12/17 lesson recap

Hump day jump day was totally on this week. Makes me super happy.

This week’s course featured a two stride, a five-stride bending line to a skinny, and an angled vertical to a right right turn.  I’d been chatting with my assistant trainer about adjustability exercises, so Alana chatted with me beforehand about the first steps to adjustability: being ahead of the leg.   Alana had me ride Murray right at the balance point where I could send him forward with just a little leg or cluck, and bring him back by straightening my shoulders.  This was challenging, but Murray really surprised me by not motorcycling and dragging me around the turns when he was ahead of my leg like this, so I sent him and brought him back on every long side.  We started out around 2’6″, and because one of the horses put three strides into the two stride, Alana challenged me to do the same.  That was hard.

First, I balanced Murray up around the corner, and kept him forward but up approaching the jump.  My plan was to get him deep to the first jump, jump it round (tough for me because it’s a vertical), then get deep to the second as well.  The first time I tried, I didn’t commit to three strides and Murray just took a longish spot to the second fence.  The second time, I asked for three strides after Murray had already taken a step from the first jump, and then when I didn’t think I’d make it just sent him for the two.  Alana said he thought about it, but since I wasn’t committed he took a really long (and huge) spot to the second fence (I slipped my reins and apparently yelled “sorry buddy!” as we sailed over).  The third time, we managed it, but it was a short  third stride the guy stuck in.  However, it’s the first step to being properly adjustable!  I will have to practice this when I get back from Christmas.  Alana put the fences up a little, and we jumped it all again, Murray as perfect as always.

Murray truly impressed me yesterday.  I messed up that attempted three-stride, and he busted me out of it, and then coming around the corner to the red swedish oxer we were both very poorly organized.  I couldn’t get my reins to their proper length so I just picked them up as best I could, and lifted my hands.  Murray saw the jump coming and FLEW over it — crooked — and we still made the bend to the skinny.

This horse is truly turning into a point and shoot jumper.  I am so incredibly proud of him.  I seriously think the entire year we spent jumping 2’3″-2’6″ strengthened Murray enough that he’s really not worried about getting me out of a bad spot over a bigger fence now.  Yet another argument for taking things slow.

humble keeping

I tricked asked a friend to take pictures of my dressage ride today, for feedback and comparison to earlier. I have next to no footage or photos of us doing dressage, which means that my learning is all based on feel.  So I was really happy that Tati was willing to take pictures of me.  I’ve also been feeling kinda like the shit lately with dressage, ever since that lesson where Tina told me that Murray was a star.

So obviously I had my world rocked.

This one is pretty cute.

We had a good ride.  I was trying a new bit, and Murray was about as compliant and through and reasonable as has been his standard lately.  It was not an unmitigated disaster.  However it was not the gorgeous, through, round, bulging-back-muscles dressage beast I thought I was riding.  It was a bit of an awakening.

So in addition to realizing how much I’m nagging Murray with my legs (like every stride), and how inconsistent in the contact he really is, there are some pretty specific things I can see in the pictures.  A couple of them show how twisted up my body really is — which is sooooooooo frustrating because I’ve been trying really hard to twist my body the right way — but for the most part I’m doing a bit better in keeping myself straight.  I need to lengthen my upper body too, and sit up straighter, because I am evidently riding quite lazily.

 

This picture was the shot immediately before the first picture, just one stride or two apart (I think).  So you can see how inconsistent he really is — his head is in a way different position between the two shots.  I’ve highlighted in red the things I really hate, the big one, consistent throughout our ride, is that Murray’s dropping the base of his neck.  I’ve been babying him lately while I have been trying to sort out my own position, but I think I just need to remind him exactly what this whole dressage thing is all about.  A few good things before I get to what I hate about this: he’s not dropping his back, even though he’s not really lifting it that much either.  He’s also totally tracking up, which is great, because when I first started riding him he really wasn’t tracking up at all.  He’s also trotting uphill, which is wonderful to see, since Murray tends to be on the forehand.

So, my heel is up and too far back.  Which I hate.  I hate it because it’s bad position and it reflects an ongoing problem I’ve had, which is pinching with my knees and letting my heels come up.  However, I hate it for more reasons than this.  I hate it because I was asking for a shoulder-in here.  Do you see Murray bending around my leg?  No?  BECAUSE NEITHER DO I.  I think I can even see his inside hind swinging further in than his front a little, exactly the opposite of what I was asking for.

Sigh.

 

This was our “stretchy” trot.  Mmmhmmm.  Stretchy, right?

I’m only having a tiny pity party about this though.  There is still a lot to like here: Murray is moving out, tracking up, he’s relaxed, his back is lifted at least a little, and he was even a little foamy during this ride!  Our leg yields are getting straighter in both directions, and even if our shoulder-in leaves much to be desired, he was trying during the ride (even if it’s not evidenced on photos).  For a pony (and rider!!!) who looked like this eight months ago, we are definitely improving.

I’m kinda peeved I noticed this right before I leave town for ten nighs so I’m not going to work on this really at all until January.  Whatever.  Bring it on, January.  I’m going to kick my own ass and Murray’s along with it.