2022 Riding Journey

#35 Non Squiggly Jumps

This lesson was kinda packed.  There was Vivie on Riggs, and James on Cordell.  But in addition, my Friend also came and rode Lily.  And my trainer was riding Romeo, remember him?  The fat chestnut?  Well, he's not as fat now, he's slowly shedding the pounds.  Fortunately we all went to the outdoor arena.  Still, we all seemed to have trouble with keeping out of each others way this time for some reason. 

As you've probably already guessed, I was mounted on Mariah.  About as soon as I mounted, my trainer told me to start doing a wavy line along the arena fence, using the bit to turn Mariah's head and have her head follow it. 

See, I was to go along the outside of the arena, but doing little turns so that I formed a wavy line.  Little turns, but the emphasis was for Mariah to follow the bit.

I haven't done this exercise before now, so I wasn't exactly sure what my trainer wanted at first.  But she added some clarification later on, so I got the idea.

See, Mariah needs to follow the bit whenever a hand opens out and asks her to.  If a hand opens out to the right, then she needs to follow with her body to the right.  Preferably, she'd also step the inside as she did so.  This is important for when little kids ride her later.  

We did this for quite a while.  Not necessarily because we needed a lot of work, but my trainer was busy with the others and so didn't assign anything else for awhile.  Sometimes, there seems to be this weird type of apathy / anxiety that grips me in a lesson, like, I won't do all that I should be doing because I don't want to do it wrong?  I'll just kinda dawdle along, and for the first half or so of the lesson, I was like that.

 At one point, my trainer told me that Mariah wasn't going to be able to bend if I didn't give with the outside rein to let her.  It's that uneven rein situation again.  I'm not kidding, it literally feels like I have the same amount of contact in each hand, but I'll look down at my reins and one will be significantly shorter than the other.  I guess it feels even to the horse to, when we're going straight.  But if we're turning, and the shorter rein happens to be the outside one, then they can't turn as much as you're asking them to. 

She also told me to lengthen my reins.  I didn't have to have so short of a rein on Mariah anymore.  

Mariah was pretty chill about all this, and I think we got some good turns.  Then my trainer told me to put her in a rising trot and start doing a serpentine, with the same emphasis on Mariah following the rein into the turn.  

Because friend was working on something down at one end of the arena, and I didn't want my line to mess up what she was doing by accident, (I'd already messed her up once while I was doing the wavy lines.  I was frustrated that I did because I knew where she was going, and yet I put myself there anyway.) I just kept to one side of the arena with my serpentine. 

To be honest, for awhile I just trotted around making these turns without doing anything that might improve them.  Then I told myself to get a grip, shake myself out of this weird paralysis, and start doing something before my trainer looked over and saw me not doing anything.  I know how to ride, it was about time I started acting like it. 

(I think my trainer also told me again to lengthen my reins as I did this exercise, but I don't remember any other instruction from her.)

So I did, making sure that Mariah truly bent herself and didn't 'fall' into the turn like she'll do.  I also tried to keep myself straight, not letting my left shoulder sneak out in front like it does. 

My trainer saw one good turn, and said that was looking good and I could come to walk.  The transition to walk was literally so soft.  I can't get over how responsive Mariah is right now.