Isolating the Aids

Oi.... I woke up at 6 am this morning with a migraine. I took a prescription pill and was able to fall back asleep until my alarm went off at 7;15 am. Luckily the migraine was gone. But then I was struggling to stay awake while I drove to my first stop. I adjusted 9 horses. But they were all at 2 different barns so.. I managed to get home at 5:30. :) Yay! Mike was already home but he told me it was fine for me to go ride. :) YAY!

So we tacked up and headed to the arena. I got off to go through the gate and Funny was mad again. But she only bucked a little bit this time. Hee hee. We warmed up and then worked on collecting the trot and canter. We did a little bit of haunches in too. And while I was working on collecting the canter, I was trying very hard to keep my weight aids where they belonged. Basically I'm sitting on the outside seatbone, which is lifting my inside seat bone. And then I started to notice that if I put my outside leg on, he held the canter and was fine. But if I put my inside spur on, or even lower leg, he would brace or want to prop and swap. Hmmm.... and they I started to remember that when I wanted him to do a downward to the walk, I used my inside leg. Hmm... Dan might just be smarter than me. So then I focused really hard on it and... sure enough. I could pick up the canter with my outside leg and inside hip lift/swing. Then I could maintain the canter with the outside leg and inside upper thigh. If I closed my inside leg, he'd do a nice downward. Ahhhh!!! Maybe we're on the verge of the change now. Now that I can isolate my aids! (And... shhhh, if I'm doing it wrong... don't tell me! because.. he's not for sale... so if the change aids are to high five my face... if it works, it works! or... tell me, but tell me nicely, because I want to do it right!). So we practiced a lot of upward and downwards and then tried a little haunches in. And yep, if I keep my inside leg/spur off him, he holds it. So then I tried a little half pass, off centerline, not the rail, and we got it both ways!!!!! We also tried a figure 8 simple change with my "new aids" and it was a little sloppy but we got it. Yahoo!!! I rewarded him by quitting with that. But before we quit, we got some good trot work and some good trot half pass. We got a nice rein back or two. And did some collecting at the trot too. 

I feel like I know we got some collected work because he had butt foam :)