Better than last time

 We had a lesson with Samantha again. Rode Lyric first in case I couldn't catch her. But next time, I'll do Dan first so I can warm him up and get him in front of my leg. But Lyric and I did our walk warm up and two circles of trot before Samantha got there. I did put her back in her old metal fager bit and had as good of a ride as the other day. She immediately was softer in the bridle and not as inverted. And definitely not as dropped in her back as she was in some of the other bits. 

Anyways... we picked up the trot and she was a bit of a slug today so I had to keep egging her forward. We focused on spiral in and spiral out in the trot circles to help get her into the outside rein. Lots of giving of the inside rein. Samantha pointed out that when tracking left, my outside (right) hand was too far forward, so I needed to bring it back so that my hands were even. Hmmm... odd. because my brain had me thinking that my right shoulder was turned to the outside of the circle, so I felt like I needed to turn my shoulders to the inside. Samantha wants me to bring my outside hand back, thus bringing my outside shoulder back too. Hmmm. okay. My brain lies to me. 

We then went to a three loop serpentine and practiced keeping her on the outside rein. It was fleeting and tenuous but.. we had some good transitions. Before we cantered I did a double sit to post on the wrong diagonal a few times so that she didn't get anticipatory. But man.. our canter transitions suck. She's running into them. I can't remember how we got decent ones before...  But the double sit then ask for the canter did help a bit. Same things in the canter.. give the inside rein. Sit more on my inside seat bone and drop my inside leg and lengthen it. 

We quit with that. Good girl! She's getting tired. She still felt like she was falling in to the left in her haunches and I was falling off the left back side. But we had lots of good moments and some really nice work for  a few steps here and there too!

Better than last time!