I haven't posted about the show because, well, I'm trying very hard to see the brighter side of things. It's funny - 9 or so years ago, when I first started off in this sport, I considered dressage my strength, then cross country, and finally stadium. Now, I feel like dressage is my weakness, and it seems to be a never-ending battle of frustrating, some highs, and a lot more lows. Sounds rather like golf, eh? Guess that explains why golf as a sport has never interested me all that much.
I think part of the problem is that I had it relatively easy with Miles, my carriage horse turned eventer draft cross. He naturally had that gorgeous high set neck, with the arch, and he was so freakin' steady that he got good scores even though he really didn't deserve them. Yes, I worked my butt off with him, but since he was so steady and consistent, the bobbles didn't show as much. His canter was ever a work in progress, but the judges consistently loved him and we usually ended up 1-3rd after a show, finishing on our dressage score (did I mention my strength was in the jumping portion? How bizarre. I seem to remember a time when I didn't think it was possible to teach me how to jump.) I don't think I truly learned how to ride from back to front, and a score of successive teachers/coaches before Christan haven't helped me a whole lot in that regard. There are SO many people teaching the incorrect way - how to fiddle your horse's head down, etc. etc. etc.. I wonder how people get away with it and still manage to score well in dressage? Do they just have the right "type" of horse at the lower levels, where you can fake it? Do they somehow have this epiphany during all the instruction of "sponge the inside rein" and "keep his head down during the transition" that they realize how to ride from leg to hand?
It all started with Christan watching me for about five minutes ride Della in the dressage arena. She was sort of leaning on me and lugging me around, especially in the canter. I was allowing this to happen, as I was thinking that she was only four and didn't know any better. Christan told me to use a lot more leg into the canter, instead of trying to contain it with my hands. I asked her what I should do if she got quick - just allow it until she found her own balance? - and Christan said that if she sped up, to hold a little with my hands (not by pulling!) until she softened, and then keep my leg on. Ah ha. Lightbulb moment #1. Although I KNEW this cerebrally, it took me all these years to finally be able to put it into action.
My lesson today was epiphany after epiphany. Small ones, to be sure, but they were definitely lightbulb moments. We started off sloshing through the wed, red arena sand, and all the while I concentrated on keeping my hands ABSOLUTELY STILL and keeping my leg on. If he resisted against the bit, more leg and a squeeze of the hands until he softened, and then kept the leg on. Christan immediately got after me for allowing him to drop a shoulder in, or ignore my outside aids and push a shoulder out, and said that this kind of allowance tends to build and escalate, until you have a real issue on your hands. I felt that it was pretty slight, and was mildly annoyed because I really didn't feel Oliver drop that shoulder to the inside, but when I concentrated on it (after Christan pointed it out to me and told me to bend him WITH MY LEG to the inside), I did definitely feel a slight pushing against my inside leg, mostly to the right, which is his stiff direction anyway. In addition to having to concentrate on feeling him drop to the inside, I had to really focus on using my leg only to lift that shoulder, instead of using my hand to artificially create the bend (which is sort of what I've been taught to do in the past). Of course, I also had to keep that outside rein firm so that he had somewhere to take the bend, and keep it lifted so that he didn't drop behind the vertical.
Canter was the first big obstacle. Before we started, I confessed to Christan that I had been thinking a lot lately and came to the conclusion that I really didn't know how to ask for the canter, since none of my horses seem to be able to transition from trot to canter without throwing their heads, which leads me to attempting to pin their head in place with my hands, and then that leads to me throwing my upper body around in a vain attempt to get the canter, which they can't do because I've pinned their head in place. Urgh. Christan asked me what the aids were that I was using. I told her that I got the inside bend, then kept the outside rein, slid my outside leg back and then used both aids together, the outside leg a bit more than the inside. Since that was all checking ok, she asked me to trot and then when I felt that I had a good trot and inside bend, slide my outside leg back and canter. It wasn't too bad of a depart, as far as Oliver goes, but Christan pointed out that it took me two strides to get a canter, during which Oliver managed to throw his shoulder to the inside, lose the bend, and then hollow and stagger into the canter, as opposed to leaping into it. She said that the minute I felt that the trot was good, I needed to get the canter right away, instead of one or two strides later. So, of course the correction was to use the whip, once, smartly behind the leg. I got the trot, went about three strides to establish the bend, slid my leg back and asked for the canter. I could feel him drop down onto his forehand and start to sprawl, so WHACK went the whip behind my leg, and he immediately jumped into canter. No, it wasn't pretty. However, it was an instant response, so I brought him down to trot after a few strides, got the trot, and asked again. Bam - I got it right away, and without any hollowing, either. Christan also told me that it was very important to make sure that after the correction, I needed to ride like nothing happened - keep the reins soft until he gave me reason otherwise. So, that was the key. He needed to canter when I said canter, and not a stride or two later. As long as I didn't make a huge deal of it, he didn't get rattled and we got some very nice trot-canter transitions. In the canter itself, he was leaning on me and pulling me down onto the forehand, so Christan emphasized that the minute he got heavy, I was to ask him to lighten by squeezing that rein and using leg, and if he ignored me, I was to yank on that rein, HARD, and then immediately soften and go back to riding like nothing had happened. It was important that I yanked only on ONE rein, instead of both (a concept I had difficulty executing), and keep the leg on so that he raised his forehand and sat down more behind, instead of just hollowing. I hated the idea of yanking, but then I thought about it and realized that if I wasn't consistent about demanding lightness, and only yanked when it really irritated me (which I was guily of doing), then it was even more cruel to him because he would never know when the abrupt punishment was coming and be taught that ignoring me was perfectly acceptable. That made it easier to bear. Christan apparently demands this level of lightness and self carriage even from the babies, which means that I need to keep on insisting it even from Bella (who naturally carries herself this way anyway, but I need to reinforce it regularly). So, the minute it felt like he was taking me down and forward, I was to sit up, close my leg and hand, and if he pushed at the bit and ignored me, YANK on one rein, and then throwing the rein I just yanked back at him, still keeping my leg on, and allow him a chance to be light. It actually only took a couple of tries before he was listening to me and light as a feather.
Jumping was the next hurdle. Christan and I had an interesting discussion about how horses really don't rush to the jump because they're eager to jump - they only rush to the jump because they are nervous about something, like losing their balance. She said it was this way even with the upper level horses, and told me that she evented Teddy at Advanced in a huge, rubber snaffle. Christan said if I didn't have my horse as light as I wanted coming into a fence, I was to yank him to a stop immediately (keeping the leg on!) even if that meant right in front of a jump. Her reasoning behind this was that it was actually making the horses braver, because even though common belief is that you will teach a horse to stop if you stop them or circle right before a jump, it actually makes them more nervous because if you half halt and they ignore you, they tend to have a bad jump, and bad jump after bad jump leads them to not trust you anymore. If they know that you will never let them get a bad jump, they will trust you more and more and the jumps get better and better and start to build their confidence. They cannot reason that they had a bad jump because they ignored you - they can only reason that the jump was a bad one, so it's up to us to make sure that they have the best jump possible. Made perfect sense to me. So, we circled at the canter, getting a good canter depart each time (yay!), and jumped a little 2'6 plank vertical. Oliver started off by ignoring my requests to sit down and back and consequently, jumped the vertical like sh*t, so I sat him down hard on his butt on the landing side, got the canter back, and asked again, but this time, I made sure that I half-halted quite a few strides out and maintained the canter to the fence, and when he ignored me, YANK and then leg on, circle, soften, and reapproach. That led to some very nice jumps, but he was still sort of careening about on the landing side. Christan said that I was sort of nagging him with my half-halts and not really insisting on obedience, so she got on. What a revelation. She looped the rein at him in the canter, and when he blew her off, she sat him down on his butt HARD, and then cantered off softly. He learned quite quickly, especially when she took him down the line and he tried to run through her hands. After the third reprimand or so, he finally softened and went down the line like a hunter. I realized that if he landed and then proceeded to drag me around, he was never soft in the first place and didn't jump up and around the jump in balance. I didn't get back on afterwards, but it left me with quite a bit to ruminate on during the drive home.
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