Morning lessons

Wednesday and today I had morning lessons, my schedule is shaken up a bit this week because of a Clinic at the barn this weekend. I didn't want to disturb the clinicians by having a lesson in the middle of the clinic Saturday!

Wednesday we worked a little on the canter, which continues to improve. I still have more trouble to the left, and L. talked about me having a diagonal aid problem, he falls apart because I don't have enough outside rein and inside leg. This developed into a 'how do I stop Odin for hanging on the bit' issue, so we did a lot of work with that, including L. using the inside rein from the ground, demanding he didn't hang on it... Odin was not happy. We talked a bit about how my expectations on his behaviour and reaction reflects how he behaves, and how I have to demand that he does not pull the reins through my hands all the time, so this is what he expects.

Thursday L. rode Odin, and today I had another lesson. We worked a lot on response to the driving aid, again I have to learn to be consistent. I have to be way better at demanding a lot of response from using my leg aids, instead of nagging. So we did a lot of legyields, probably because it is easy to determine whether he yields to the leg or not. I was asked to do a small aid with my leg, and if he didn't move sideways immediately, do a big correction with the whip. When I finally got around to give a big enough correction, ta-da, he moved over with a tiny aid. Much better than nagging, huh?

Odin is somewhat lazy, and L. keeps saying that I need to work less when I ride, I have to learn to train him to always respect my aids, so I don't nag him all the time. I really need to remember this, since I am always thinking that 'well, maybe he moved a bit when I asked'. I need to raise my expectations, so I can get to place where small aids = real reactions. To do this I have to be consistent and demanding in my corrections, otherwise he ignores them.

In other news, Odin finally got not shoes on Wednesday, just on the 8 week mark. He has kind of steep feet, so 8 weeks is OK, 6 is better. But of course you need to nag the farrier forever to get him to come.