Posing

We didn't get a lot of riding in our lesson last week, but we came away with a ton more homework.

DL walked in while I was letting Opie trot around in a half-assed stretch because he was super tightly wound and I was just starting to get him to relax. He'd been a little...emotionally unstable all last week for whatever reason. DL was happy enough with what she saw, said she could tell I was improving with my feel for the contact, and got us going on an exercise.

We were supposed to do a 15m circle at C, turn down the quarter line and leg yield to the center line, and then do a 10m circle. Changes of bend, moving sideways, moving forward--everything to get him to loosen up. It took several hit or miss tries to figure out the geometry, and then we ended up going down the rabbit hole of "Am I leaning or are my stirrups crooked or do I just not know how to ride or all of the above?"

After we got that sorted out (I dropped my left stirrup yet another hole), we went to pick the walk again and I couldn't get Opie on the bit. And then I kind of could, but he was pulling so I started pulling, and DL was like, "Wtf is going on right now?" and "Can you stop pulling?" and "Why is he a rage monster?"

And finally she asked if she could get on him.

I mean, yeah, duh. 

Her observations were:

• He doesn't want to move off the leg.
• He doesn't want to relax and let it happen.
• She was trying to get him to halt and he just went into haunches in and kept plowing through her hands and walking.
• He knows the tricks, but he's literally never on the bit/honest in the connection. "He's just posing."
• He's completely locked in his poll and TMJ.

She gave him back to me and we spent the last fifteen minutes of the lesson asking him to stretch out and down into my hand with the softest of contact--but he had to take it and hold it. DL said she wanted us to end every ride on this even if we did other things for the rest of the time, and that it was going to take a long time to get him to soften his poll and get that floppy and loose, but eventually one day I was going to put my leg on and he was going to soften and round up into my hand.

So that's been the homework: put leg on, pick up reins, horse goes on bit. He doesn't get to do the transition unless he holds the contact.

We've been making a lot of progress in the trot. The canter feels broken and like complete shit, minus the left lead today. He's really gotten thick in the under-neck which is gross and everything I try to work against, so I have to figure out how we can get the back and withers and shoulders lifting while upping the collection instead of only while stretching. 

DL commented that he's a "fragile soul" who's easily offended which is so true. Any correction and it's like a personal insult to him. I'm eating the humble pie and accepting we need an overhaul, sir, you could try it yourself.

We're also supposed to be hitting the cavaletti so that's tomorrow or Thursday's activity before our lesson Friday. 

He got a full body PEMF session after last week's lesson with a heavy focus on the poll and TMJ area. He was resistant at first, but by the end he was melting into it. He gets a targeted session on that area on Thursday again.