Good Ride.... changing aids???

 So... yesterday I adjusted and acupunctured Dan and he was super! He was so good and non-fidgety. And he wasn't sore!!! Yahoo! So today... I'm not sure if he was straight and I was crooked... or if he's just changing the rules? Or if I was just not paying as much attention to my body awareness, paying too much attention, or.. just I have no idea. Anyways.. hang on.

 

He got shod this morning and was a good boy for Freddie and then we went to Ashland to meet Kelli for dressage and hacking. He was a good boy in our ride. We worked on our transitions and that was tough, but we made progress. Then we did some canter work and holy moly!!! We had a super fancy 3 loop counter canter serpentine! No flailing, no rushing, no falling onto a shoulder. We even changed the flexion and didn't lose anything! Heck yeah!! Then we had some decent canter half pass, and while we didn't necessarily leg yield back to the rail, we did go straight, shoulder in and then sort of glide/leg yield around the turn. ha ha! Again though, huge progress compared to our lesson! We had some nice trot half pass and some nice trot too! BUT.... somehow... now outside leg doesn't mean canter. Well, it does going right, but not going left. He must have picked up the right lead tracking left about half the time. I think maybe I was trying too hard to get his head untwisted, so I was sitting weird. Because once I paid attention to lifting my inside seatbone, he got it. Argh. But... still, we got nice canters and nice transitions once I figured that out. Oh, and in the beginning of our ride... while I was trotting and cantering on the buckle... I literally dropped him to the buckle and was trying to steer using my seat and legs only. It kind of worked. :) We finished our ride with a nice medium trot to collected trot down centerline to a pretty decent halt!

Then I swapped to the bareback pad and we went to the lake and splashed. We didn't swim, but he circled around and was deep enough that my waist got wet. Then we did a short hack and then Kelli tidied his mane. 

Hopefully we'll have a good ride Saturday and then I'll probably jump a little at home Sunday.