Soften the gristle

We had a jump lesson on Friday followed by a dressage lesson on Saturday.  Although a change from normal, this had some benefits.  John noted that Duke would be stiff for dressage, following his hard work jumping, and that gave us an opportunity to work on how to soften the stiffness.  This will be something I'll want to do on show jumping, following cross country.
John said to start with 10 extra minutes of quiet walking around, away from the hustle and bustle of the show ring.  Follow that with some big neck bends - a big wide open inside hand, and giving with the outside hand to give him enough room to bend his neck.  Use inside leg to push him round and let him bend around it.  Duke could bend easier to the left than the right, so keep working with him until he gives in the neck.  John said this will help him loosen up the stiffness he carries in his front shoulders, and in his hind leg - his right hind, I think, mostly.
This took me opening my hand far wider than I was comfortable with and then opening even further.  I know it will be hard for me to trust that process at a show, so it was good to feel it in a lesson.
Duke was good, but it was easiest to feel his stiffness at the canter, where he wanted to stick his neck up, rather than move over the top of his back, so that will be another clue to me that he's feeling stiff and uncomfortable, and needs the time to soften up.
John said that Duke is like gristle; he's wiry underneath, and needs to soften up those kinks to move more freely.
We worked on 20 meter circles and leg yields off the quarter line.  Some of these, Duke crossed nicely, and others we kind of drifted at an angle sort of towards the wall.  I think the difference had to do with the outside (wall) hand, although I'm not sure if it was using it as a wall (a half halt) or giving a little that helped Duke square up his shoulders and cross.  He popped his head a bit on the down transitions, but I was thinking in both lessons how much better balanced and even he feels than when he got here a year ago, and how well he tries to communicate with me.
John had me change my leg aids (more on the inside; forward and more on the outside), but this part is still beyond my grasp.  I can (mostly) do it when John is telling me, but I can't feel it well enough to know when I should do it on my own.

Some big ass oxers in a lesson with Christa

John started the lesson by talking about what happened at Aspen.  The easy explanation:  when I think a fence is big, my childhood lesson ("don't catch him in the mouth!") kicks in, and I throw my hands forward to save Duke's sweet face.  John says we can retrain my hands, but it is the idea of a big fence and that seminal lesson.
For Aspen, I was partly right - the two right hand turns I was probably still making the turn instead of squaring him up to the fence - still using my inside leg to move him instead of getting him perpendicular.  John said I should have used counterbend (I thought I was, but maybe I wasn't, or maybe Duke was ignoring me).  For the left hand turn (the stall), he probably felt forward, but really needed to be pushed forward and then a half halt, and he just didn't have enough go to get through the fences.
Then he showed us how Duke goes over a fence - if he's balanced and not stiff, he touches the pole on top of the cups; if he's stiff, he drags his hind legs over and rolls the rail out of the cups.
It is me - in the sense that I'm nervous at a competition, so I'm riding him stiff, so he gets stiff.
He said for cross country, the fact that I could think about the fences going wrong (seeing it was another long distance coming), then think about warm up, then apply it, was good.  He said on cross country a lot of people can't even think, they're just reacting.  (On the other hand, it might be nice if I could just feel and react, instead of having to think it through.)

So he had us start over a little vertical, that he raised, and my job was to go to it with looped, loose reins.  It was ... hard to do.  Duke jumped it like a steady eddy, but as it got bigger, it got harder and harder for me to leave his face alone and just let him jump it.  John said to warm up like that, let him figure it out for a few fences, then when I pick him up and I ask him to do something in front of the fence, he's going to listen.

From there, we did the vertical, left hand turn to plank and rail, right hand turn to huge oxer, and then eventually the long four stride vertical to monster oxer from last week.
The big lesson for me was to have him forward enough - when we hit a rail it was because he stalled out in the turn and I didn't push him forward again, and to keep him soft.  If he got stiff on the way to the fence, he was more likely to rub it.  I kept him soft by riding him forward and with a bit of counterbend on the turn on the way to the fence.

It was a great lesson, and Duke's a great horse, but I feel like we've moved to the next stage of learning - the part where it makes sense when he says it, but is just slightly over my head so I can't repeat it at home (or here) - and somehow we skipped the part where I get to feel cocky and confident for a month or two.

I'm a sore loser

John warmed us up for dressage and we had what I thought was Duke's best dressage test so far.  I'm not sure it was his worst score, but it was pretty close.  I think he might have gotten a better score the time he bolted into the arena.  He did have two blips - he thought about trotting in the medium walk (but didn't) and his halt was al little crooked - not his fault, something about the way I ride makes him (and Charlie) swing their haunches to the left.  The rest of it he was steady, calm, and obedient.  He did his free walk as slooowww as he could possibly go, but he stretched down to the bit and kept going, just slowly.
So, ok, fine, I can live with that.  He's a thoroughbred, not a flashy mover.  And I'm not that great at dressage.
In warm up, I felt like we were on the edge of a break through - something about the inside leg and outside hand and holding it steady, but then my brain got all panicked about the show and it slithered away.  But hopefully the next dressage lesson it will come back and hit me.
Cross country was fun.  We warmed up, he was jumping perfect, so we walked again (again, with John's help), then a rider to go we went over the table again and it was just crap.  So we had to do it three times before it was slightly less crap.  John said not to hang onto his face, so I tried not to, but then he got all strung out - there were a few fences where I felt us coming in at the wrong distance, and it took me maybe three of them to remember what John said and then do it (sort of successfully) but that meant the last two fences were fine.  At least they felt fine to me.  Some of the ones that felt fine possibly weren't, like Christa said we left a stride out at the trakehner.  I would not have thought that at all.
Our up bank/down bank was crap, but he kind of lurched up (the too long and flat thing), then had one stride to get down, and I had slipped the reins to keep from grabbing him in the face in the lurch up, so he had to steer himself off, and bless his little heart, he did it.
John said that he's kind of an asshole about day to day stuff, but when the chips are down, he comes through.
Except for at show jumping.  Like every fucking lesson we've ever had, he warmed up like a fucking rock star.  And so we walked, and then did a couple more fences and they were crap.  (Theme). And so I went in to ride and I thought I was riding exactly the same way I ride in lessons or at home, but instead we got three fucking rails.
We hit the top of the wall on fence 4, which apparently no one else in the history of the show hit.  John said that was not enough outside rein.  It was a right hand turn, so it needed left rein to keep his left (drifting) shoulder in line, so, ok, maybe.  We made it on the bending line through the one stride, but then the ridiculously easy vertical got clobbered.  Brooke said we came in too close.  But there's nothing I could fucking do about that - I made the turn big and wide and gave him plenty of space.  It was - however - also a right hand turn that needed left hand outside rein.  Then when we made the LEFT hand turn to the two stride combo, he just utterly and completely failed to take off at the first fence, had to spring straight into the air to get over it (which, of course, he did, because why would he risk a rail) but then the striding was all fucked up for the two stride, so on the way out, he hit the fence.  So that one, ok, I get why he hit the second fence, but why didn't he jump the first fence?  I gave him a long approach, it was one he's jumped before, ...
I don't know if we need to go back down to Novice instead of up to Prelim.  It was just embarrassing and it reflects poorly on John and it pisses me off because I don't know what I'm doing wrong to work on it and fix it and get better and improve.
I didn't even want to write this, but I'm hoping that someday a few years from now I look back and remember "oh yeah, ha ha, I didn't know anything then and look how much better I am now."

Jumping on bending lines

I have to work all night tonight, so this post is brief.
We jumped jumps that looked big, over lines that took a lot of concentration.
For warm up, John told me to let Duke figure out the spot - so give him a bit with the rein on the approach.  The other big impact was to make sure I looked up and over the fence instead of down at it.
Then we did some lines that either needed an angle/angle or a carefully timed bend or turn to get the distance right. Duke did very well with these, even though I had a couple where my reaction time was a little slow.  We also went from a regular four to a long four to a regular but even even four, and so I had to think to adjust in between for each one.
My two big corrections were to let Duke do his job on the fences where he could figure it out, but help him get to the next fence on the correct striding - in particular for the long four that was a vertical to an oxer.  And then to pick the line and commit to it.
It was one of the classic John lessons where I looked at the fences when I got in and thought "that's crazy, I can never jump any of those" and then felt all confident and successful at the end.

Jumping between rain squalls

We had a great jump lesson today, and managed to only get drizzled on at the very end of the lesson.  It poured on the drive down and back.
John had us start over a cross rail, then over the vertical heading towards the barn (uphill).  From there, he had me make a right turn after going through the fences, so I had to use left rein to get Duke lined up with the fence.  Using this left (outside aid) was key to getting Duke lined up, and then it helped with the entire rest of the lesson.  Duke was gung-ho, and John had me ride him a bit more forward than I would have chosen on my own, and let the fence back him off.
After doing the vertical and oxer a few times, he made a course.  It was right hand turn to oxer, right hand turn to vertical, left hand turn to a vertical, four stride, oxer, and then after we did that a couple times, we added a triple combination (vertical, one stride, vertical, two stride, oxer) to the end.
The lesson was to change the way I rode the fences to adjust for each fence.  So the challenging right turn to the first oxer needed a lot of outside rein, but keeping him going forward.  The right hand turn to the vertical was a little uphill, so I needed to look up and keep him forward.  But then it was an open canter down a long side, and then give him a bit of a half halt but let him really go forward to make the four strides in between, and depending on how we came to the first fence, adjust what I was doing in between to make the four strides.  I flubbed it the first time but did better after John explained it.  Then to get into the combination, it was get in, one stride, then a quick half halt in between.
From there, we did a corner, first going uphill (twice), then downhill.  The first time uphill Duke thought about bobbing out to the left, but I thought he might since that it is his side he likes to go out on, so I was ready and put my left leg on and we made it over (although knocked the first rail down).  The second time was better.  He seemed to be equally surprised by it when we changed directions though, but thankfully, because he'd given me a heads up he might bulge the first way, I knew to be ready for it the second time.
John said in the warm up at the shows, use that outside rein to control his shoulders, and that should help with the rails, because he doesn't need as much adjustment on the distances as he does on not drifting left.
A jump lesson was just what I needed.  Work has been frustrating.

Draw reins after a flat tire

I got another flat tire on the trailer; this one just a few miles after leaving the barn.  It took a couple hours to get fixed, so I was quite late for my lesson.
John had us ride in draw reins, and Duke was sweet.  We did a bit of lateral work, a couple leg yields and then some canter serpentines (just to the quarter line and back).  John said that he was surprised by how quiet Duke has been, and me too, for how consistent we were all winter and how erratic my schedule has been for the month of August.  It's kind of a relief, so that if my work life gets crazy in the future, it might be easier on Duke than I thought it was going to be.  On the other hand, he was NOT happy about being in the trailer during the flat tire, and then scraped his nose up on the drive home.
During the lesson, John mostly had me work on making him more round, using half halts, an inside bend, and keeping the connection with my outside hand.