Gymnastic day!!!

I have this mortal fear of any kind of combination. It's very silly, but I envision crashing through a sea of poles and things flying everywhere, including myself. You may call it irrational - I call it self-preservation. Of course, I have never been on a horse that's so supremely talented that they make it seem easy. I tend to ride the uber-green, squirrely ones that wiggle and waggle through anything less than a bounce, which makes it doubly-hard to stay straight through a gymnastic.

Gina knows this. And, she also knows that Oliver's best friend is gymnastics, so she decided that today was Gymnastic Day. We started off by warming up as usual, with Gina warning me to keep feel of both sides of his mouth and keep him absolutely straight, and NOT to let him fuss. Oliver likes to woggle his head up and down and bounce off the bit, which enables him to pop his shoulders one way and then the other, thereby avoiding coming through from behind and pushing evenly into the reins. I have been, up until now, actually TOO quiet with my hands, and G is always after me to "ride both sides of his mouth" so that I can keep him steadier in his neck and head, which allows me to keep him straighter in his body. Today, I was apparently locking my elbows in an attemp to keep my hands low and wide, and G reminded me to bend them - she said that I should think about any rein aids I give coming from the elbow, and not the hand. If I keep my elbows too straight, she said that Oliver will feel it as a jerk in the mouth, rather than a soft, gentle reminder. So, I focused on any time I wanted to do something with my fingers (like flex him right), I did it from the elbow bending and not just my hand squeezing the rein. This seemed to keep him much quieter in front. G also reminded me to take the outside rein, even if it meant that he was counter bent, because O doesn't quite understand yet what stepping into the outside reins means - he simply thinks that when I take the outside rein, I'm just pullling on him. With constant repetition, he'll start to understand that the outside rein means "come back to me" or "straighten your body". The reason for this became crystal clear when I cantered. The canter strike-off was wobbly, as usual, and G said to me, "I don't let him do that, so you shouldn't." She told me to think about everything he did and ask myself, "Would Gina allow this?" and if the answer was "no" (which it always is), not to let him do it, either. So, I had to take that outside rein, sit back, and ask him to canter. Once in the canter, she said that I had to be a bit more "floppy" with my upper body and relax and just go with him - I was working too hard in the canter to maitain it. I'm still trying to find that fine line between just sitting there and being dead weight, and just flowing with the motion. My legs have gotten better in the canter in that I'm no longer pushing with every stride to keep him there, and G said that the I seemed much more comfortable in the new saddle and that I looked more down and around him with my legs, instead of just perched on top. I adore that new saddle, but then, I tend to adore all of them at first - time will tell. At one point, I was feeling myself being pulled slightly forward in the canter. G said that what Oliver was doing was to hollow his back, so that I dropped into it, like a hammock, and then he dropped his head and pulled me out of position, which allowed his hindquarters to trail out behind him. She said that if I felt like he was pulling me, I was to take that outside rein and not let go until he gave in (of course, keeping the leg on). Only then would he figure out how to compress himself in the canter and bring his back up.

Gina put up a simple placing pole, crossrail, then another placing pole, then another crossrail, and a landing pole. This was similar to what we had been doing all week long, except that instead of a whole stride in between each placing pole/crossrail set, there was none - it was placing pole, jump, placing pole, jump, placing pole. The hard work of the week before paid off as he stayed fairly straight over the jumps and landed straight. I'm getting much better about riding every stride to the fence, instead of just taking that first step over the placing pole and then quit riding. It's also ridiculously easy to fold my hips back in this new saddle - all I have to do is think about it and it happens. I didn't realize how much I had to think about and work on this before. G put a pole perpendicular to the first crossrail, one end resting on it, to keep Oliver from even thinking about drifting left. She also turned the second crossrail into a vertical, and put a wide "V" of poles to channel him in, so all I had to do was release over the fence and just keep riding him forwards. Gina wanted me to release much more than I had been doing - she said to think about pushing my hands halfway up his neck over the jump, to give him something to jump up into. The first time through with the vertical, he jumped around the vertical so much that his withers knocked me right in the sternum - it was great! Gina laughed and said, "Well, THAT got his attention!" and we went through several more times, each time with Oliver jumping around the fence with his knees up around his ears. I did get a bit of praise in that the third time through, Oliver let his attention wander (typical of him) and I gave him a quick kick with my leg to get him focused on the crossrail - Gina said that if I hadn't been on top of it and quick to get him back to the job at hand, he would have splatted through the first fence and then scared himself by trying to fix the next two. That felt good, knowing that i'm getting better about staying on top of him and keeping his attention.

Now, Gina wanted to focus on me a bit more. She said that I was opening up too early on the landing side, which prevented him from kicking his back legs free of the jump. She also said that I was allowing my leg to drift slightly backwards over the last, which was easily corrected by shortening my stirrups one hole. She added one last jump to the series, set at about 2'9-3'0, and she said that I was fine with my upper body over the first two, but I opened up too early on the landing from the last, bigger vertical. G said to think about "riding the neck down" and pressing my knuckles into his crest over the first crossrail and just keeping them there throughout the rest of the exercise. So, I went through, jumped the first two perfectly, jumped the last one, concentrated on riding the neck down, and felt totally out of whack on the landing, like I was getting pitched forward. Not in a bad way, like I was going to come off, but in a weird, uncomfortable, "this isn't what I'm used to" kind of way. G said I was staying closed for about two strides after the jump, which was okay for now. I'm sure that eventually I'll want to get back after one stride, but until I get this feeling of going with my horse, I'll have to exaggerate the landing. She explained that while he was very, very good up front now, he was still trailing his hind legs over the fence because he still didn't know how to curl himself up over a jump - he was so used to flinging himself over it with a high head.

Gina turned the last jump into an oxer, which was a bit intimidating for me and immediately triggered my instinct to boot him through the exercise, but I swallowed and rode him straight into it, keeping my eyes focused on a pine tree in the distance, and what do you know - keeping my upper more closed on landing resulted in me feeling him kick his hind legs over the jump. I mentioned this to Gina and she said that he even flipped his tail, which is a good sign that he's using himself. She even yelled to me "see, he isn't a piece of crap over a fence!" and told me that he had a very good jump. He may not be the best jumper in the world, but he was certainly capable - he just didn't know HOW to jump. Gina says that Oliver doesn't know how to go up to a jump, size it up, coil himself, and push off the ground and jump around the fence. She said next time we do this exercise, she will turn it into an oxer to another oxer, to a vertical, to teach him that even he opens up over a spread fence, he's still got to land, compress himself, and then open up again.

Gina said that the biggest mistake she sees people making with greenies is to open up too much distance between jumping efforts - like a crossrail to a vertical, and then two strides to an oxer, which is a really common exercise. She said that the two strides in between gives the greenie too much room to wander, and Oliver too much time to fall back into his old, bad habits. She also mentioned that doing bounces was counterproductive as well because it doesn't teach him to land and then canter and then jump - all he has to do over bounces is yank his feet up out of the way. Once he starts to understand completely how to focus and keep himself straight, she'll open up the distances between the jumps (possibly by removing the placing poles) and then when he figures that out, he can start to canter fences around a course and hold himself together and still jump up and around the fence.

Such a great feeling he's giving me over jumps now. I wish I had a video camera, as Gina said that he's unrecognizable as the same horse who came to her two months ago. I'm glad that I have no money to compete in March, as I'd like to really get this solid before entering our first competition, riding in our "new" way. It all seems so simple, now. First we slow him down and get him straight on the flat, and his gaits immediately improve and he becomes less worried. Now, we slow things down in our jumping,keeping him straight and giving him lots of freedom with his head and neck over a fence, so he learns to push off and jump up and around the fence. It's all starting to make sense to me now!