Highkey, lowkey

Gotta say I'm pretty impressed with Ol' Silvie this week. It was fairly windy and warm on Friday, which I don't mind. Decent riding weather in the big scheme of things. I hopped on Silver while Miss El was tacking up another horse, and we walked around the field, no stirrups, reins dropped, not caring at all. Wonderful idea to ride like that when it's windy, you're on a sensitive horse, and there are cars passing at 40+ mph. I think his owner is out of town for the time being, meaning that the only rides he's had this week are the two lessons I took on him. Concepts are starting to stick, and things don't take as long to achieve. Also means that trainer is being harder on me now that I know things™.

Still, I like being productive. Our focuses were softening, changing direction, and body positioning.

On softening, he's still doing it. We don't fight as much, and he's holding himself properly for longer periods of time. This ride was more consistent in softness, rhythm, and forward movement. I think letting him walk out around the field helped to get the idea of forward into his head. He still gets sucked back when I shorten my reins and take up contact, so that'll be something to work on. One of the big things I wanted to work on was his downward transitions, and they were so so good for this ride. It's much easier to get when I use the letters, plus it helps me remember the letters, too.

Do not underestimate him.

On changing direction, more with the body and less with the hand. It's coming along, I just lose focus sometimes. After some canter work (also, another ride w/ 0 leads lost), we went back to doing serpentines at the trot, and not only was he a lot softer, but he remained consistent in the direction changes, and they were more fluid/less braced overall.

On body positioning . . . shoulders back, stop leaning to the inside, close your fingers. The usual.

After that awesome ride, I hopped on Roman bareback which was an adventure. First, he was laying down when I went to catch him and kinda refused to get up at first.

How about no?

Second, it took two tries to get on him. Our mounting block has mysteriously disappeared (I am not kidding, it literally just up and left), and the temporary replacement is somewhat small in comparison to Roro. Yeesh, anyways, third, I asked him to trot and he started trying to pirouette. Buddy, you are 6 years old and have been trained maybe through first level. Settle yourself.

*pirouettes into my personal space*