Since +ADW wasn't riding, I convinced him to take photos of my lesson. He was so excited to oblige, I'm sure; wake up for 7:30am on a vacation day. The lesson was quickly paced with a warm up of lots of trotting, both posting and seated. Cantering and transitions up and down. It's kind of annoying how slow and pokey Ariel can be, without a crop but the minute I grab one, she wakes right up and then instead, speeds around the arena! Just holding that thing is enough to get her going. I think I'd have more success with spurs than a crop since I don't have to worry about holding something extra and switching sides when we change lead. The warm up was essentially a session of "Sheri Says" and thereby keeping Ariel's attention on the changes being asked of her. I had to focus on getting the transitions done with more accuracy instead of the delayed clippity clop. This is no easy feat since a "call" must illicit a series of actions that tell Ariel clearly, what is happening. Otherwise abrupt changes can cause equally abrupt transitions.
After all that "warming up", we moved to a line of 2 jumps on the long side. I started with a single jump that was by no means a small jump. And of course, I totally over think it and I'm all over the place. I am slowly starting to "hear" my brain churning as we approach the jump and I even catch myself looking down at the jump the few times we were going over it. It only got more complicated when Sheri added the second jump in that line and I wasn't picking myself up, after the first jump. Ariel was really good and trucking me around with her but I definitely need to continue to work on that 2 point over the jumps and bringing myself back up, afterwards.
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| Hi again! The things I put up with, when Deb's up there... *sigh* |
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