Lesson #165: Working Towards Something

I had a really good lesson on Sunday. Ariel was shown the day before (by a young student) and as usual, placed amazingly with her rider. As fussy and bossy as she is, when she's on her game, she's amazing and if the rider is doing craptastic up there, she'll still pull their sh*t together enough to truck em through a course. Perhaps some of the choices she would make are a little less than desirable for a rider... but she gets you through it.

We started our class with flat work with plenty of bending and stretching down to get any soreness out of Ariel's body from her show the day before. She's good today and I think part in parcel due to the fact that I have been more demanding of her in terms of listening to what I request of her. I don't want it to get to the point again, where she was outright refusing simple asks of me. We got into a good trot around and were stretching and moving well. I'd say it was such a welcome advancement to what's been happening recently where Ariel would get really worked up and take over our lesson!

We spent the lesson with all kinds of bending lines and at trot and canter. Things are definitely becoming more and more comfortable in terms of just being a natural response. I am becoming more fluent with speaking with Ariel. I have laying off the being handsy part but must continue to work on keeping my hands still because the slight vibrations along the rein are enough to really tick Ariel off if there's too much of it or if it's just not her day.

The second part of our lesson had some ground poles that were set for horse strides but had Ariel taking a few funny half strides in the middle. Once that warm up was done, we got into some jumping. The first jump was a low X jump that I took coming out of a corner and straight down the long side of the arena. My two point over the 'flatter' Xs is most certainly getting better and I'm able to have my body flow with the Ariel's body and I recover well enough. Poor +ADW on the other hand, was having one of those days where balance was elusive at times. Despite that, he managed to get over a small X several times and not too badly either! To challenge me, a line was set up with a vertical following the X. The first few times was ugly: being left behind, losing a two point, landing on her shoulder, looking straight down at the jump... Despite this, Sheri says I'm ready to jump at 2'3 so there are no excuses--I just need to pull my crap together.

We usually aim to end on a positive note so when I managed to get over with a clean jump and a very good two point, we ended the lesson. What was different? My body is still negotiating the height requirements of a 2'3 jump because I am not feeling what it takes to fold my body with Ariel as she takes off and I realize that once I get that 'fold' of the two point, everything else comes together enough to get me over in proper fashion. I am still on the fence about showing this summer but if I can accomplish a course at 2'3 during lessons, I'll go for the a walk/trot dressage test or the low Xs!