John said that it was good that he could tune him up so quickly, but that I should be prepared for needing to ride him with lots and lots of aids in his dressage tests like we did in the flat lesson Saturday, and also will need to try to do that subtly.
We started with some trot work, going from a 20 meter circle to a 10 meter circle, but asking for the circle with my legs instead of with my hands. Here's how frustrating it must be to teach me:
John: Now make a 10 meter circle, but ...
Me: Rips Duke's face around into a 10 meter circle
John: ... using your legs and not your reins, it's ok to ...
Me: Lets go of the reins and smashes Duke all around with my legs
John: ... use some rein, don't let go of them completely ...
Me: Picks back up reins, makes a weird hexagon, looks satisfied and proud that I am using both legs and reins.
We also picked up the canter while on the 10 meter circle, but then immediately let the circle go a bit bigger. Duke still seems really tuned up from John's ride on him, so we went from both sides to "trying" to go down a line of poles (7 of them, all 6' apart). My ear immediately heard the word "try" and poor Duke went in, was all "holy shit look at all these poles!" started trotting, tried valiantly to canter, and so we basically hit most of the poles and then tried - tried - tried again.
Duke got more confident as we went through them, and my job was to not launch him to the first one or try to hold him back, so I would start counting on the far corner (1-2-3-4) and just try to keep that rhythm as we went in and let Duke do the rest.
Duke was switching leads around the middle pole, so then I tried keeping my left leg on (he was switching from right lead to left lead) but it made no difference.
So then John turned the middle rail into a tiny vertical, and the first time through we miraculously stayed on the correct lead, but it was a fluke. So with that, it was 3 ground poles, vertical, 3 ground poles.
From there, John added the far pole into a vertical (3 poles, vertical, 1 pole, vertical, 1 pole), then the first fence (pole, vertical, pole, vertical, pole, vertical, pole).
Then he raised the center vertical up to what looked like a very decent height (gradually) but I measured afterwards and I think it was only 3'9".
I still couldn't get the lead, though, and then I started trying too hard, and ducking over Duke's right shoulder.
When John made the center jump big, in between the first and second (high) jump, I thought about opening my chest. I also thought about getting my leg down, and giving him a half halt at the corner before the turn to the fence, but then getting out of his face and letting him do his job once we made the turn to the fence.
Then we turned around and did it the other direction, and I couldn't get Duke's lead on that direction either! At first, we were going right, but we'd come out the far side on the left lead, so I thought for sure when we turned around we'd be on the correct lead, but instead, we'd come out on the right lead.
It was a very satisfying lesson because it had great build up, but I didn't have as much to think about once we were in the final approach, and could just ride through it staying out of Duke's way. He sure can get nice and round over the higher fence, and he's very easy to stay balanced on (at least, I feel balanced, I don't know if he'd agree that I am).
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