Resistance is futile.............

But she's gonna have a go anyway hahahaha!!!

I think Antsje is testing out my commitment to the 'power trot'........ Two stubborn mares together = KABOOOM!!

Well after a days rest we had an absolutely AMAZING session last night!! I did some poll flexions before I go ton last night and she was quite resistant to start but after a few she started to soften up and relax her jaw. I also did a little girivolta work in hand just a couple of circles either way, but with my hand on top of her poll to encourage relaxation and flexion.

So I got on and worked on the lengthening the neck / bringing together / lengthening idea on a circle to really try and get her thinking of working forwards into my hand. I think I really need to work more on this ‘connection’ as I think we have just got into a little comfort zone with both of us coasting a bit!
Well she seemed to get the hang of it better and we did some trot in the same manner, working FDO and then bringing up and then FDO – trying to get it really fluid and Antsje not backing off the contact or my leg!
I also rode without stirrups for a while so I could stretch my hips and deepen my seat too.

We did a few walk / trot transition from this deeper connection and although the swing was quite nice it was a very sedate lumber into trot! So next time I gave her a flick with the whip and made a bit of a noise at her and she LEAPT into trot lol! All or bloody nothing with this mare lol! BUT! I clicked and treated the effort because I did want an immediate response like that – perhaps not quite so leapy though lol! So Next trans we did was blimmin fantastic – surged up into trot and you could just feel the lift through her shoulders. And the trot, god it felt like we were flying, just so much power and lift in it, I was just grinning like a fool! And we had this for the rest of the evening – consistent contact and powering from behind, into my hand and a lift from the wither………very addictive ;o)

We went on to do a bit of canter, and she does have a tendancy to fall in on the circle. My sister was watching and she suggested I rode or rather ‘thought’ SQUARE rather than circle and I have to say it worked so much better to think of riding her straight.
The downside in canter is that I feel like a bag of shite! I tense up, draw my leg up, go stiff and tighten my arse and therefore cannot sit nice and deep in the saddle. Part of it is because im trying so hard to stop her falling in on her shoulder that I feel like my body is contorting in an attempt to keep her straight. I think I need to do some canter work without stirrups to try and get out the habit of drawing my leg up and loosing my seat.

Other than that though I was very very pleased with her efforts and I can definitely feel the difference in the quality of trot and what we need to be aiming for from now on.

This mornings session was another matter completely! She was back to being resistant again and wouldn’t come forwards off the leg and seek the contact down. Grrrrrrrrrr! She would either rush off all hollow, of stretch down in the lumbering granny trot we had got ourselves stuck into. So after asking nicely in as many ways as I could think of, I ended up loosing a bit of patience to be honest and was rather firm with her that she got off the leg, and that she gave to the contact. Probably not very classical and I really don’t like falling out with her, BUT, it worked and when she gave I softened immediately and from then on we had some nice work and a nice ‘connection’ Is five minutes of ‘bossy riding’ better than half an hour of half hearted nagging? My gut feeling is is that she is just finding this work harder (I know I am!!) and she is seeing how committed I am to it!! Because when we have ‘got it’ I am not having to hold her ‘in a frame’ she is just ‘there’. Thoughts???………….

Well anyhow, I got some nice trot work and transitions and I left it there and gave her plenty of praise for the GOOD stuff.

I will just go out on a nice relaxing hack tomorrow so she can have a stretch and rest before our lesson again on Sunday. I know My hips ache today and we are both putting in more effort this last few sessions so I am mindful that although I want to be firm that this is the way its gonna be – I also want to be fair and realise she will need some recovery after these harder sessions.

So………..another mixed bag! Lol!

A little bit hit and miss..........

So I have been working on the ‘lengthening / bringing together / lengthening’ and the deeper position of the neck and it just seems to take forever to get some consistency in the contact. I can feel a bubble of frustration in me partly because Im sure she understands my requests and partly because Im not sure what im doing wrong! All I know is that it’s a weird feeling when she is not accepting the bridle, and I can give her the reins or take up the reins but she not really **there** and the half halts etc just do not work! Because Ive only got a limited amount of time in the morning the frustration is intensified and I KNOW I am getting a bit ‘handy’ by nagging with the rein and I KNOW that this does no good what so ever because even if I do get her to give this way as soon as I ask her to take the rein down she doesn’t follow, she just ‘holds’ at the wither. GAH!
BUT! When we DO get it, its bloody fantastic! Maybe I have just got to accept that it will take a period of adjustment for both of us to settle into being more focussed and obviously working a bit harder lol! The annoying thing is, is that I just don’t KNOW how I’m getting it when we DO get it!! But I can bet my bottom dollar its summat to do with me! And most likely my tension lol!

Just to be sure I am getting her teeth checked at the weekend just to rule out any discomfort in her mouth.

I gave her the day off yesterday so Ill be interested to see if a rest will help tonights session. And I have got to CALM DOWN mentally and keep a lid on the old ‘frustrated perfectionist’ that is ever lurking just under the surface Grrrrrrrrrrrrr!!!

A bit of exciting news……….Ive entered two dressage tests!! My sister said she would take me as my Birthday pressie and I have finally got the courage up to do a Novice test as well as a Prelim! The trot is certainly good enough and well, you gotta start somewhere hey!! REALX and BREEEEATHE!!!! Lol!

snakes and ladders..........

Hmmmm, well what goes up...must come down lol!! And after a few really good sessions of climbing the ladder, ive come slithering down the snake! especially with the canter. Not sure if it was her, or me, or both of us! But I know I wasnt so effective in my seat - not sure if im stiff, or if she is stiff, or if we both are due to the last sessions - but I couldnt really get 'into her' like I have been. She was just a little too forward and on the forehand with everything today and in all honesty I should not have cantered - or at least persevered with it - but I did **sigh**

The left canter wasnt bad actually, and the departs are coming on lovely. But the right!! ACK! she wanted to 'run' into the trans, So I tried to stop that by only doing walk to canter and really concentrating on a quick snappy leap into canter and then only cantering for a few strides before trot. Anymore than that, esp if we kept straight, she would get flat and strong, and when I did get a slower speed she would just break. So a little despondant today after the highs of the last weeks work, but it wasnt all bad............and I think for some reason we were both feeling a bit jaded.

Tomorrow Im going to do something different! lol!

Quick Update!

Snow stopped play On Thursday and although I tried to get to the yard I nearly ditched my car doing so!! Eeeeeeeeeeeeeeek! So I gave up and went home – a little shaken actually. Went for a lovely hack out with one of the girls on the yard on Saturday and it was nice to take the time to relax and have a chinwag, actually Id not realised how much I missed riding out with my daughter as nowadays I ride out on my own more often than not. Antsje enjoyed it too I think having some company :o)

On Sunday I did a bit of schooling in the arena and also yesterday morning too. The running theme was, well, exactly that…………….RUNNING! She is back to her trammy ways and I rather suspect its because we have been doing a few sessions of the more open work and then the hack she is avoiding stepping under and engaging in her typical way which is trying to speed up and run through my hands. I actually HATE when she gets like this because its very hard not to get into an argument with her because even trying to ride ‘tactfully’ for example putting her on smaller circles / serpentines to try and get her to slow down just doesn’t seem to work! She can do a 10m circle at warp speed – not correctly of course and its like the wall of death!! And its SOOOOO hard not to ‘hold’ which only infuriates the situation even more because that seems to make her even faster lol!
So towards the end, I just focussed on my position being strong, taking DEEP breaths and trying to set a nice slow rhythm. We did get some better work towards the end but each time I tried to ‘give’ the rein for her to stretch more into my hand, she took the liberty of speeding up! So I didn’t quite get the submission to my seat that I prefer and I came off feeling a bit disappointed :o(

This morning I worked on SUBMISSION!! Lol! I also put my stirrups back up a hole as I felt yesterday I was tending to get a bit ‘water-skier’ as she was doing her best to pull me out of position. I think this worked better today. Also I remembered to breath deeply right from the start, which helped ME, stay relaxed at any rate! So we did lots of walking / halting from the seat before we did ANY trotting at all! I also went back to more lateral work and did some girivolta / Shoulder In / Travers on the circle. As I felt her ‘come together’ more then I asked for trot and although she did try it on a little bit at the start, we actually got some nice SLOW trotting and some proper 10m circles :o) At the end I went large and practised walking STRAIGHT – not as easy as you may think! If you let her dolly on a long rein she is fine, but ask her to walk SLOW and in balance then she finds it hard. But we persevered until I felt she understood the exercise – which was basically engaging through her body evenly as she is good on circular work but looses it on the straight lines. So nothing really spectacular with regards to exercises or the quality of work – but I do think that I achieved my purpose, which was for her to STAY WITH ME!

I am attending a clinic on Sunday with Heather Moffett which I am really excited about!! BOING BOING!! I had a lesson about 3 yrs ago with her so I am hoping she will notice some improvements! And also move us forwards with her keen eye – particularly rider faults (Ooops!) Plus lots of my friends are going too, so it should be an excellent day for learning and fun! I am hoping Antsje will be less ‘steam train’ by Sunday!

Mirror Mirror..........

Well, what a difference a day makes! Yesterday morning I had the most AWFUL ride that I have had for quite some months! She was totally unfocussed and running through my hands – it felt vile :o( Maybe because of the hardwork she was a bit stiff – BUT – I had only intended on doing some long loose stuff after the last two days of engaged work. Also although I ‘thought’ I was looking forwards to working with her and had my head in the right place, because I was fretting a bit about my follow up smear after my op last year, in retrospect I think my energy must have been more jittery than normal. So this probably did have an effect although I didn’t think I was displaying any ‘bad vibes’ she obviously picked up on something – animals are such a good barometer for the ‘true’ emotions of people although we try and hide it well.

I cant remember what book it was in but this was termed as the ‘authentic self’ and how horses (and indeed animals in general) are so good at seeing straight through the bravado and acts of humans and respond directly to the ‘authentic self’ and that is why animals are great at sussing out people – even the real GOOD actors cant fool ‘em lol!!!

Anyway back to the session – although on reflection some of this behaviour was probably due to my ‘wired’ energy and some of it may be due to her being a bit stiff and finding it hard to engage as well therefore her evasion has always been to RUSH – I haven’t been happy about her poll area since the Chiro came :o(

As some of you are aware I have been practising ‘poll flexions’ for a while now to great effect (IMHO!) and although I know deep down that Antsje hasn’t released 100% to me, compared to when I first had her it’s a massive improvement. Im not sure WHY she is so protective over the poll area, but I know whenever she is stressed or on high alert immediately she adopts the high neck / fixed poll posture, regardless of being ridden or out in the field. It is a ‘friesian’ thing I think, well all horses raise the head I know but its very pronounced in this breed. So, as I was saying, since the Chiro treatment she has been very ‘fixed’ and ‘protective’ again over this area, noticeable when Im putting her headcollar on and off and also the bridle. When I have been trying to do the flexions she would flex to the left but I could barely get her to flex right – and when I did I then couldn’t get her to make the smooth move back to the left which makes the crest ‘flip’ over. Its as if she was stuck! I havent pushed the issue too much since the chiro as I haven’t wanted to interfere with anything and in honesty it doesn’t seem to have had a big effect on the riding after the initial few days where I got a bit panicky!!

So after I had ridden, I tried again with the flexions and I just could NOT get her to flex! In fact when I asked her to stretch her neck down just straight, it looked kinked **sigh** So I decided to do the thing that seemed to have unlocked the poll when I was experimenting which is to walk her round on a very small circle making sure her shoulders are moving AWAY from me and putting my hand on the top of her poll and just trying to flex the poll and release the neck down. She was really struggling to keep the ‘AWAY’ movement and kept walking into me, but I was quietly insistent and all of a sudden I felt something give and even heard a slight ‘crack’ and all of a sudden she started licking and chewing and released her neck down. I must admit I was little horrified in case Id done something AWFUL!! But I tried rocking her poll form side to side and although not smooth, she was able to flex each way so I left it at that.

Today I decided to do some work in hand just off the cavesson to incorporate some more of this flexing type of work and the ‘Lossyglossy’ (losgelassenheit) stuff on the lunge.
First off I just walked with her around the arena on a loose rein and each time she got all tense and high necked I encouraged her to relax her neck and clicked and treated when she did. She has a particular part of the arena where she can see the road and always likes a good GAWP but I worked on her keeping her attention on me with a relaxed low neck. Once she was consistent with this I stood in front of her and tried the poll flexions – and Lo and Behold, she was as soft as butter with her crest flipping from side to side! I clicked and treated so she understood this was the movement I wanted :o) Then I sent her on the lunge first in walk then in trot concentrating on a low relaxed neck and a swinging back – she was very good and on the whole kept nice and loose even as she passed the ‘gawpy’ spot ;o) I did have to whistle at her a few times to bring her focus back to me lol lol! Then I bought her in close and did the small circles with my hand on the top of her poll and there was very little resistance today and she was able to keep her shoulders mobile and moving away from me!
I sent her back out on the lunge and we did a little bit of canter trying to get the same kind of relaxation as we have in trot. She actually tried very hard! She knows she has to release her neck forwards, but balance I think is still an issue so she gets so far but cant quite release fully and is still a little tight through the back. I realise that some of the neck position is ‘posturing’ on her part for a click and treat hahaha! BUT it is serving a purpose because although not correct yet, this position WILL enable her to build the strength required to fully release the back and neck at some point.

So after a highly frustrating morning yesterday, today could not have been more different! I was so pleased with her efforts, and so relieved that her poll seems a lot looser and I haven’t broken her! In fact even when we had finished and she was standing tied up while I was putting her rug on she was doing lots of ‘yawning’ and chewing so I do think Ive managed to release some more tension again today :o)

I will be interested how this correlates into riding tomorrow as although not massively noticeable I do think she has been struggling with releasing fully into the right bend – made quite obvious by the reverse pirouette video where obviously she was leaning on the inside rein / shoulders and getting stuck. We’ll see!

I lost it, I lost it! :-(

Not a good session tonight! Started of well, should have ended it there! but oh no, I had to keep going and then just kept drifiting in and out of the connection :-( Antsje went back to her rushing and I just got pinged everywhere! Seriously disheartened :-(

I just dont think I can do this.................