Today was fun! Dan and I headed to Ashland for a jump lesson. We got on only slightly early so we just hacked up the hill to the woods behind the stadium course as our warm up. We did course work because of FENCE this weekend and luckily the fences were set in a fun twisty/bendy course. We started out with two fences.. then added two more... then another two.. and then three more. Which is always nice as it allows us to build on things. Of course we warmed up over a smaller fence first but then she pretty much put 8 of the 10 up to training level height! And.. they weren't scary! Whooo hooo! And Dan didn't back down.
In the beginning he was a little bit sluggish and he jumped everything but I wasn't doing all the right things. I did some of the right things, which is why he jumped, but.. not all the right things. I had my leg on and had created a decent canter. But instead of closing my leg and supporting, I was "sending" him by throwing my shoulders at the fence. So when I fixed that, he got better and more forward and was jumping more out of stride, instead of that labored feeling. Yay! But I was pinching with my knee. So Jacel manipulated my hip to allow it to be more open. Ow!! ha ha. Getting old sucks. She gave me a few exercises to do to keep it mobile. Ugh.
1: bring both knees up above my saddle almost touching without rocking back onto my tailbone.
2: scissors.... bring the right leg forward, while bringing the left leg back, and swing them back and forth
3: Scissors but instead of front to back, lift the leg/knee up and down.
4: Lift my knee in step with Dan's shoulders... at the walk, trot and canter! EEEKS.
So anyways... we carried on and it got better. He was jumping pretty super nice over some of them. When we got to the end and did the whole course, it started to fall apart a little bit. I was falling in on the turn, then having to overshoot my turn and cut back to the vertical, which threw everything off. So when I rode my turn better and sat up and kept his hind end moving and my front end from tipping, it was MUCH better. And bonus points, because... while I didn't hold up my end of the bargain, he still jumped. Jacel said that he did it once or twice and was starting to question whether he was going to keep jumping when I sat up and rode and he was like "oh, okay.. you're back to doing it right, so I will too". hee hee. Yay!
We finished with a pretty nice round and a LOVELY amazing jump through the one stride. And... he even got in super tight in two stride, which is awesome, because it means that he is jumping bold and with a big stride again! Whooo hooo!
So then.. because her next lesson wasn't on time.. we went out to the XC field to play over a few. I had wanted to jump the new jumps but instead we did some bending/turning questions on the hill and the bank because she thought that's what I'd see at FENCE. She made me jump the "big" rolltop up the hill. Which, ended up being just fine. Then a sharp turn to the upright cabin, then down the bank, and a sharp hard turn to a coop and then... circle and go up the big bank and over the skinny. So... it wasn't pretty but we got it done after the first attempt. The trick was coming down the bank... the terrain pulled him longer and longer and lower and dragged his right shoulder out. Which he likes to do anyways. So I had to drop down the bank, close my right leg and hold my right rein, and square turn him to the left to get over the coop. I had to half halt him to rebalance him and keep him upright. YAY! We did manage it and then our uphill question was so much easier too.
So then we chatted and she said we were definitely good to do the Training CT at Ashland the following weekend and she even thought I should run Training/Novice at Pine Top thanksgiving!!! YAY!!!
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