A loaded lesson

This afternoon I had a lesson with Erin; yay! It has been too long since I have had her instruction and Deuce and I needed it. The biggest focus on the flat was to get him to bend off my inside leg and get round. He tends to get stiff at the base of his neck and plow through my hands and pop his shoulder left on a circke right or  fall into the circle going left.  I worked really hard on staying back and keeping my legs nice and long and supportive while using my subtle inside rein to encourage the bend and an outside supportive rein to keep him his shoulders in line. I also had gotten into the habit of being stiff in my shoulders and arms which caused his trot to get short and choppy. So I need to push him forward and soften my hands. And for now, even lengthening my rein a bit to get him forward.

In the course a of a few weeks, my upward canter transitions fell apart too. We had fallen back into running  into canter (ack!) So we worked on that too. I was caving in and throwing away my reins and thus throwing him out of balance and not getting a good transition. But Erin helped me remember to sit up, keep my outside rein and still maintain the bend. I finally got it and had multiple lovely trot-canter transitions. 

Then it was time for gird work. The line was a trot with a canter pole then one stride to a verticle and then another one stride to an oxer. The great thing was how straight Deuce stayed down the line. Then I was able to really focus on my riding by sinking in my heels and giving a better release over the top. Both of these things really helped him get better take off points and remain balanced on the landing so he could stay nice and soft to make the sharp turn a the gate without stumbling. Yay! While we improved, Erin kept raising the oxer height. By the end of the lesson, we were clearing 3'2"! Go us!