26th February 2008

After reading Trudi's comments earlier in my blog I decided to concentrate on my hands today.

It was a misty cool day today but perfect for riding so I decided to go for an hours hack. My feet are now much better and I only have to check very occasionally whilst trotting to make sure that they haven't slipped backwards. So far so good!

The hands are a different matter. I started off just by raising them above the withers and spacing them about 6" apart but I couldnt believe it when I checked about 2 minutes later and sure enough they were level with my hips and almost resting on my thighs. Now had Trudi not seen the pictures I posted I would not have thought that they were too low.

At first I just couldnt keep them up and every time my mind was distracted they would drop down. I tried bridging my reins so that they were a fixed distance apart but had to give up on that because I am still trying to keep a very light contact with Endy's mouth and I couldn't regulate that enough.

I then had the idea of using my whip as a measure across the gap and held that with both hands. Because it is fixed it keeps them 6" apart and also I cannot lower them. This really worked well and it is schooling my muscle memory to remember the place where they should be. I realise that my hands will be facing downwards but that is something I can easily fix once my hands remember to be higher.
I notice that by raising my hands it makes me sit taller in the saddle and also it keeps my head up and straight.

We did a couple of leg yeilds and I found that from the right to the left track he does it no trouble at all with no loss of forward movement at all. The opposite way is totally different and he just stops dead.
I played with my weight and found that if I kept my weight in the stirrup on the side that I wanted him to step towards then he did not lose any forward motion at all. I presume that this is because I am slightly lifting the weight out of the saddle on that side? I dont know why it worked just that it did.

By the time we got home he was moving very freely and I felt lighter in the saddle. In fact we were having such fun I wished we could have stayed out longer.... Still there is always tomorrow!

25th February 2008

I haven't ridden over the weekend because of being so busy and was a bit worried about riding Endy today as I thought he might be a bit fresh but all in all he was quite good and we worked very hard.

I found a classical dressage site on the internet written by Roger and Eleanor Taylor and after reading that I found that I learnt a lot. I learned the reasons for doing some of the things I do. Although I know they are good to do I didn't appreciate why. For instance Leg Yielding. I thought that the reason I am doing some leg yields is just to teach Endy to step across and to change to the outside track but after reading the site I realise that it is to teach the horse to listen to the leg so that you can ride corners better. Call me stupid but this just never occurred to me.

Today I spent my time in the sand school and we did lots of up and down transitions using light leg aids and very light contact with the bit. We did lots of circles and figures of eight. Occasionally I would just let him trot as fast as he wanted on the buckle end of the reins and let him stretch. By the end he was really stretching his neck down, probably not as well as he could but he is definately starting to do it.
He is still falling in on the corners through his shoulder so it feels like riding a motorbike around them. I couldnt use the whole school because there was a lesson going on in there but I tried to do a 5metre circle in the odd corner at a walk and then slightly bigger at the trot. I still cannot get any contact without him immediately raising his head so what I tried to do today is to shorten and lengthen my reins without really touching his mouth. Before as soon as he felt me adjusting the rein length he would raise his head but now he pretty well ignores it until I actually make the contact.

We did a bit of leg yielding but I couldnt keep the forward movement going in trot on the left rein and he kept going back to walk. On the right rein he is fine. I reckon this is something to do with my seat blocking him so I am going to work on that.

Mike arrived towards the end and was watching me and he commented on how much better my leg position is and that I seem to be finding it more natural now to keep it on the girth. I dont have to struggle to keep it forward. My right leg is better than my left though.

At the end we popped over a cross pole for a bit of fun and he was fine.

I am really enjoying this horse and feel that I am definately improving, slowly but surely.