Week 3(ish)

     Here comes week three! I feel like last week was a hump-day week, I felt like I had been here for months and it had only been 10 days. However, now that the third week has started I am feeling much more comfortable in the work and time is starting to speed up. Homesickness is really no joke though... The good news is that the days are going by quickly and I lose track of time because there's always something I need to be doing.

     My horses arrived last Tuesday and are starting to settle in. I have been able to get them into turnout at 12pm until about 5:30 or 6:00pm. The farrier came on Sunday and they have freshly filed feet, and are looking very dapper for the other horses. Galaxy is more comfortable being alone in the stall when I take Stryker away, he isn't screaming every 5 minutes for him. Today following my lesson on Stryker we put him next to a different horse on the other side of the barn and I was able to (finally!) get Galaxy out to ride without any distress.

                     

     Stryker has been really good during all my rides so far. Today, he started to feel like he usually does on the 3rd or 4th day of work, lazy and cranky. He wanted to start out behind the leg, but Mrs. P had me take him forward in the trot (keeping my hands low and together) around the arena for about 5 minutes and he got much more willing and energetic. We've been working a lot on transitions because Stryker has the tendency to come above the bit and invert in pretty much any transition. I have been taking him sideways and (to the right) allowing him to bend right and really yield to my right leg while making the transition. Going to the left I almost need to counter-flex him because he wants to  over-flex to the left and pop his right shoulder out. The transitions get better and better using this technique. Mrs. P finally pointed out my floppy legs... She reminded me throughout my lesson to keep my legs long, knees bent and calves draped around the horse, I have always had a problem keeping my calves draped around the horse, especially in the sitting trot where I have the most trouble with my seat. However, as we did transitions and Stryker got more through and round, the sitting trot became easier and I was able to concentrate on improving my seat.
     Galaxy got a mini-workout today, being it is his first time being ridden in about 3 weeks I didn't want to overdo anything. Mrs. P got a little look at him and thinks he might be good to do a lunge lesson on. I really hope we do a lunge lesson because I always need improvement with my seat and being relaxed throughout my body while keeping all of my body parts independent of each other.

     In other news, I had been riding an upper level horse while my boys were getting settled in. Last Monday I worked on tempi changes. I have only ever done 3 and 4 tempis and that was only once. Seems to me, much to my surprise, that one tempi's are actually easier in some ways then 2 tempi's. When I would try the 2-tempi's I was having trouble getting the timing right and the horse would get into his own rhythm and would get stuck in the 1-tempi's. Mrs. Poulin talked me through it and by the end I could get about two 3-tempi's at the beginning of the diagonal and then two or three 2-tempi's by the end of the diagonal.

      I also got to try canter pirouettes for the first time! It was fun :) I was having trouble keeping the horse light and able to pick himself up in order to move around in the pirouette. Mrs. Poulin explained to me that the rhythm in a pirouette should be ONE, two, three. The emphasis should be on the first beat, when the horse is picking his shoulders up. Instead, today I started out not keeping his forehand light and the rhythm was more like one, two, THREE, with the emphasis on the final beat, causing the horse to fall even more onto his forehand. Thinking about the rhythm immediately helped me to improve my riding and keep the horse up off his shoulders.

     Anyway, now that I am riding my own horses and have a little piece of home with me in them, I am much happier and am not feeling so homesick. Although, I'm never going to feel perfectly at home without my Chewie.