John's!

Today we braved a downpour and got fortunate enough for a break in the heavy rain for a jumping lesson with John outdoors.
The short version is I have not miraculously turned into a different rider without lessons from him over the winter (and fall and spring).
I need to:
- Sit up
- Get Charlie in front of my leg.  Think about where his poll is.  If it is up, I am good.  If it is down, I need to get it up.  When Charlie is in front of my leg, I can move him forward and backward easily, but if he is long and low, my only option is to lunge flat for pukers.  This means big canter going into a corner and then half halt and sit up coming out of the corner towards the fence.
- I need to get Charlie rounder, right from the start.  I let him warm up all long and low but then expect him to automatically work round.  Part of this is a steady outside rein and push into that rein from the inside leg.
- I also need to get him to flex his jaw and not tilt his head out to the left.
- I need to be more precise.  If I want a transition at M, it needs to happen at M, not three strides later (even if it is well done).
- I also need to ride the fences like I mean it.  My trick to make them bigger might be to make me work harder, and so I just need to channel that energy to the regular size ones.

I'm on track for the Rebecca Novice 3 day.  For the next couple weeks, I'll stick with my current conditioning, then we will switch to a 10 day schedule. The two weeks before Rebecca, we will switch again to get him ready to go.  He says Whidbey is fun, but is ok to skip it this year since it and Young Riders are both so close to Rebecca.

I wish his schedule and my schedule weren't so hard to find lesson times.  I really like riding with him - every time I feel like I learn more and get more tools to improve.