Odin & Me at Whidbey Show

Odin & Me at Whidbey Show, originally uploaded by IdaWW.

Finally got the pictures I wanted from the pro photographer ordered. Here is one of the them. I really like the way Odin looks at the camera, and you can see the awesome braids M. made for me (yeah, I still need practice. Mine came out in the first test).

I look a little concened, and yes, I am hunched a little forward (but, really, you should have seen the other pics :P).

I do ride in jods, yes, I didn't own tlal boots, and it is actually legal. Now it is legal to ride in halfchaps through First Level, which I think is great. I have brought boots though, still waiting to break them in.

btw, we scored between 59 and 62%, and got some second and forth places, I was happy.

Riding from the inside leg to the outside rein

I saw that jesterjigger commented on my previous post, about releasing the inside rein while half halting the outside rein, while doing a transitions.

My last couple of lessons we have been focusing on driving Odin to the outside rein. He tends to fall out (or in) when I do a half halt, instead of coming together. L. had me tap his inside shoulder while half halting his outside rein, to make him have better balance. My problem is that I don't always feel him falling in, and I feel I have quite a bit of weight in both my hands (since Odin is usually heavy on the bit), so it hard to feel that I don't have enough on my outside rein.

This does require quite a bit of coordination, especially since I have to try and keep a consistent contact on the inside rein (I can't ride him together/balanced enough for me to have slack on the inside rein, yet). However, if I do manage this feat, I can see in the mirrors how much more balanced he is. It is harder for me to feel it, though, which is annoying, I need to feel if my corrections are effective.

Last lesson I did some counter-canter while doing this, and it felt a lot more balanced/straight that usual, when Odin is together he has a really awesome canter, it puts a smile on my face :D.

All this has really make me think about the title of this, you always read you should ride from the inside leg to the outside rein, now I understand a little of what that is about.

Timing

After being on vacation for 2 weeks, I have now been back for a week, and it feels good to ride again.

Yesterday we focused on timing in transitions, and it was a really good lesson. L. made me aware of my timing when doing a half halt to re-balance, it needs to be collect/contract - then forward immediately, which I knew, but not really concentrated on applying all the time. In transitions we did the same, collect, then immediately do the transition. I use to do a half halt, think about if it worked, then do the transition. Doing the half halt almost at the same time as doing the transition made them so much better, Odin was able to be a lot more balanced. Yay! It is really hard for me to remember to do, though, as with anything that is not a habit.

we also did a bit of lenghtenings in trot, here I could also feel how much I had to support him with half halts too keep his balance and collection in the lenghtenings. I don't think we entirely succeeded, but I could feel what needed to be done much better.