I know I've mentioned before about the benefits of having new sets of eyes watch your riding. Everyone seems to pick up on or put an emphasis on slightly different things, which will overall make you a better rider. At least thats how I feel everytime my trainer has us ride with someone different. Its been a rare occassion where I didn't have at least one take away, even in a really crummy lesson.
So this week was our area's big Halloween show so Trainer was away. Most of the barn was away too, including the assistant that my trainer has been using the past couple of shows (she has her own small business, and also took some horses to the show). So the people left at the barn were split between S, the original assistant, and a new one, M.
Everyone loves S. She is a very kind and knowledgeable, and has a similar style to our regular training. So there was no problem getting her integrated into the program. Didn't try and reinvent the wheel, just tried to build on what trainer was already working on. She's the one who reminded me about outside rein, and helped me have some pretty fabulous lessons with Arwen in the last couple months.
Now M...well, what can I say other than she's very different. A little more brusque, definitely more straightforward, and not as quick to praise. Only a few of us have ridden with her so far, and I know one of my barnmates did not have a good time with her. So when it came time for me to lesson with her yesterday, I was a little nervous.
However, it went much better than I imagined and needless to say, I was pretty surprised! I told her that lately we had been focusing on rideability between fences. That Arwen will start to take over and just sometimes drag me around. So we worked a lot on using my upper body/seat/leg to slow her down. It was a nice reminder that my leg must be on at all times, and that when I'm using a lot of hand, I also need to back it up with A LOT of leg. Like...A LOT. Its something I think I had forgotten a little bit about, because on the whole, Arwen has been pretty soft lately. But within the past week. some of our old habits have been slowly creeping back in and I've been at a little bit of a loss regarding what I'm doing.
We also worked on feel. I told her I am never sure if I'm using too much hand, or too much leg. Basically, I want Arwen to feel like she is between my hand and leg at all time. Never squirting out in front of me, or sucking back. It should always feel like a nice, easy contact in my hands, you know, that whole concept of "elastic" feel. When it starts to feel like she's pulling, that means I don't have enough leg. When it feels loosey goosey, again, not enough leg.
I don't feel like anything new was presented to me. I just feel like I got a really good reminder on how I need to be riding her. In fact, M said that if I can figure this out, that I'll pretty much be set.
And slightly validating, but M really really liked Arwen. She kept saying what a nice horse she is, how she has a really good mind, etc etc. Which is very, very true. Not a bad bone in that horse's body and I think when/if I get my s**t together, it will be great.
My only frustration is I'm not sure if I'll ever figure it out. I feel like trainer, S and M have all basically been telling me the same thing and I'm still working on it. UGH! I think if I'm still in this same place in another year, it might be time to re-evaluate things. I'll keep working on this and everything else I set in my goals, but if I'm still stuck doing tiny little jumps trying to get my horse rideable for ME, it might be a sign that we are just not a good match. Don't get me wrong, I love her and will fight it out as long as I can. But if it ever stops being fun and I'm more upset about my ride than enlightened, I will probably want to consider other alternatives.
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