Lesson 16 March 2011
I'm struggling to keep on the circle lately!!! He falls out of the circle and it's almost as if he carries on going straight i.s.o. turning when I ask him to...
Today, I almost ended up inside the tenant's flat (which so happens to be right next to the arena) because I needed him to go right - he tried to go left... I panicked and we ended up going straight... doing a sliding stop right in front of the glass door of the flat, luckily not jumping over the "fence"!...
The problem? My hands...I don't keep my hands together... what I end up doing, is not giving him enough support with the outside rein - thus pulling him off balance because I'm actually pulling on the inside rein... I also seem to drop my weight to the inside - so I end up riding completely skew and therefore pulling him off balance...So basically I'm making it impossible for him to stay upright and go in the direction I need him to...
The solution? I need to keep my hands together - outside rein against the neck to push him in the direction I want him to go, inside leg on the girth to push him into the contact with the outside hand (while trying to create an inside bend of course, though this is still a bit of a foreign concept for us) and I need to put more weight on my outside leg...
I really struggled to keep him on the circle in the canter today - almost resulting in a nap of some sorts.. so Pam suggested that I don't school in the canter circle when I ride on my own - but I need to do plenty 20m circles and serpentines in the trot. I can canter him large just for the fun... but no 20m circles.
Lesson 23 March 2011
My lesson today was so super awesome!
I am now holding the neck rein as well as the reins while I ride - so I'm forcing myself to keep my hands together and in the process, turn him with the outside rein against his neck.
I've also been concentrating a lot on distributing my weight evenly - but I still need to focus very intensely on not dropping the contact and "throwing the reins at him".
Our circles were much better today and Pam is very impressed with our progress.
