Had another lesson last night with one of my trainer's assistants. Kept it really low key, and went through the same two stride-bending six stride that we did the night before.
New thing last night though-Arwen was being sluggish off the leg going forward, although she was responding well laterally. Also, really trying to evade the bit at the canter. Not sure if its from all the work we were doing the night before, or I'm doing something weird with my hands. Will have to figure it out tomorrow. Regardless, she gave me some really nice lateral movement. Towards the end too, she was moving off with just slight leg pressure. Still not completely straight, but she's starting to work with me on what I'm asking her, as opposed to ignoring.
The one benefit of all that flat/lateral stuff-she was AWESOME over our warm up jumps. Not rushing, and actually carrying herself through the corners as opposed to diving in and rushing. It felt so great. She was also approaching and cantering away nice and calmly. That is the feeling I've got to strive for every time I ride her.
And then, we started doing the two stride-bending line again. Tried to make her fit the seven in again. Had a few pretty ugly goes, but then we got one good one where she was really compressing her stride and fitting it in nicely, as opposed to rushing at the end of the two stride and forcing me to fit a super duper tight 7. After the got the 7, we tried for the 6 again. But, me and my brain was still thinking she was going to get there too easy so I started getting handsy again. Finally, last time through she did the 6 really nicely and we quit on that.
The take aways from last night: lateral really is the key. Getting her to respect and move off my leg, and not use it as a crutch to lean/balance on. Also, to not let her do it to begin with
I also decided that Arwen really does try to do what I'm asking her. We just run into problems when what she thinks I should be asking her isn't the same as what I really am asking her. But, she does have a lot of try in her. She tries to do what she thinks is the right thing, and then gets upset when I'm telling her its not what I really wanted. So somewhere in there our lines of communication are still a little bit fuzzy and thats my fault. I really hope with this flat work focus it becomes more clear to her and me what we're asking of each other. That, and I'm going to try the clicker training. I bought it ages ago, just never got around to doing it.
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