Working on the flat....

Today was a pony club mounted meeting. The instructor was Marc and the focus was Dressage.

We had to drop our stirrups and stretch out our legs in an effort to stretch out our legs and lengthen our thighs. This was easy to do at the walk, but once we started trotting, it got tough to keep balance and not grip and shorten the legs. The idea was to keep a long upper leg to wrap around our horses' barrels and loosen our seats and flow with our horse's rhythm. (Locking the hips inhibits the horse's movement)
It was a really good exercise! And while I was concentrating on staying in the saddle and keeping my legs long... Marc reminded me to point my thumbs up and lift up my hands.... I was bracing and keeping my hands too low. Argh! But when I got it all right, Deuce let me know. His trot would get more forward and fluid since I am not inhibiting when I let go.

After we started to get the hang of keeping a nice long leg... Marc talked about half halting with lower abdominals.  So the idea is to use my abs to half halt, which creates a lifting effect in the front part of my seat and a bit of a tucking effect in the back and allows Deuce to lift his withers up and sit back a bit into a proper half halt. And when I remembered to do it; I got a great balanced half halt!

Then we did some canter work. I finally got the hang of keeping my leg long and preventing it form bunching up his sides and then it was back to the drawing board again in a new gait. I also worked on more of a  scooping seat and rocking hips back to get my shoulders slightly behind my hips (I have a tendency to fall forward). SO keeping leg log, thumbs up, fluid, rocking motion at the canter and stay back in upper body... oh yeah, and steer, and try to keep him round too...Sure, no problem!

It was a great lesson, really. There were lots of technical things Marc helped us with and they are just what we needed to get to the next step in our riding. It was hard work and I am sure I will be sore tomorrow but it will be one of those good sores... and lots of homework to do! But Deuce and I are most definitely game!