Wish it was summer!
Hah, we had an interesting and challenging dressage lesson last night.
We worked on picking up the canter on a 10-metre circle from a walk and GASP- keeping the canter!
Now, to note, we were definitely not really successful with many components of this exercise…The circle part, the transitions, staying in the canter…But overall it was a very good learning exercise.
What did I learn from it? To trust that Oats will do it, to not lean in and drop the contact, effectively ‘dropping’ him in the transition (which he doesn’t like!) and trust that he will complete the transition, not be a jerk about it, and will continue in the canter.
We didn’t quite achieve all of it, but I did find that I was expecting the worst. Expecting him to be a little shit about the transition, dropping out of the canter, etc. I did all of my worst habits- leaned in, dropped contact, let my hands get defensively high, took my leg off, etc.
And it was tough! I was like ”this is above our skill set!!” and Karen was like, ”well how do you expect to get that skill? Keep trying at least!”
HA, no excuses here. Though I did feel like a bit of an excuse machine! We moved on to the left, which did still have issues but was smoother, and then back to the right.
We were definitely not ‘successful’ but I was learning, inch by inch, to trust that Oats wants to do this and we CAN do it (or something close to it). I also got the mother of all butt cramps in my high hip/leg area and holy god it hurt.
It was also death by 1,000 transitions night, which was a challenging time in itself. But it felt pretty good, better than it has been. We ended with getting a big trot, and working down to get their heads low, on the ground low (note- this didn’t happen either, but oh well…learning process right?).
A good, mentally challenging and apparently physically challenging lesson as well. For me and Oats! Haha.
Oats after our lesson (not actually, this was him tranqed for a clip)
The adventures of Mr. Oats 