Canter Seat

Poor Dan. He spent a good bit of his lesson in the canter too, just like his big brother. Not really. He did a lot at the walk and a good bit of trotting too. We worked on go means go again. I was a little reluctant to go all out "shock and awe" being that I was in the arena with 3 other dressage horses. But I did reinforce my leg. He was mostly good about it. We did lots of walk to trot to walk to trot transitions. Cindy said to focus on the tempo..... one, two, one, two, one, two, ONE TWO into the trot, and then one, two, one, two, ONETWO one two into the canter. 
Then when cantering she said the he likes to let his right hind drag behind a bit. He doesn't want to bring it up and forward because he likes to fling that left shoulder out. Which means that I sit with my butt out behind a little too because he's pulling me there. However, if I sit and think more consciously about using my right seat bone to go up and forward, it pulls his right hind up and forward with me, which means our canter gets better! :) It's hard though because it's a lot of mental work for me and it makes it harder on him physically because it's correct and he doesn't want to be correct, so he tries to break or evade. But we're making progress and getting some nice canters in there. 

:) 

Love this guy!