Refinement

We did some more refining to our still sort of shitty and definitely still weak riding in our lesson yesterday. The main theme was that you gotta be quicker than that...about everything. 

And bonus was Pivo decided to keep up for the vast majority of the ride and save the video afterwards.

In the walk, we warmed up with the leg yield pattern from 1-3. The focus was not letting his neck bend in really any direction, let alone the ten different ways in ten different places it wanted to. That didn't come together until about the hundredth repetition when the walk finally started getting collected and he filled my right rein which in turn made him straight. I also had to ride the 10m circle in a circle shape instead of protecting his sensitive feelings and let it turn into an amoeba shape.

The trot.

Ohhhh the trot.

I know the root of the problem is tension, and the tension is coming from (likely) his recent Lyme flareup, and still just not being as strong as I want him to be. So he gets tense, sometimes he looks uneven again to the left, and he struggles going forward with how tight he gets. 

To the left, MB had us leg yielding towards her and doing a little counter flexion to get him off my right leg (and get over me sitting on his right side), but not worrying about sending him out big and bold. To the right--full send. To the left--just be soft and supple.

The canter was alright--that seems to be his happy place right now. We did brainstorm an excellent test riding trick while working through his anxiousness in the first canter-trot transition in 1-3. At first I thought he was getting worked up over anticipating going back to the canter. You trot at X and then walk at C in this test (except the second time when you do a simple change at X because this test is fucking stupid and has no flow to it). He comes down to the trot fine, but by the time we go to turn in the corner he's having a menty b. 

Turns out it's not anticipating the canter, it's anticipating the change of bend. Just, you know, something I spent ALL WINTER LONG working on perfecting. But that's fine, we can forget that ever happened, Opie. Happy to play into your drama. 

When we figured that out, I just started changing the bend as we cantered up to X so by the time we got to the corner in trot, he was already positioned how he needed to be. That completely solved the issue! He may suck at changes, but he's got a super counter canter lol. 

We ran through 1-3 after that. It was...better than the last lesson. Again, the change of bend got us, this time picking up the trot after the free walk and having to go into the leg yield. The leg yield this direction is usually butter, but he got upset and stuck this time. Also the whole first half of the test was just blah. It took me until the final trot work to develop any real connection or suppleness, and the work was just crappy because of it. Not a test I'd be happy about paying lots of money to get judged. I KNOW the work is in there, even with his current state of ennui. Getting it locked in in one to two laps around the ring before throwing all the movements together is the holdup.

Debriefing afterwards, MB said I was only allowed to sit the trot if I got the trot we ended on going around the ring:

Otherwise, do my best to make him look soft with a more open frame and hope the judge actually judges like it's only First level. Mostly though, I have to figure out how to be quicker to put it all together. Which would help if the horse helped. Which would be helped by curing all his physical ailments with a magic wand. Someone make that happen, please.