2022 Riding Journey

#12 No Lesson, Shorty Update

So, I was going to have a lesson this week...  But my trainer started feeling like "garbage" to quote her.  She didn't have a fever, but she didn't want me to get sick if it was a bug of some sort, and besides that I think she felt so bad that teaching a lesson would be... yeah, so I got sent home.  Which is fine, I'm just sorry she felt that way :(  

But I did want to do a little Shorty update because lately I feel like we've made some progress that I wanted to record. 

So recently,  we've really been focusing on leg yield and figuring that out, as well as working on him making turns without him bulging out so badly through his outside shoulder.  

Keep in mind that we're currently not training under my trainer, and that my trainer hasn't really taught me how to do leg yield.  Which isn't to say that she doesn't think I'm ready for it, but it's just never occurred to her to teach it to me, or something like that.  *shrugs*   I'm basically doing what I've done for the last couple of years:  figure things out on my own with the help of some books and the internet.  

I can remember the first couple of times that we attempted leg yield.  Yeah, it was terrible.  

Our first struggle was figuring out how to get him to even move over.  Like, it felt like he wasn't listening to my pushing leg at all.  He was more stiff than he is now, and he also didn't know what I was asking for.  I hadn't used my leg to ask him to move over much before that.

Once we figured out how to move over, I was pretty happy with that.  But then I realized his shoulders moved over ahead of his hindquarters.  In fact, sometimes only his front legs would be crossing, and his back ones not hardly at all.

So then we had to figure that out.  Of course, my first, instinctive fix was to pull back on that rein while asking more with my pushing leg to get him move his hindquarters over, like you would in a one-rein stop.  

But that is not what you want to do.  The inside rein in leg yield asks for flexion in the opposite direction of the yield and NOTHING more.  Research told me that to make the hindquarters keep in line with the shoulders was to ask more with the pushing leg but 'catch' the movement in the outside rein so as to allow the hindquarters time to catch up, essentially.

As anyone knows, it's one thing to read something, it's a whole other thing to try to do it.  Especially with horses.  

For awhile, I was frustrated because I didn't know how to catch with the outside rein.  It felt like I could do nothing to keep him from bulging out, rather, I didn't know how to do anything with that outside rein.  

One video I watched recommend that if the horse wouldn't step under with his hindleg, to leg yield along the fence of the arena which would help force him into doing that.  So we also started doing that exercise.

All of this was made harder by the fact that both he and I have crooked tendencies that mirror each other.  Well, okay, we're opposites that fit together like a puzzle piece.  Anyhow, going to the left is hard for both of us (counter-clockwise) on a circle, and going to the right (clockwise) is easy for us.  

Thus, leg yielding to the left is easier for us, because the bend is to the right, which is our good side.  Leg yielding to the right is harder, because the bend is to the left.  Let me tell you, leg yielding will reveal what your crooked tendencies are. 

So, I really started emphasizing proper bend on circles, which really helped.  And of course, I kept trying to figure how to use that outside rein. 

And then, a couple of weeks ago, if I remember right, it clicked.  Suddenly I realized that all I needed was flexion to the inside, and the outside rein could do the rest of the catching.  I felt it, what I'd been searching for, and it just clicked.  

So, from then on, I've been focusing on that, and pulling back on the inside rein isn't so much of a problem now.  We've been getting some decent leg yields and I do feel like we've made so much progress.  

What also really helped me was reading these three articles on straightness and crookedness in horses.  It was concise, it gave me what I wanted to know, and it was really helpful.  So we've been focusing on that as well.  

And during these last two weeks especially, I've noticed just how much more flexible Shorty is, in both directions.  Like, almost too flexible sometimes lol.  It's amazing!  I didn't think about how all of this would help  him become so supple, but that's the whole point of the exercises, to help a horse with that.  

Last Monday, I believe it was, I was riding Shorty in the leg yield exercise along the wall.  And I was really just trying to 'relax into him' if you will.  See, I tend to get so focused on technique, and whether he's bent the right way, and what aids to use, that I mess up our communication.  In all my musing and striving, I miss what he's trying to tell me.  But if I'd listen, I'd find that he'd tell me what I truly needed to know.  

And for a moment, as we were leg yielding along that wall, it all clicked.  For a moment, we were together.  The leg yield was smooth, and we were just there together.  We were flowing down that wall together.  It felt so...  amazing.  

I was so happy.  And it reminded me that while correctness is important, what is also important is just being there, present, to listen to what your horse is saying to you.  To feel of him, to know moment by moment what he needs and what he doesn't.  

I can't quite explain what it felt like, but it felt wonderful.  And I want all my rides to feel like that, all the time, on every horse. 

Entry completed 4/21/2022