Second lesson with Beth

We had our second clinic lesson with Beth this morning, a good Valentine's gift to myself.
Beth had me twist to the left, which made my body "square".  I could feel that I was landing center in the saddle, and Charlie helped by not needing to be nagged and not bulging out through the corner.  My left upper thigh felt like it was landing more on the center of the saddle.

The other big thing we worked on was visualizing a bowl of water in my lower belly that I don't want to slosh around, at the walk in particular, where I push my stomach forward and back.  Beth had several ways to address this:  first, using my whip instead of my legs to get Charlie to walk on; second, by putting my hand on my belly and making sure it didn't move forward; and third, for the trot, by putting my fingers on my ribs and hip bone and making sure that at the posting trot it stayed the same distance and didn't close.

By stopping the sloshing, I stopped nagging Charlie and stopped tensing my butt and my legs.  For both the walk and the trot, this made me "plug in" and I could rest into the saddle, which actually made Charlie move a lot better.  Not tightening my butt to drive him forward, and not clenching with my leg, made me feel the connection in a really good way that I rarely achieve on my own.

For the canter, it was thinking under/up, under/up, under/up, and that was his hind legs coming underneath him and then up in the front legs.

Beth is also of the opinion that some horses can walk around on a loose rein when they first warm up; that it isn't wasted steps doing something you wouldn't ask them to do under saddle.  She says she has one horse in particular she spends 10 minutes on.  The horse doesn't get to be lazy, but she gets a long neck to stretch down until Beth puts her to work.  She also recommended a chiropractor (Kelli Taylor) and Anne also said that Dr. Salewski is hardly coming to Washington anymore.  She and Anne both said that Charlie's hind end looks a little like it is doing string halt, and Beth thought she wouldn't jump until I get it checked out.

Overall, it was a great lesson.  I think the challenge is going to be keeping the "wrong" feeling until it feels right when I am alone at home.  It is slippery to grasp and as soon as we do something different (a three loop serpentine) I very quickly revert to my habitual riding, even with Beth watching.