I had a lesson on my horse Blessi today. He was in a low energy, very mellow, but extremely responsive mood. It was such a lovely lesson as he responded to every indirect rein, shift of weight, etc. It is amazing how much we have learned in the past year. As a beginning rider, Blessi used to tune out a lot of my rein and seat info since it was meaningless--loss of balance, too much rein, too little rein, etc., and try to figure out what I really wanted. Now my seat, reins, and legs are a little more coordinated and we are really tuning in.
Blessi will be Blessi. The instructor was having us practice leg yields. She complemented us on how floaty and soft Blessi was during our third try at the leg yield. I had to laugh and confess that Blessi had figured out that as we came round the corner and went down the side about 2/3s of the way across the arena, we were going to do a leg yield. And he did a perfect leg yield with no help from me. But it felt so good today when Blessi was working with me on such soft commands. About 2 years ago, Blessi and I worked on the "Unwrap the Pony" or "Spin the Pony"--I forget what it is officially called but Judy mentioned in a posting last week. We got the original exercise off of Judy's site even though we were not a member at the time. The exercise was really good since it: - got the horse responsive to indirect pressure - suppled the horse - got the horse used to having the rope around his hocks and/or butt - involved lots of carrots - enabled the horse to figure something out - seemed to help with polite behavior when leading the horse through gates - entertains/impresses visitors when you show them how your horse can spin or unwrap himself Blessi really liked this exercise. In the past year, I have been focusing on improving my riding skills--just working up to a trot and some other basics. I would like to do more ground exercises since Blessi gets such a kick out of them. A question to the group: What additional exercises can you recommend that we can work on?
