Dressage lesson and snuggles

It was foggy and warm this morning! (Not for long... it's supposed to get super cold mid week!)

 Poor girl! Back to work. :) Although we are taking it slightly easier now that RRP is over. :) She got to go first this morning. We had a dressage lesson with Kelly Eaton at Ashland. We got there slightly later than I wanted so I didn't get a chance to do all our warm up stretches, activation and mobilization, but we did manage a few wither lifts and some pillar work to warm up. 

 

She was a good girl for her lesson, although we started out quite feral. I was trying to get her to stretch and reach but she was not going to do it. And honestly, I'm not sure why I expected it. She doesn't really know how to do it yet, other than on the lunge. Which I also did not do. Kelly told me to just put her to work. She said that while it was ideal to do it, if Lyric was not able/willing to do it and do it consistently... that inconsistent stretching was much less ideal. We want to teach her consistency in the stretch. So, give it a whirl, but if she's not getting it consistently in 5 minutes or so... just go straight to work. It's not the end of the world if we have to stretch at the end of our ride. Aha! Okay. Yay! I'm kind of glad she gave me permission because I certainly kept trying. But it's okay. We're not there yet. So, I put her on contact and we played the contact game. I soften (but don't give away) when you soften. She settled in pretty quick and we had some good work. We worked on just establishing even connection and soft connection, without me giving too much away when she was good and not getting too greedy with my hands either. I need to keep a soft steady connection and keep my elbows at my sides. Once we get longitudinal softness - nose to tail- then I can add the other components. I need to keep my reins short enough that I can keep my hands out in front of me so I can give forward (Not too much) and keep my elbows at my sides and not ride backwards. 

 

Once we got her (mostly) consistently steady longitudinally, then we worked on lateral suppleness. She wants to throw that right shoulder in and twist her nose. So we played with some leg yield. It's hard going clockwise because she wants to throw that right shoulder out and just rush to the rail and overbend to the left. It's hard to keep her shoulder straight, so lots of outside rein. But not so much that she won't go sideways. Going to the right, it's easier to keep her body straight but she wants to tip her nose to the outside and up, so.. I want to grab the right rein and pull up to straighten her ears up. Kelly told me every time I want to pull up on the reins... use that leg instead. She said that lifting the rein works.. but it's a bandaid. The resistance is stemming from the lack of straightness due to the hind end, so... use that leg to straighten the head. We managed to get it for moments. 

 

Then we worked on some shoulder fore. Little baby shoulder fores. Baby steps. I can bring my inside hand to her wither and plant it there, especially if I open my outside rein. That allows her shoulders to move out as she wants to fall in, especially tracking left. Just don't cross her neck. But we did manage to get some steps!! Going to the right, she wants to fall in. Kelly noticed that I tend to sit to the outside, in an effort to bring her with me. But she wanted me to instead, sit to the inside too (so go with her) and then use my inside leg to push us both back out. She said that by sitting to the inside a hair, that allows me to use my entire leg to push her over, vs parts of it. It did work! Which... blew my mind a little. I had to think of it like riding the motorcycle. Lean into the curve (and use my knee/leg as the pivot point). Kind of sorta. That also works at the canter too. 

 

So yeah.. good ride. She was a good girl. Afterwards we went for a short hack to the beaver neighborhood and then back to the trailers. We didn't stay out long because I had to get her home to be able to get Dan back for his lesson. She was a bit anxious on the trail and kept neighing for friends. And she wasn't jigging but she was motoring. But she was a good girl and brave and even off roaded a little bit on one of the trails. :) 

I let them out to the dog pasture to eat the grass before it all dies for the Winter and her and Fleck were all buddied up. Then when they came in for dinner I went to scoop some poop before I fed and she was so snuggly. She came up to me and just put her head on my chest and we stood there and snuggled and I rubbed her head for a good solid 5 minutes or more. She didn't want me to scratch anything or do anything for her necessarily. She was just happy to cuddle. It made my night! It made me feel a bit better about pushing her too fast earlier. She's forgiven me and still loves me it seems! Awwwww, sweet girl!