Relax, Sit, Drive

It's easier said than done. My focus during yesterday's lesson was to keep my hands quiet and work on a longer rein. I got the whole long rein thing down, but I couldn't relax all that much. My shoulders were still pretty forward, and my hands kept going down. It's a work in progress.

We didn't do much flatwork (which honestly doesn't help me relax all that much because I appreciate my flatwork time very much), but the jumps started small. I had a handful of good fences. Unfortunately, I am now ducking over the jumps. My two point on the flat is actually much better, but doing it over a jump is seemingly impossible.

Our first course was okay, far from impressive, but it was both forward and calm. I may or may not have taken out a fence with my foot. The second course was disappointing. I tried some rollbacks, which weren't good, then we had five stops. It was starting to get dark, so we went inside and did a zig-zag of jumps, which I insisted on trotting, but Miss S had me canter the last three or so jumps. After that, I cooled off and relaxed myself again with some no stirrup trotting.

I was experiencing some pretty persistent hip and knee pain during my ride, and it started early. I'm not sure what it's all about, but one ride of it doesn't worry me at all. At least we ended on a good note, and, when I got off, I felt a lot less alienated from Baby than I usually do. It's a start.

Comments

  1. Sorry your knee and hip hurt, do you do any stretching? Maybe you have some tight muscles?

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    Replies
    1. I do my hip stretches which have helped a lot as my hips have always hurt a bit. The knees are something new, so we'll see how that pans out.

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