Jump lesson with Meg; Dressage lesson

On Thursday evening, Meg and I shared a jump lesson.  It was a great lesson but very frustrating.  I could see the distances, but I couldn't always get the right take off spot, and I reverted back to launching him if I thought it was going to be close.  John had us do a vertical, then a two stride oxer-oxer line, then we started doing figure 8s at an angle over the oxers.  It was challenging to keep the outside shoulder from bulging out, so that the angled line would be consistent.  But worse was I would be so busy focused on the lead change that I would miss the turn, and then launch, which then messed up the next turn.  Meg and I seemed pretty evenly matched, even though Matty is only 8 (!) and he prefers the opposite lead of Charlie - he likes to be on his left, so she has the flip of me over every fence for trying to change leads.

Then today I had a dressage lesson.  When I warmed him up, Charlie had a nice soft trot but a herky jerky canter.  Somehow. what John had him do made him get soft and fluid and forward, but I don't know quite why.  We did some circles, then some small circles counter bent, then back to regular bend, then leg yield out to the big circle.  Then we lengthened and Charlie felt great.  It really wasn't that simple, but I don't know what happened that made him go from slugging around to being really forward.  John says he needs to be about this much [       ] more round, and then he'll be happy.  He also said not to worry about the season, that he'll tell me when to worry.  He thinks Charlie needs to gain some weight to help with his top line, so we'll see how the grain works.  (He increased from 1/4 scoop oats to 1 full scoop.)

We also talked about the conditioning schedule and he said that it is aerobic conditioning that really matters, and I can do that with long trot sets (20 minutes), especially with draw reins on.  He said I could also jump 3 fences, then trot 5 minutes, then jump 3 fences, etc. to meet the 20 minutes.  He said the gallop work isn't as essential and I can do that every other week starting in April when the footing gets better.