i'm not out of shape by any means; in fact i'm quite fit..but when you are introduced to new movements and challenges, the result is massive soreness, and essentially tighter, stronger muscles. SUCCESS!
last night's lesson was a tough one. Megan started us on the beginnings of counter-canter, with the intro being one-loop serpentines. i rode Lusco, who was very stiff and wouldn't flex for me at first but is now pretty consistently on the bit. he quickly warmed up and got soft through bending and doing lateral work. now, Lusco decided to test me last night. in typical horse fashion, when we begin asking more of the horse, they respond with "are you SURE?" and it is the rider's responsibility to calmly insist that the work be done. luckily Lusco doesn't have enough energy (or bad manners) to buck or bolt when he is testing you. instead, when i asked for a more forward walk, he merely stopped dead in his tracks and wouldn't budge. i'm no newbie to this trick, as my own horse often pulled it, but i can tell you it gets me so steamed. the more i urged him forward, the harder he planted, but since i have my, uh, trusty spurs now, even Lord Lusco couldn't balk forever. he did this a good 5 times; we'd be walking nicely and then he'd stop so suddenly i would practically slide up his neck. horses! anyhow, after he was done with his protest, we got to work.
we began with more bending and counter bending at the trot, and working on getting flexion at the canter, and then megan told us to do the one loops at the trot first. Casey was on Cruz, and we were the only two in the lesson, so we went at the same time, and i had to circle a couple times with my pony to keep from riding up their butt!
a one loop is where you start in a corner of the arena, let's say M, and we're going to the right. so you ride past M toward the center of the ring (X) with a right bend, change the bend left through the letter X, and keep the bend left til you approach the far corner of the same side, which is F, and then resume the bend right as you round the corner past F. put that in your pipe and smoke it!
now it gets harder. it is fairly simple to change the bend that many times at the trot, where there is no distinct lead. however at the canter, a horse's natural bend is toward the lead they're on (if they're on the left lead, they bend left to keep their balance). so the tendency when you are changing bends at the canter is to break stride (or do flying lead change)so they don't lose their balance. the trick is to change the bend without changing the lead. needless to say it takes some good determination and a lot of strength. Lusco and i had many attempts before we started to get the hang of it..it's a mental challenge too because it's counter intuitive. but we got some done in the end. the worst that happened last night was my left hand got all busted and bloody and bruised from slamming against the pommel. this used to happen all the time and i ruined many pairs of breeches by soaking them with blood, but generally when i'm consistently training, my hand won't do that. i was rather discouraged and don't understand why that happened last night randomly..and damn it hurt too! but all i can think is that we were doing a harder drill and my body was trying so hard to do it that it compensated by making my hand do that. i don't know! anyway i have these beautiful new charcoal and black full seat breeches that i JUST bought, and i got them all bloodied, and just felt like crying, but my angel of a new roommate took them from me and soaked them in cold water and scrubbed some soap in and they are good as new. that girl rocks! <3 4 more lessons to go this week! check in later to see how i do at Mill Creek tonight. xoxo
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