Cavaletti Clinic

 Today was a fun day. We hauled to Karen's and did a cavaletti clinic. It was super fun and educational. And so great to see Karen and Liz again. And Lynn too! And then Dan got a massage and is feeling pretty good.

Pointers from the clinic:

• walk poles are 2.5 to 3 feet apart, and you can go in multiples of that. Ie... set them at 3 feet apart, or 6 feet apart, or 9 feet apart... but 2.5 to 3 feet will give you one foot step between the poles
• trot poles are about 4 feet apart (I think.. my brain is so tired and even though it was not that long ago, I may have forgotten). 
• Canter poles are around 9 feet apart, and again.. in multiples
• having properly set ground poles sets your horse up for success and teaches him to trust you

So we started off just walking through walk poles and focusing on not having anything change. Not the rhythm, not the balance, not the speed, and not the stride. Then we did that at the trot. Dan was pretty super. Karen even called him the "poster child". Yay! But ... just wait. ;) Ha! So then she raised the trot poles up to the first hole. And they all knocked some down. She had us focus on the balance and they all went through clean. Then she did alternating raised poles. Ie... first pole is flat on the ground on the left and raised on the right... second pole is raised on the left, third pole is raised on the right. This was a little easier for them all. 

Then we did the circle of death. Ha! It was four poles at noon, 3, 6 and 9 o clock. The goal was to put the same number of steps in each quadrant. Much harder than it looks. Although we all managed to get it. Then to up the ante, you add steps or deduct steps. If they all did it in 9 steps... then make them do it in 8 steps. Then make them do it in 10 steps. Although she didn't have us take steps out because... none of our horses needed that. All of them had pretty reaching strides and she felt that by taking a stride out, we'd just get them flat and runny. She then raised the poles to low cavaletti height, and holy moly that was so much harder. Partly because they tried to jump them sometimes. But we all got the hang of it. And it was a good exercise for Dan because I had to get him rocked back and using his hind end and also elevating the front end. So in theory, this will help his jumping form. 

We quit with that as it was educational but also hard. But then she did set up a canter grid for me. The goal was to canter through it without changing anything and not to jump it like bounces. And... it was a bit rocky (in that the canter was a bit whiplashy) but he did it. And he even actually cantered it rather than jumping it. Wheee!!

So yep. Lots of fun. And then Kathleen said he felt good and that his right shoulder now felt the same as his left shoulder! Yay!