Sunday, August 1, 2010

surprise

Well, the first one wasn't a surprise -- it was Rolinette in the arena. The normal long walk warm up, lateral still getting better every day. Trot, which now really doesn't even start off ugly although I usually give it a few circles in each direction to loosen up the muscles before we pose many questions at trot. And those questions are, of course, leg yield, shoulder fore, circle large, circle a bit smaller, bend, on bit, steady rhythm, steady head, and maybe just a tiny inkling of lengthening on every other diagonal or maybe once on a long side. Oh, and slip in stretchy walk and stretchy trot in there too. Pretty much did canter just as previously reported, several on each side. To the right she's getting downright nice. Still some more work to the left but coming along.

The surprise was in the afternoon when Lisa was tacking up Nicole, she said, plan on taking the last ten minutes of my ride. Ok. I got to a stopping place in the barn and went to watch her, then got on, walked while she checked out a different horse's progress, then got some instruction. Nicole, when she's round, is SO beautiful. However, she resists round, a lot. So she resisted. But she didn't get hot. She resisted less when asked for shoulder fore because she had to think and can't use as many braincells for resistance. But we had some moments that were nice. Which was pretty good considering that Lisa pissed her off when cantering her before I got on.

However, that canter work gave me my next technique with Rolinette -- the trot-canter circle thingie but just one transition per circle, working consecutive circles in serpentine up the arena, then change rein and do it again which done once will give you three transitions in each direction.

I also got some terrific compliments on my riding from Lisa today. I want to mark that, and I wouldn't mind remembering what they are except I don't want to be immodest. And some of it was kidding. But then again, you don't kid like that if you don't mean it a little. And I talked with her some about the next show and what test to ride. She said to ride whatever test I wanted to but it is her horse and she is the coach. But I'm riding test 3. And hopefully next show I'll ride test 4. Of course, my hopes remain at 60. A score of 6, you know, is "satisfactory". One really hopes to be satisfactory rather than marginal!
  • 10 Excellent
  • 9 Very good
  • 8 Good
  • 7 Fairly good
  • 6 Satisfactory
  • 5 Marginal
  • 4 Insufficient
  • 3 Fairly Bad
  • 2 Bad
  • 1 Very bad
  • 0 Not performed

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