Communication

My lessons Wednesday and Saturday was more work with no stirrups, and all about communication.

The great thing was that in Saturday's lesson, L. asked me to canter across the diagonal, trot at X and then pick up the other lead canter. I was very concerned by doing this, he usually think I want a change and does one, I was afraid of sitting that with no stirrups! The diagonal is very long too, sometimes Odin anticipates a canter lengthening! This made me tense up, of course, so he did pop a change. And I stayed sitting, no problem. My confidence is rising :D.

As for communication, we did some downward transitions. They are not so good, they are not precise, and they are not forward. Canter-trot I tend to just take my driving aids off, and he goes into trot, but I have been able to improve this a bit. They are especially better when I ride with no stirrups, I know if his trot is crappy after the transition, I might not be able to sit it.

The trot-walk ones are really frustrating. I try to keep him moving forward into the transition, and making the transition by 'stopping my seat'. When Odin doesn't react, I get desperate and tense up more and more of my body, thighs, butt, back, pushing myself out of the saddle. I keep thinking that it is because I don't use my seat correctly for the downward transition, which is part of the problem, but not all of it. L. pointed out that Odin ignores me, because I let him. I need to correct him when he doesn't listen to me, and he is not a young horse who might be confused as to what I want, he should already know this, and probably also know when he can blow trough my aids. We did some work where I corrected him if he didn't halt at a light aid, and like magic he suddenly understood what I wanted.

I am not the type of person who blames the horse, or the trainer, or the weather (ok, maybe the weather), I know I have lot to learn, but sometimes I need to remember that part of learning is also how to train the horse to respond to me, and that Odin is an experienced guy who is not too bad at trying to do things the easy way. I need to higher my expectations to his reactions to my aids. Always, consistently.