Today was a fun day. Beth came to Ashland to teach and needed some horses adjusted, so... she bribed me by offering to teach me. It worked! We got all 3 horses adjusted and I was able to get a grid lesson. It was fun and super helpful.
We started out with three trot poles to a vertical to a one stride to an oxer. The first two times, Dan trotted it! WHOOO HOOO! But then he started cheating. So Beth reminded me to sit through the trot poles and don't go in with too much trot. So then I told her that I felt like I didn't have enough trot and he was having to reach for the one stride, which is why I thought he kept cantering. So... she was awesome. She understood what I meant and let me take the time to go through it repeatedly to figure it out. She explained that he is avoiding sitting and pushing with his hind end and it's easier to canter to make the distances. So he was cheating. So she had me do alternating half-halts. AHHHH... I've forgotten the magic of the alternating half-halt. By doing alternating half halts, he can't brace. And that allows me to add leg. So the trick is to get the trot small enough that I can push a little, but not so small that he shuts down. By doing alternating half-halts, I can add leg without him thinking I mean canter. We had some success and then he cheated again. So then she had me stop him if he cantered. So I did. Twice. And he was so mad. Then he did it again and went to canter early enough that I stopped him and then we still sort of had forward momentum so we did the one stride from the walk. Well... I mean... if's harder to walk it then to just trot it Dan. And sure enough.. he trotted it the next time. No one ever said he was dumb! So we managed to get the trot most of the times after that. Then we had to add leg in the grid because... as Beth said.. we've been getting through things with speed and flinging vs sitting and pushing. And because we've taken away the speed and fling... he was now struggling with the distance so now I got to add leg to get more pushing power. Fair enough. It helped and we had some good grids.
So then we added some single fences on the back side. And I nearly had a moment. We did the grid, then the skinny after the grid, and then came around to the oxer. Beth told me to do my alternating half halts and shorten him. And... every time... We'd get to it, and I would see the long spot and take off.. execpt he still put in one more stride. So it was kind of awful. And I told Beth that I was terrified that I would shut him down and create the issue we worked so hard to get over from. She explained that if I did the alternating half halts and kept my leg on, I would then push his withers up and get more power and push and I would definitely not be shutting him down. She told me to think of the canter in dressage. A 3rd level canter is shorter, but not slower. Right?! Yes... And I understand the theory, I just can't make it happen in real life. So we tried again. And this time, Dan came in a little underpowered maybe? Or maybe not.. maybe he just tripped. But he did the ground poles, jumped the vertical and landed and tripped and went down to his knees. It threw me onto his front end and yet somehow, he ended up getting up and jumping the one stride WITHOUT EVEN PULLING A RAIL!! Um... how the heck?! I thought for sure I was going to eat it or we would take down the entire fence. But nope.. he just got us out of there! Good boy Dan, good boy! He was a bit ouchy as he whacked himself good, but.. he was fine after a minute. So we went again, and this time... I put my leg on as I was half-halting and it was way better. We did it a few times because I wanted to burn that feeling into my brain. It wasn't collecting him or shortening him. It was creating more power! I was packaging him, but even that makes my brain cringe a little. So when I thought of it as creating more power by half-halting alternate reins, so neither of us can brace, and keeping my leg on to encourage power and energy, then it made me happier and I was willing to do it and wait for the add. Or be ready when there wasn't the ad. And he did feel like he was jumping up better. Yay! Oh, and we also worked on having me drop my hands to the side buckles on his breastplaste, just at the base of his withers. Originally, I was lifting my hands but when Beth just told me to put them down, I was still somehow inhibiting him. But when I dropped my hands wide and low and "hugged" him, my release was better and my shoulders stayed up more.
So yay! It was a good ride. And I think we're just about ready to take that step to putting him back to bouncy again vs just letting him take it out of stride. I have to think of it as maintaining the stride vs shortening it. Because as Beth pointed out... he starts out okay but going up to the fence, he's lengthening his stride a tiny bit each step. Which makes sense why I keep feeling like we're running past our distance. Now the trick will be to not go past "maintain" and venture into "shut down" mode. Because I do NOT want to have to deal with that aftermath again at all.
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