Been a while since I posted, but there is SO much information that I cannot possibly cover it all, but I'll do my best to write the highlights.
First of all, possibly the best dressage lesson ever last Thursday. Gina wanted me to keep Oliver quite slow, but keep the impulsion so that at the "up" part of the posting trot, I felt like I was suspended in air for a touch longer than usual. If the trot got flat, it didn't do Oliver any good. I also had to keep him quite round, because when the work got hard, he wanted to disengage by dropping his back or hollowing. Then, Gina had me do haunches in, at the trot. Along the short side, I was to slide my outside leg back and keep him round and ask for just a few steps of haunches in. Gina said that I needed to do haunches in instead of shoulder in because Oliver was so wiggly that he could easily put his shoulder in without loading the inside hind, thus defeating the purpose of the exercise. Haunches in, done correctly with the correct bend, forced him to load that inside hind and start carrying more weight behind. I have never ridden a correct haunches in, since Sam was so arthritic behind that he always pitched a fit when asked. When Oliver was giving me a fairly good haunches in (confirmed by Gina on the ground), Gina wanted me to ask for canter out of it. she told me to picture in my mind how I wanted his body to be, and then when I actually felt it under me, to ask for the canter. it was really incredible - it kept me from leaning at him, or dropping him once he picked up the canter, and it made for a pretty clean depart, coming from behind in a way I haven't felt him do before (except when jumping, when he naturally jumps into the canter because he's revved up).
we've also progressed to jumping skinnies and cantering over some bigger things (around Novice to Training height). I actually successfully cantered the skinny blue box (less than three feet wide) and then cantered on down to the grey box, which is taller and about as wide, and then angled a white gate jump. Oliver is jumping very solidly and paying attention to what he is doing, although after the Kim severson clinic at Southern Eighths, he was back to his old tricks of running at the fence when the jumps got a bit bigger. We had pretty much taken care of that tendency at my last lesson with Gina before the clinic, but then Kim S. wanted me to start "building" to the xc jumps, and now Oliver has it in his head that he builds to a fence, which completely throws off my striding. However, all in all he's coming around quite nicely and is jumping ditches and drops like an old pro.
