Lesson I

I am writing this as i stand under the solarium with Kika as she was a hot mess after our lesson so she had to have a hose down afterwards. So the awesomely nice mama that I am is splurging 2 euros for her to spend half an hour under the solarium before I toss her ass on the walker to dry out more so that she can go out for the afternoon. If i have my way she'll be getting clipped first tomorrow lolz - sorry N you'll have to wait till Wednesday evening.

Now for the lesson report, here's hoping I can remember the stuff we worked on. First off K was great for our first lesson in forever. I changed my mind and rode her for our lesson today as tomorrow's is scheduled for the afternoon & I figured Nancy might be a better choice if there is traffic in the arena at that time. K found enough things to distract her today when she was alone in the arena ;-)

Pre-work motivation & game face hah!

We worked on all three paces, with transitions, serpentines, circles and demi-volts - which was a new thing I learned today. I thought the were the tear drop shapes which can be used to change rein, nope. Turns out it's a fun S shape composed of two semi - circles. Once what we had to do was spelled out for me (cos I'm an idiot) K rocked them.

Takeaways from our inaugural lesson:

- watch my hands, keep my inside hand slightly higher and lighter than my outside rein. I really am terribly reliant on my inside rein so this will be a serious work in progress. Not mention that I ride with my hands super wide apart on Kika (no idea why, another one of my nasty habits)

- refocus her attention on me faster when she gets distracted and her head pops up.

- when riding downward transitions use my seat more and my hands less. Our trot to walk transitions were awesome once I started doing this. No more head tossing skywards - funny really when you consider i was no longer hanging off her face. Sorry mare - i know I'm a shambles.

- her canter will improve as we strengthen her back again, she finds it hard to maintain her frame. I also have to push her on a bit when we initially transition up to help her get her backside to work...or pretend to, she is renowned for avoiding using her hinney when she can.

Post-work hot mess posing

Sorry this is a little all over the place, I had hoped that typing this out straight away on my phone would help me with the memories...Sadly a lot has again been forgotten till I get back in the tack. However there was also a lot of the usual, shoulders back, longer leg (aka heel down) & hands. S (teacher) said there was plenty good there when I said there is a lot to work on, so baby steps and maybe some day I'll ride better ☺

Not to be left out

Nancy got a quick spin before my lesson, I arrived early and started tacking her up as i had planned to ride her for the lesson & Kika later. But I forgot I was early so we were ready early & the situation of potentially having more traffic for tomorrow afternoon's lesson so i opted to have a quick spin on N before quickly swapping horses. I am super glad they are in overnight again now as makes for easier access to them and quicker grooming lol!