Dressage Star

Wheeee!!! Danny is getting really nice! He's such a good sport about things. It's so much fun. 

We had a great lesson today. We worked on the usual stuff and got some really nice trot work. And Cindy said the magic words (of course) that helped my measly little brain figure out stuff. I swear, I really am dressage dumb. But A for effort. :) I always sort of felt like my hips were twisted but no matter how many times Cindy told me to put my right leg back (usually when it was on the outside) I still felt like it was far enough back. But today, she told me that Dan was traveling a little bit haunches out and asked me to ride him the tiniest bit of haunches in. I watched in the mirror and focused on lining his front end up with his back end. And wow!! When I rode with my outside leg slightly back but really closed my inside leg, almost like a half pass, he went straight and beautiful!!! I'm sure that I was inadvertently asking him to go slightly wonky. Or at least not asking him to go straight. Because once I did, he happily went straight. And it was a super nice lovely lofty trot. :) Yay! 

So then we worked on that bouncy feeling in the canter too. And we also worked on the downward transitions. I was screwing them up with him as much as I was with Fleck. Because sure enough, when I focused on being able to instantly go back to trot and thought more of bouncing up into the walk, instead of just stopping, the transitions were so much better. He didn't have to brace because we both stayed balanced. Anyways... at the canter Cindy reminded me to not throw the reins at him. It was time to get him to start to sit and collect that massive stride. Well, not collect, but at least not lenghten. :) So I did. And he behaved and was fine with it. We even did a bit of the canter shallow serpentine and he held it!!! Once he broke to the trot but it was totally me throwing him off balance. When I kept my big toe in him and kept my one seat cantering more forward than the other... he held it. :) We got a super lovely balanced happy canter serpentine. Maybe not quite to the quarter line but close. 

 Wheee!! Love this kid. :) He's gonna be soooo much fun. :) Heck, he IS so much fun.