Lesson day
3 October 2009 21:11![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
glenatronToday we had Silversand Associate ( and expert dressage instructor in her own right ) Karen French over to give us lessons with Donk and Zorro respectively.
Both sessions were interesting, she agreed that we were going in the right direction by asking Donk for relaxation and suggested that the next thing to be doing with him was lots of bending, small circles, big circles, 20 metre circles with 10 metre circles in from every point, anything we can think of to keep him thinking about flexing and changing that flex to help him be softer through his neck and body.
With his trot, which tends to get strung out and leave his hindlegs behind altogether it's probably best not to trot him for long, just to ask for short sections and use lots of transitions to keep him in balance and to make sure the trot that he is doing is the trot we are asking for. Another variant on the exercise above might be to trot around a 20 metre circle, dropping into walk for 10 metre circles at each point.
Zorro and I are really working on engagement at the moment and getting him listening to my leg. I've unconsciously skated around this somewhat previously because he's good enough off the rein that I can move any foot I want to with that so I've not thought too hard about my leg until the last clinic where I found we were running into real difficulties asking for hindquarters-in because Zorro just didn't think my leg had any meaning.
So today we went back to basics, starting with leg-yields and turns on the forehand - we can do that beautifully off an indirect rein, but at the start of today's session he did nothing when I asked with my leg. Karen showed how he has not only learned to ignore my leg but also taught me to clamp my leg on to keep asking ( because I quite rightly don't want to release the cue until I've got some kind of response ) which means that I end up carrying a lot of tension in my leg. We did some work where she used the flag to back up my leg a little and then I used the flag to back up my leg so that I just asked gently, didn't buy into Zorro ignoring me and released the moment he thought about moving his hindquarters. Funnily enough it's much harder to get him to respond from the left side than the right.
So I had a bit lightbulb moment when Karen showed me how relaxed my leg should be and how quickly Zorro should be responding and I realised that he could be as good at listening to the leg as he is to the rein. Like many of my lightbulb moments the typical response to this is "Well duh!"
I now have lots of homework to be doing, developing that connection until it feels absolutely smooth, accurate and light.
After our lessons we went over to Liphook to visit with a Pony who was a lot brighter than he has been for a while. This is probably attributable to steriods, but it's nice to see him looking a bit perky ( and demanding kisses )rather than the depressed little animal we have known lately. Having been scanned, examined and endoscoped the vets aren't really much the wiser with regard to what the actual problem is, although they know lots of things it is not but with the symptoms alleviated somewhat he is clearly happier. We were surprised to find he had a high worm count as we've been keeping to a pretty standard worming schedule and he hasn't really been anywhere aside from their field and the stable.
Both sessions were interesting, she agreed that we were going in the right direction by asking Donk for relaxation and suggested that the next thing to be doing with him was lots of bending, small circles, big circles, 20 metre circles with 10 metre circles in from every point, anything we can think of to keep him thinking about flexing and changing that flex to help him be softer through his neck and body.
With his trot, which tends to get strung out and leave his hindlegs behind altogether it's probably best not to trot him for long, just to ask for short sections and use lots of transitions to keep him in balance and to make sure the trot that he is doing is the trot we are asking for. Another variant on the exercise above might be to trot around a 20 metre circle, dropping into walk for 10 metre circles at each point.
Zorro and I are really working on engagement at the moment and getting him listening to my leg. I've unconsciously skated around this somewhat previously because he's good enough off the rein that I can move any foot I want to with that so I've not thought too hard about my leg until the last clinic where I found we were running into real difficulties asking for hindquarters-in because Zorro just didn't think my leg had any meaning.
So today we went back to basics, starting with leg-yields and turns on the forehand - we can do that beautifully off an indirect rein, but at the start of today's session he did nothing when I asked with my leg. Karen showed how he has not only learned to ignore my leg but also taught me to clamp my leg on to keep asking ( because I quite rightly don't want to release the cue until I've got some kind of response ) which means that I end up carrying a lot of tension in my leg. We did some work where she used the flag to back up my leg a little and then I used the flag to back up my leg so that I just asked gently, didn't buy into Zorro ignoring me and released the moment he thought about moving his hindquarters. Funnily enough it's much harder to get him to respond from the left side than the right.
So I had a bit lightbulb moment when Karen showed me how relaxed my leg should be and how quickly Zorro should be responding and I realised that he could be as good at listening to the leg as he is to the rein. Like many of my lightbulb moments the typical response to this is "Well duh!"
I now have lots of homework to be doing, developing that connection until it feels absolutely smooth, accurate and light.
After our lessons we went over to Liphook to visit with a Pony who was a lot brighter than he has been for a while. This is probably attributable to steriods, but it's nice to see him looking a bit perky ( and demanding kisses )rather than the depressed little animal we have known lately. Having been scanned, examined and endoscoped the vets aren't really much the wiser with regard to what the actual problem is, although they know lots of things it is not but with the symptoms alleviated somewhat he is clearly happier. We were surprised to find he had a high worm count as we've been keeping to a pretty standard worming schedule and he hasn't really been anywhere aside from their field and the stable.
