Find Your Legs

So first off, new look for the blog! Yay!

Secondly, I bought Oliver a beautiful new pad today:

He looks crazy handsome and classy in it:

And even better when all tacked up!

After oohing and aahing over his new duds, Oliver and I went for a ride.  A post Sarah made the other day got me thinking about flashes and their uses, and so today I decided to go without and see what happened (plus they are just ugly and the sooner I can get rid of it, the better) Back when we first started teaching Oliver about moving forward into contact, he liked to open his mouth to evade the bit (partially because of how I was riding, and partially because he thought he could get out of working by doing it), so we used a flash to teach him that isn't the right answer before he learned that habit.

As I've become more educated in my leg and rein aids and stopped pulling on his face, Oliver has stopped evading and so I think I should now be able to go without the flash as a true test of my skill and our communication.  If I am riding him correctly into the contact, he shouldn't be opening his mouth. As we did our work today, I frequently checked in to see what he was up to, mouth-wise, while he was seeking the contact.  I'm happy to say that not once did I see him doing anything with his mouth other than mouthing the bit or licking and chewing.  Yay!

In addition to the flash test, I also focused a great deal on my legs and what they were doing.  I tried to keep my legs under me like they should be, while also attempting to use them without pulling them out of position.  It is more difficult than it sounds! I did notice that when I tried to keep my legs long that Oliver moved more freely forward, but I'm not sure if that was because he was getting tired and strung out or because of the position.

I was also having trouble using my left leg without using my spur.  I'm really trying to make them more of a correction than a constant aid, but I think I'll need to practice this a bit more as I certainly needed to use a press of my whip to get Oliver to leg yield out while tracking left without using the spur.

And finally, we worked on the downward transitions like in my lesson.  If I think to myself "sit down into the transition and keep your hips moving" instead of "sit back into the transition," it starts to work a bit more smoothly, but I might need Christy to double-check since it is difficult to see when you are on your own.

I think I'm going to really start ramping up Oliver's conditioning though.  It was warm, but he was huffing and puffing through most of the ride today.  I attribute it partially to the heat, but also to the fact that I am asking him to carry himself in a more difficult way for nearly the entire ride now, and also asking him to do frequent transitions in that more difficult "frame."  Sounds like we need more canter work to build up some wind!

Some Fine Tuning

So today's lesson focused on fine-tuning minor things that, while effective, could be smoother and more efficient.  We mainly focused on transitions, and leg position in the trot.  Christy took video for me, and so I have so much to study and practice until our next lesson!

First off, Oliver was just fantastic.  I was hopeful last night that the Oliver I've been riding recently would make an appearance at my lesson instead of the silly, distracted pony we sometimes have since I wanted to show Christy how well I thought we were doing.  But, I needn't have feared: He worked so hard, and tried so hard, and listened so well, that I just could not be happier with him today.  Even though it was pretty hot, and he tends to the lazy side, he tried his heart out for me, stepping into a lovely forward trot and seeking out his end of the reins every time.  Best pony ever.

So Christy was really pleased with the work we've done as far as reaching out and following the contact. Oliver did a really great job of reaching out to the bit and staying there, and since that had been our main focus over the past week, I was thrilled.

But, Christy noticed a few things she wanted to fix immediately. The first being my habit of wanting to bring my heel up rather than keeping my it down and turning my toe out if I want to use my spur. That was item #1 to fix before it became a hard-to-break habit.  I've been working on this, and as long as I pay attention, I'm OK, but I need to do a better job of paying attention to counteract it.

The second thing was that as I used my leg, I wanted to let it creep up, which meant I was using my stirrup more as leverage during the rise instead of just being a place to rest my toes.  We tried a few things to fix it, and what seemed to work best was doing a stand-stand to put my leg back underneath me, or sort of flap my leg out to the side to reset it, like a good old pony club kick, but without the actual kick.  This one will be harder to break as it's more difficult to see when I'm doing it, but hopefully the next bit will make it easier.

The rest of the lesson we focused on transitions.  Riding forward into the contact consistently is now something we can do well, so the next thing is getting it smooth through the change of gait. I mentioned yesterday how I just wasn't able to keep Oliver on the bit through the entire walk/trot transition, and Christy pointed out that I have a tendency to lean forward through the transition and start posting before I should (trotting ahead is what I'm calling it).  When I do this, it puts more weight on Oliver's forehand and makes it difficult for him to go forward into the bridle through the transition so he had to throw his head up just to push off into the trot.

So we practiced cuing the trot with my shoulders tall, and sitting the trot a few beats before posting in order to give him the best opportunity to use his body effectively.  And wouldn't you know it, after a couple of tries, we started getting smooth transitions on the bit!

In the trot/walk transition, I have a tendency to do what we decided is best described as pushing my seatbones into the back of the saddle during the transition, which effectively stops Oliver's hindlegs from being able to step up under him during the trot/walk transition. This also stops the energy from the trot from transferring into the walk and leaves us with a lazy walk.  It turns the trot/walk into trot/momentary-halt/walk and all of that nice, forward energy is lost.

So the other thing to practice is sitting up tall, and sitting into the walk in a way that lets my hips swing forward to keep the forward energy from the trot going into the walk.  The times we were able to do this, the walk was so forward that we almost went right back into trot, so I can feel when I'm doing it right, and once I can get this, I can almost see our transition and walk scores improving.

All in all, a few things to focus on to make our ride better, but I think the major pieces are coming together, and we really are on our way to going to a show!  I put show plans on hold back in April (I'll get into it more next time I think), but that hold has since been lifted, so hopefully we'll be making our show ring debut soon!

The Proper Length

So the past few rides have focused on immediately asking Oliver to reach out to the end of the reins from the start of the ride until the end and to stay at the end of the reins instead of coming above the bit.

We've had a really pleasing amount of success with this I believe, and I think a large portion of it comes from me and my hands.  At the beginning of the "let's ask the horse to go on the bit and stay there" phase, I rode with my reins pretty short and while I could get Oliver to reach down into the contact and stay at the end of the reins, I did it by "strong-arming" him.  What this means is that I used a lot of rein pressure to get him to do as I wanted, and kind of cranked his head in to get it where I wanted. 

So we started exploring better approaches that didn't use so much rein and used more inside leg, like you're supposed to.  As we've done this in lessons, one thing that really seemed to help was to give Oliver a bit more rein than I normally would. I ride with braided leather reins, and this means keeping my hands off the braids.

Since adopting this new rule for myself (along with start flexing him and putting him on the bit as soon as you're settled into the saddle), our rides have been really fantastic.  Not only has Oliver been far more willing, he as been much more relaxed and we haven't really had any issues with resistance in any corners.

Now, this may seem like an obvious thing to some of you, but maybe the shorter reins were really contributing to our problems, as far as bracing and the corner issues.  I wonder if the shorter reins made him feel more tense, and somewhat trapped as we went into the scarier places, and that was the only way he could feel better was to run out by ducking through his inside shoulder.

As I've been riding exclusively with the longer rein length, he still gets a little nervous about the corners, but bending him away from the scary thing by wiggling my inside rein and using my inside leg works brilliantly.  If I recall correctly since I've been riding with longer reins, he hasn't ducked out once.

So, I think I'm making my horse happy which makes me happy.  Today's ride was simply lovely, and I hope Oliver is as good tomorrow during my lesson as he was today.  As I mentioned, as soon as I was settled in the saddle, I immediately got to work by asking him to come on the bit as we warmed up.  So once we'd done a bit of walking and some trotting to warm up, I started with my straight line, wiggle back and forth exercise at the walk and trot to get him flexing both ways without coming above the bit. 

That was working out well, so we got to what I wanted to focus on today, which was adjusting the trot without coming above the bit, and trot/walk/trot transitions without coming above the bit. Once on the bit, Oliver does very well at transitioning to walk while staying on the bit, but loves to throw his head up when I ask for the upward transition. So, we started out trotting, making a figure-eight or a circle, whichever necessary, and I would ask him to come on the bit and stay there, and then I'd adjust the height of my post, bringing us almost down to walk, but asking him to move on again without breaking to walk.

The point of this was to more gracefully do our downward transitions while maintaining the contact, and start to build our half-halts, but also to show Oliver that I could ask him to nearly walk and then keep trotting and he didn't need to come above the bit.  As I mentioned, be was a very good boy today, because he nailed this exercise pretty well.

So once that was working, I moved onto the trot/walk/trot.  The true goal was to stay on the bit through the entire process, but if that couldn't happen, to get back there ASAP once we were trotting. He still threw his head up through the initial trot steps, but we were very quick at getting back to normal once in the trot, that I think with some more practice we'll have it.  This will help us build up our consistency, instead of a few steps OTB and then ATB. 

We really didn't work for very long, but he was being so good and trying and giving me everything I asked for, so I rewarded him with letting him be finished.  To cool out, we took a walk down to the gate again on a pretty loose rein (still no touching the braids!), and he was totally relaxed, so all in all, I'd call it a pretty successful ride.

The Great Outdoors

It was a gorgeous day today, so I decided we would ride outside.  Most of the time, it's too hot, or too bright, or too cold or too wet for outdoor riding and far more comfortable to ride inside, but today was just right.

We had a nice little ride outside and got some decent work done.  Oliver was highly distracted, so I needed to use a little more oomph in my aids than usual to keep him focused. But, not once did he shy or skitter away or anything other than what I asked.

We mainly practiced walking and trotting while trying to keep off the inside rein and use mostly the outside for steering while keeping the neck nice and loose.  A few times we veered off-course a little as he was bulging through his outside shoulder a bit, but for the most part he stayed very relaxed and attentive.

After we'd ridden for about 20 minutes, I decided we would leave the arena and go on a little walk, so we walked out of the arena, past the hay cart and scary trailer, past the paddocks and on down to the gate that leads to the trails.  One of the main goals for making Oliver into a trail horse is to be able to walk down to the gate and have it be no big deal.  Once we can do this, we should be ready to go out a bit farther on the trail.

Well, I am pleased to report that we walked all the way down to the gate on a pretty loose rein, and if we had any problems it was that Oliver was walking way too slowly. We reached the gate, I let him have a bit of a nibble of grass as a reward, and we walked back up the path, and into the indoor arena.  It was dinner time, so I let him finish with that, as he'd been pretty spectacular since we had been all by ourselves the whole time outside.

I'll admit I was pretty thrilled that he was so well behaved! And already walking to the gate was no big deal whatsoever, so we're moving right along.  I'm hoping within a few more rides outside, we'll be ready to venture off the property (providing the weather stays nice)!

A Great Day

So today's ride was really fantastic, and Oliver was very good.  I'd wanted to ride outside but the high was 90, and it certainly felt like it, so we decided to stay inside and get some work done.  We started out walking the rail both directions to get warmed up, but right away I started asking Oliver to start seeking the bit.  He was very attentive and compliant, following the bit out to the end, and staying there with little reminders from me.

Going into the spooky corners, he was fantastic, a little tense, but listening to what I was telling him with my hands and leg, and didn't step a toe out of line, which is a big improvement from last week.  We made a few laps, with him nicely on the bit and walking into the bridle (not consistently, but far better than before) before trotting the rail each way.

That was also uneventful which was awesome.  And I realized I didn't care if he spooked, but that the best way to set both of us up for success in the scary corners and other situations is to keep him focused on me (I can hear the collective, "Duh!", guys) using my aids to remind him I'm there, and bending away from whatever is bothering him.  He just has a problem when it looks like we're heading straight into a scary thing I guess.  But anyway, I was able to get him to walk and trot through on the bit which was fantastic, and I made sure to tell him how good he was each time.

Now, one of my bad habits is riding the same old big figures without mixing it up.  But, today I kept it interesting.  I did the serpentine exercise from last lesson at the walk, and at the trot, and the constant change of bend really helped keep his neck unlocked and his focus on me (if you want more intricate details about that exercise, see the comments from the last post).   We made serpentines down the long sides, a large circle down half the arena, we serpentined up and down the centerline, or across the diagonal, made figure-eights, basically did anything that kept the bend from being stagnant for too long.

As a result, Oliver was driving himself forward into the contact, and I had that nice feeling of holding hands again like last lesson. It also helps that I've been trying to ride with a longer rein since I know I have a habit of not giving him room to stretch out.

We had some really nice, easy downward transitions (and I've been working on gradually going into the transition instead of surprising Oliver with it) on the bit, but the upwards are still sticky.  I've been trying to figure out the combination of aids to go from bending at the walk into the trot without coming above the bit, but so far I've been unsuccessful.

I do want to start giving Oliver more exposure to outside, so we decided to take a short walk to the outdoor arena to cool out.  Now along the path to the outdoor, there is a trailer, and a big cart full of hay, and next to the outdoor is the hay escalator thing to put it in the loft.  Oliver was tense, and a bit wary of the cart and the trailer, but only spooked a tiny bit at the hay escalator before walking into the outdoor so I think he did well.

We walked around the outdoor, just making a few laps, and he only spooked at one other thing (I think he had zoned out and a bird then flew by which startled him), but he was overall just wonderful so I didn't care. I even laughed and patted him after he settled down after the bird thing.  Considering we went by ourselves, and hadn't walked around all of that stuff before, I think it was a successful outing.  Baby steps, right?  And it's supposed to be cooler next week, so we'll be able to do more outside without baking in the sun!

Unlocking the Neck

So today's lesson mostly focused on unlocking Oliver's neck and jaw.  His second favorite evasion (spooking is number one) is to try to brace his neck and jaw against me, refusing to soften whatsoever when I ask him to become round and follow the bit. That's because softening means he can't run around with his head in the sky and actually has to pay attention, work(!!!) and go forward into the bridle.

Starting out at the walk, I actually was able to get him to start reaching FDO, but the walk itself was pretty sluggish.  I had a nice ride Monday where I tried to focus on practicing all of the things we had done in Thursday's lesson, and by the end had some really lovely results.  I kept a good eye on my hands, doing my best not to hang on the inside rein while coordinating my hands to give or hold.

We started trotting to wake him up and see where we were after Monday.  As soon as we started trotting, I tried to ask him to round and follow the contact like he had in the walk. Immediately he braced against me, and usually when he does that I'll make a sharp turn to the inside to show him that yes, his neck DOES move.  It unlocked his neck a little, but he wasn't relaxed and flexible yet.

After a bit, I switched directions but with the same result: Without a sharp turn, he was going to lock his neck against my hand and just refuse to listen unless I tried to strongarm him, which is the opposite of what we're supposed to be doing. And to add to our fun, the grain delivery guy showed up and started unloading grain in the barn which immediately piqued Oliver's interest (food is very relevant to Oliver's interests).

So, I had a distracted, unyielding horse who was also moving pretty sluggishly.  Not really the best combination for progress, so to wake him up a bit I did a few laps of canter each direction (and I'll talk about the canter later), and we went back to work on a small figure-eight, using the tight turns so he couldn't brace against me.  As soon as I felt him start to stop doing that, I was to let him move out on a larger figure, but bring it in again if he went back to his old tricks. I'm trying my best to teach him that yes, it really is more comfortable to listen to me than fight me.

However, the exercise that really unlocked his neck was walking in a straight line up and down the arena and flexing him side to side at the poll while trying to keep the hindquarters on the line.  The change was fantastic, as he stopped bracing against my aids, and became much softer in my hands.  I finally had the good, steady connection that wasn't leaning, bracing, fighting or trying to pull him into a frame. 

After we could walk up and down and change directions, we did a little more canter to wake up a bit again, and then tried it at the trot.  Luckily, Oliver seemed to have gotten the picture, as his ears were totally focused on me and nothing else.  He stayed soft while flexing to either side in the trot, and stopped focusing on "scary" things.  He was finally coming on the bit and staying there, through turns, and through changes of direction. 

As we were about out of time, I asked him to walk, and had a lovely downward transition where he stayed round and on the bit, which was just perfect.  He was even starting to give me a bit of self-carriage as I dropped the reins and he stayed where I'd told him previously! I'd started out with a very distracted, resistant pony, and by the end had a very humble, pliable pony who would give me whatever I asked for. 

It's rare to see such a big change in 45 minutes, but we were light-years ahead of where we began.  If we were at a show, the Oliver I had at the end of my lesson would earn amazing submission and harmony scores.  I certainly plan on adding the flexing exercise to our warm-up routine as it made a huge difference.

As for the canter, it is really coming along nicely.  My seat follows the motion, and my upper body is far more stable than it has been.  I'm able to keep pushing Oliver along, get the quality canter I want, and keep him from leaning on my hands (which he likes to do when he starts to get tired).  I think we'll be able to start really working on it like we have the trot soon which is pretty exciting.

Busy busy busy

It's been pretty busy for me in the past few weeks, so I haven't been able to ride much.  I was a bit sick over last weekend, and finally got to go ride again on Thursday.

I was frustrated and annoyed when I wrote my last post. But, a week of missing my pony helped, and I went out Thursday excited for my lesson. It was a gorgeous day, absolutely perfect for riding: nice, cool breeze, warm, low 70s and not a cloud in the sky.

I groomed and tacked Oliver, and we got ready to ride.  Luckily, the rider before me was working on some of the same things I have been ("Get off your inside rein!", "If you ask incorrectly, it isn't his fault!" etc), so listening to the end of her lesson while we warmed up was a nice mental refresher on what we had been doing. 

As the other rider finished her lesson, I started trying to get Oliver round in the way we were working on: Hold the outside rein, squeeze gently on the inside rein and give, use lots of inside leg.  Oliver was being very good about listening to the inside leg, which was nice.  I was having trouble with my hands though.  When the inside hand went to give, the outside hand wanted to do the same so Oliver didn't have anywhere to go, or if we went right, he wanted to go through his outside shoulder, bending at the neck and not the ribcage.

"Want to try it trotting?" Christy asked.  I lamented that I couldn't even master it walking, how was going faster going to help? "Do you really want to spend the whole lesson walking?" was her response.

So I asked for a trot and Oliver stepped off neatly into a nice, energetic trot. I tried to encourage him to go on the bit, but my hands wanted to give together or move around and hang on the inside rein to steer.  To encourage me to keep my hands together, Christy had me put my whip under my thumbs so they had to stay on the same plane of movement and start riding a figure-eight. The outside hand needed to hold, the inside needed to pulse and give, and the inside leg needed to keep us from collapsing in on our figure.

Well, it actually worked quite nicely and within a few moments Oliver was reaching out for the bit, so for now my rides will work on training my hands like this for a portion. So then we tried it without the whip, and it was much improved.  Christy noted that I actually seem to learn things better at the trot, as the more forward motion stops Oliver from stalling out.

From there we decided to work on the canter for a little, just to keep it interesting.  Left lead wasn't going so well as I was pinching with my knees or something, cause Oliver kept wanting to break back into trot.  We did get a few circles though, and switched to right lead,.

Right lead was nice, and we had a nice, forward canter.  At one point I started to flop around a bit, but was able to recover my position pretty quickly.  Olive seemed to like what I'd done, as he really started to round, or something.  I don't know, because it is still difficult to tell, but his head lowered, it seemed like his back came up, and there was more weight in my hands.  I don't know exactly what was going on, but it was neat.

So it was a nice ride.  And afterward, we had a bit of grass and basked in the beautiful weather, then Oliver had dinner and I tidied up his mane so he looked more like a sporthorse than an old nag.

My ride yesterday was also good, though I had the most distracted pony ever as minutes after I mounted up, the guy who serves dinner drove up, and Oliver is nothing if not food focused. Luckily, he was actually a very good, if very distracted boy, and didn't spook or any of that nonsense.

We had a nice bit of trot while I held my whip to train my hands, then we cantered for 10-15 minutes.  I've been trying to enhance Oliver's cardio endurance by doing more canter with shorter breaks in between sets, but I'm starting to be able to tell when he needs a bit more of a recovery break.  When he gets really tired, he starts to pick up the wrong lead, or get a bit strung out which makes steering interesting.  But that's OK, because it's a work in progress, and already it's better than it was weeks ago.

So, it was really nice to have some good rides after my previous rant post. Yay progress!