Dressage Lesson 12th January

On Monday I had a dressage lesson with Ann Bostock. It is only the third lesson I have had with her and she spent the first two telling me to get Toy moving forward off my leg, engaging his hind end more. I was pleased on Monday that our practice has paid off and I can now create enough impulsion and am actually able to half halt properly!

 

The wind and rain were horrible and we were both soaked through by the end, however, Ann reminded me that this is no excuse for a poor posture and really encouraged me to roll my shoulders back and lift my chin....quite difficult when the rain is lashing you in the face and you have water running off the peak of your hat!

 

After I had warmed up I did some work without my stirrups, trying to bring my knee back away from the knee roll on the saddle and really stretch my hip flexors. Fairly easy in walk and canter but painful and incredibly bouncy in trot! Ann pointed out that if I am competing at Elementary then the next step up is Medium and I really need to have sorted my sitting trot by then. I will keep practicing!

 

I know from practicing at home that Toy could do more counter canter than he was letting on and I had been working on riding a 10-12m loop back to the track at E or B, carrying the counter canter on round the short side of the arena and then down the other long side. We pushed it even further in the lesson and did the exercise above but carried the counter canter onto a 20m circle in the middle of the arena and added in peeling away onto 10m circles on the centre line on the correct lead and then back onto the 20m circle again. He was fantastic!

 

We had a play with the medium trot as well, making sure he is straight for a few strides and then really developing the medium strides across the diagonal. I need to give myself time to come back to working trot before the letter at the end though, otherwise the medium strides just fizzle out and here is no true transition.

 

We finished with a few leg yields and had a play with the shoulder in, I was able to sit to the trot during the exercises as Toy had really warmed up over his back and it was a lot easier to ride!

 

The video below is from schooling at home today....having a play at some of the exercises mentioned above and trying to make the rein back a lot less tense.

Flat work schooling at home