this week in lessons...

This week in lessons we will be continuing to work on rider fitness by doing work/transitions while in the two point, and some work without stirrups as well. It will be fun. Riders without belts or with bad grammar may find themselves doing the two point and no stirrup work concurrently.

Walk to canter transitions, and canter transitions on the 1/4 line (so you can't use the wall to help balance your horse) will  also be part of our warm up.

For jumping, we are going to be working on getting perpendicular to the jumps regardless of the location and approach needed to the jump.  I have a few ideas to help with this, and it will help lead to next week when we will be working on a simple jumper type course.

The reason I want to work on getting perpendicular to the jumps, is that it is very important for the horse to be able to see the jump equally out of both eyes, and to approach with a straight body, so that the horse can time its take off properly.

This last week I watched rider after rider turning to the oxer on the diagonal right after they passed the jump on the side, rather than going down the track to find the correct approach. Interestingly this wasn't so much an issue with the diagonal jumps that were approached directly from the end of the ring. This makes me think that it is in part a mental block...the rider's feel the jump on the side is blocking their approach or line of sight, and so panic and want to turn ASAP. I think the key to resolving this issue is to work on rider's keeping a larger frame of view and using the ring despite the obstacles in the way.

This leads me to something else we need to work on: being able to adapt and continue doing an exercise despite riders or jumps being somewhat in the way. We did that a little last week with the 4 loop serpentines and trying to keep trotting and avoiding oncoming traffic by adjusting the loops. This is something we need to continue to work on, as well as to work on communicating intent so we can better share the arena with things get busy...and for when we go to shows and there might be more than 4 or 5 riders in the arena! So passing skills, and taking in what is going on in the entire arena while riding will be another skill I will try to work on over the next little while.

Karen