Now no canter

Happy Valentines Day! 

Except now you have to work. I started with Lyric and we headed to the arena in the halter. We did the uphill walk poles 6 times and then we went to the arena. I switched her to the cavesson and added the figure 8 polo wrap. So then we did some pillar walks and then we did the serpentine ground poles 8 times and then a few single raised poles. And good gravy, she keeps snagging the raised poles with her hind limb. It's like she gets so close to the pole with her hind end that she can't NOT hit them. Which... I'm not sure what that means... 

 

After we did that, I did some bodywork before we lunged. I did her cookie stretches and then massaged her superifical dorsal line treatment point and then did her releases again. I do think she's getting better in her cat stretch and her neck stretch. She's maybe, starting to think about lifting her back! I also did some fascial work and chiropractic work on her poll. We got some good releases and I do think I fixed something because she wasn't tipping when she bent left anymore! YAY!!! 

Then we lunged for 6 minutes each way. She is overall slightly more forward and tracking up a hair better but still not quite as well as in the walk. And she was much happier to go on straight lines today. I figured I would just ask for the canter today and see what we got. Part of me thinks that if I can get her cantering in the beginning, it'll help open her up and make her more comfortable in the trot even. But I coudn't get her to canter today. Like at all tracking left and barely tracking right. I even took the figure 8 polo wrap off to see if that would help. And it didn't. I did manage to get her to canter both directions but I don't think we even got a full circle. I didn't want to keep pushing her as clearly she didn't want to, but my thought was that if I could just get one or two strides, maybe she would unlock/open up. But not today. So we moved on to the alternating raised trot poles, which went well. And then I finished on the lunge with some walk to trot to walk transitions and then I did a small circle to work on bend, because I noticed she was very straight today in her body. Correctly upright and not leaning, but.. not real bendy. So we did some bending without pushing it too much.

  

And now I'm feeling defeated again. Ugh...because also, this morning, before I lunged her... she was doing this again. Although she did have a good roll, but she also wasn't able to flip over. She did do a good whole body shake at least after.