Canter downwards

Lesson with Kelly...

suppling the canter.... flex in, flex out, but keep even contact on BOTH reins in both directions. Suppling him for the downwards is great.... but I'm doing it wrong. I'm thinking of dribbling him up into the downward and it's kind of working but on the left lead (the hard lead) he's bracing into it because he isn't supple first. It works much better on the right lead as he's much more supple.

The problem is that he's too smart! We were sort of working on simple changes when we started and then we moved to working on suppling for the downward, which he decided meant change. Not quite little buddy, but I appreciate your effort. :) So... yeah...

Fun ride though. And... funny enough, at the end of it... despite me feeling pretty good about it ... Kelly made the comment that I shouldn't worry about the fact that she still has to encourage Dan's forward with the whip and that I shouldn't get discouraged or "feel like a failure". THANK YOU!! Oh my how I needed to hear that. Not at that particular moment... but in general. She said the magic words. That is my F word.... and it demonizes me to no end. So the fact that she said that.. just made me feel so much better. And then I started to think.. you know, we really didn't accomplish that much in this lesson... but it was okay. Because... I know that we were fixing things that needed to be fixed, and at this point, most importantly, Dan and I were having fun. Yes it was hard. And yes it was tiring. And yes we were struggling, but.... we had fun and we were a team and we were making progress. And right now.. that's all I can do and what I really really need. I really needed to just take the pressure off me.... (Not me and Dan.... but me, my body... my position... me!!). I needed something to focus on and work towards in a very simplified dumbed down way really. And yes.. we may have spent our entire lesson working on one little thing (poor dan, that's a lot of cantering! but.. ha! Who are we kidding.. he wasn't even that tired!) and we may not have even made that much progress, but.. my brain was happy about it. So.... yay!

But anyways, so yeah...  I need to get the connection evenly in both reins and get him supple enough to where I can flip his crest/flip the flexion to both directions while cantering and have him stay balanced and supple so that he can then respond to my aids.

and... cause he's adorable! And we clearly haven't had rain in awhile...