Ride Notes: You Suck

Lately I've been swinging from "Everything is on track and going great!" to "There are so many holes and so many things that need to be worked on, improved upon, and just downright introduced that we're never, ever going to get to where we need to be."

In the same ride.

Sometimes within five minutes of each other.

Training horses is really hard and sucks a lot.

The deficiencies at the moment are these:

• The sitting trot is still not forward enough, powerful enough, relaxed enough, or round enough to even fake any of the other things.
• I tried to tell myself yesterday that lighter is always better with this horse, but it still wasn't a complete success. I reminded myself that going slow while being soft and building up his trust that I will be soft is going to take time, and it's the right path. But also I have a mental meltdown because we've had all winter to go this route and here I am with two (possible) months until the first show of the year and we're still basically at ground zero.
• The lateral work isn't forward enough because the sitting trot isn't forward enough and he still gets tense. 
• The steeper, better looking angle in the lateral work only comes the last few strides before we hit the corner--slow to develop. Maybe having more room in a dressage court will help here?
• The canter is a complete hit or miss.
• The counter canter is broken. Again.
• We still have no medium trot whatsoever and I never even get around to working on it because there are so many other problem areas to focus on.
• WHY CAN I NOT SIT IN THE FUCKING SADDLE AT THE CANTER?!

He's so good warming up/in the posting trot. He's round, he's forward, he's solid as a rock in the contact. Easy easy easy. Then I plunk my sorry ass down and start asking for something real and it starts to fall apart. So is it that he's not ready, or is it that I'm that horrible of a rider?

Maybe both.