Friday 12 February 2010

its hip to be square!!

A fab ride this morning! Not so cold either today so we did a lot of work in walk to start off with which was just as well as she was feeling a bit ‘forwards’ today and I had to really get her listening to my seat as she was rushing a bit and coming against my hand. Did work on straight lines to start off with on both reins and automatically she felt a lot more even today through the reins and through my seat :o) I did a bit of the flexion work that Emma did with Quico on her videos http://www.enlightenedequitation.com/ee/boards/index.php/topic,38906.0.html
Which I thought worked very well for controlling her body and not letting it warp when I ask for a bit of flexion to the inside.
Then I did a few circles slowing the walk right down and then letting her increase the stride length which was helpful with her tendancy to rush this morning! Then going back to straight lines I resurrected an exercise I haven’t done for a while (too long) which is ‘squares’ with a turn on the forehand (TOTFH) at each corner. I found this exercise really useful for keeping a nice even feel throughout her body and the turn on the forehand (TOTFH) just activating the HQ’s a little through each turn. We then went up to trot in the same exercise and although I didn’t do a turn on the forehand I tried to keep the ‘feel’ of this exercise through the corners and found it really helped her step under under and balance for the next straight line.
We did a bit of trot on a straight line (long side) but not a lot because she was just a bit GUNG-Ho this morning and there is no point doing the wall of death! Little madam even popped herself into canter at one point! It did feel good though lol lol!

So all in all not a bad session and I would have seen the time she would have completely dominated me when she is in these moods – but we worked through it and I didn’t get tense and ‘HOLD’ which makes her run, and she did try and listen to my seat although we did have a few ‘moments’ **rolls eyes**!

I feel much better about how she felt though today and tomorrow we have a lesson with MIKE!! WOOHOO!!! BOING BOING!!!!

1 comment:

Danni said...

Woohoo! I love that square exercise too.

I hope you have a great lesson tomorrow. And thank you for the explanation of 'trotting on your knees' a few posts ago. It made me wince to think of mind you, it would hurt my knees, but really useful to read. Ta much :D