me struggle to catch on in little tiny baby steps, I wouldn't be nearly as far as I am today.  And I can really feel the progress from last year.  I appreciate their confidence and patience with me because I'm definitely not a natural rider, but I really want to learn how to ride well, even if it takes me the rest of my damn life.