Capable But Crazy: A Brain Lesson

For once, I'm not referring to Opie with that title!

It's me. Hi, I'm the crazy one. Called out in a very frank way by one of my trainer's trainers. 

happy to accept my candies but has been nothing
but a good boi lately tbh

Firstly, thank you guys for the supportive comments on my last post. I think it ended up being a little bit of a good thing to have a minor menty b because it made me focus more on my position and body control. MB even told me unsolicited in our lesson on Thursday that I was doing way less bouncing with my arms and hands. 

Also in our lesson Thursday, we cantered one whole lap to the right under saddle! It took us like three laps to pick it up. MB was like, "What is happening, I would have asked five times by now." (The canter felt fine, just weak AF.) This is important because it ties in to our lesson on Saturday.

Opie is feeling really good w/t and I finally sold my jump saddle so I had a teensy amount of cash sitting in my pocket, so I signed up for a lesson with LB who you might remember from a couple of information-packed lessons at the beginning of the year. I knew she'd be okay teaching mid-rehab, and she would still be able to pile on enough homework to sustain us for months. I told her I specifically wanted to work on our downward transitions that are jumbled and braced, and she totalllly delivered.

• In our warm up trot, I've been doing leg yields and then LY to SI. She told me to get my hips swinging in a big motion, but keep a quiet leg and a quiet hand so the increased momentum didn't fly out the front. 
• "This horse knows how to do a leg yield. You know how to do a leg yield. Just do a leg yield."
• She called me out for setting him up like I was teaching a LY instead of just riding it. It's five strides of setting him up and anticipating and then creeping into it. 
• Just like MB calling me out for taking way too long setting up the canter transition instead of just cueing the canter.
• I need to ride more instinctually because "you have a very capable seat" (Sorry, I died a little. Her praise is few and....sometimes nonexistent lol.)
• Get out of my brain and just ride. She said she does all her warmup work while listening to audio books so she's not interfering unnecessarily. 
• Especially in the walk, where the muscles may be moving but there's no real impulsion, I can't be fussing with shit and taking away because there isn't anything to take away. 
• Never more than a 2 contact on the reins in the walk.
• That brought us to a long white-to-pink discussion which ended up being our downward breakthrough. 
• Basically, the gum turns white when there's pressure from the bit. Relieve the pressure, and the gum returns to pink. So I wasn't allowed to hold my pressure for more than two seconds before I had to release it for another two seconds. (Listen, y'all, if there's one thing I've learned coming up the levels of dressage you LIT ER ALLY ride from half halt to half halt, they are not kidding when they say that, holy guacamole.)
• Sometimes though, because she described Opie as a "latcher" which is so true, I only get to hold that white for half a second before two seconds of release.
• This visual gave me something to hyper-fixate on which allowed the rest of my body to just ride the horse without my brain interfering, and shocker, Opie turned to putty and was clocking around like a dream. 
• Also for the downwards, she compared TBs to a horizontal line and WBs to rainbows, and said that TBs really need a little bit of lateral flexion to break up that straight line so they unlock in the transitions. We did a couple steps of LY-out on a circle. 
• She said especially since he's still quite weak, he might not even be strong enough to come down in a full correct transition. Instead, find the spot that he stops feeling good and starts to fall apart and get out of the transition. 
• For instance, coming into the walk from the trot, the second the hind leg drags instead of continuing to push, back up into the trot we go. 
• Do lots of shortening and lengthening the hind end while keeping the front end the same. 
• Works the hamstrings and the core.

full zen after our lesson, marinating under his red light pad

We ended after half an hour because Opie hasn't worked up to a full forty five minutes yet (even though we spent a ton of time in the walk, and then some time parked to chat better), but I got exactly what I wanted--so much homework!

AND. She said nice things about Opie as well. She said right off the bat his hind end looks looser and his topline looks better, and that the SI injections--from what she was seeing this lesson from last winter--were definitely the right call. So that was nice to get more confirmation that I'm on the right track with him. I need constant positive affirmations, I can't help it. 

I'm excited to work on all our new things, and hopefully paying attention to them instead of how to ride actually makes me ride better. Because this brain do be crazy.