One Kick A$$ Lesson

Brain dump

*Remember to have "shopping cart hands".  Instead of pulling even slightly -give ever so slightly.  As soon as I changed that mind set Miss Rosie went completely round and through!! Hot Damn!!

*Ride the haunches.  Coupled with "Shopping car hands" was a double "HOT DAMN" !!

*Set up canter (for now) by doing a balanced trot turning on the quarter line, half halt, leg yield to the rail, over flex to outside, sit deep, half halt, and just canter without thinking.

By my third transition I had it.  Up hill, correct lead, balanced, I was sitting up and riding!  It was an immediate "OMG I GOT IT!" I even screamed that statement out loud, dropping reins and fist pumping, then down to hug my horse and dry some tears in her mane.


I wanted to learn something new.  Rosie already pivots on haunches or forehand but I want to work toward a Dressage turn on the haunches.  Jodie kind of struggles with teaching me how to do it because it's a "third level movement" I said "So- what's that mean, I can't start teaching the pieces now?"  She really had a hard time with that but still walked me though each piece of it at a walk (of course).  The only thing I have to remember is to not over queue and allow a step back with any foot.

The steps were as follows:
Medium walk
Shorten stride
Shoulder in a couple of steps
half halt
queue to move shoulders a step
half halt
step
half halt
step

I'm only doing a step or two of the movement after the shoulder in as it's making sense to her to naturally step around.