Lesson #5: Not for Nothing

I arrived with good time and checked the board to see who I was riding tonight: I thought it was Rock, but things changed and I had Indy! Let me tell you, how excited was I? I wanted to ride Indy for a few weeks now. He is a silver thoroughbred x warmblood. And he's just awesome! Why? Because a horse with a full name of "Indiana Jones" can't possibly be un-awesome to ride.

I also changed lesson day--going from Thursday night to Wednesday evening. This meant I had a different instructor tonight: Sheri. She's more technical and more specific. For example, she was mentioning to me that my hands needed to be lower, about a foot apart and not jossling the horses mouth back and forth. I never paid attention to these items previously.

The class was not particularly exciting but I was really hoping that it wouldn't have been a big class because there's just too much going on for any instructor to really make an impact and pay attention to each and every student. I hope that the class size diminishes for next week or I'm going to move back.

We continued to work on our post trots and posting diagonals. I'm starting to find that posting on the correct diagonal is much more comfortable. I don't know how to explain it but there's just this rhythm that flows when you're doing it right. Not that you couldn't on the other diagonal, but it's just that little "bit" that makes it more comfortable. I still need much more practice though.

Over the weekend, I visited Glenwood and tonight, I measured the time it would take to get to Glenwood vs Greyden. Why am I thinking about this...? I'm finding the drive to Greyden to be taking way too long to be considered reasonable. I like the school and I enjoy the horses whom I've ridden so I am hesitant to leave but, I could potentially save upwards of 1 hour driving (and gasoline!) if I went to Glenwood. I'm not certain what I'm going to do but I am certain that it's something I need to really start thinking about.

The class had just enough work since I was finding myself getting lazy with the posting and inserting double bounces where I shouldn't. The one "ding!" moment I had today was realizing that my inner legs help me pivot through my hips for posting diagonals. This also explains why my breeches have the inside knee patches! Hurrah! mystery solved.