Lesson Recap 1: Straightness and Riding Every Stride

I've decided that I will do a recap blog post for every lesson - at the very least, it will help me keep track of what I learn each week, and maybe there will be something helpful for other STB riders as well.

The themes au jour of this morning's lesson were straightness, and riding every stride. It was an excellent lesson in terms of helping me to ride Charlie on a course in the future. This post will be a little long, but we did a lot of learning today!

Straightness

We started our lesson today with a long warm up, focusing on straightness. Charlie, in his natural state, is wiggly, so we have to work on making "straight" more second-nature to him. Straightness must be established in the walk before it can be expected at the trot or canter.

First, I asked for a free walk on a 20m circle by lengthening my reins and widening my hand slightly, to encourage him to drop his head and soften in the mouth. This is not necessarily how I would start off every ride - i.e. if he is particularly hyper, this would not be my ideal way to start - but Charlie was in the right frame of mind for this to be effective on its own today. Once a nice free walk was established, I shortened my reins slightly and returned my hands to normal position, and asked him to walk forward into the contact. One of my biggest weaknesses as a rider is my hand position, so this was a bit of a challenge for me, too; I have to constantly remind myself to keep my shoulders back, my elbows back, and my hands equal. We also changed the pattern of our circle to a square, taking care to keep our lines straight and our corners, well, square - using my outside aids to discourage him from popping his outside shoulder out. We rode big (20m) squares and little (10m) squares, with the little ones being that much more challenging. Once I felt comfortable with his suppleness of mouth and straightness of body at the walk, I repeated these exercises at the trot. This was the first half of our lesson.

Riding Every Stride

The second half of our lesson was centered around a pattern of a jump down one side of the arena and 3 canter poles up the other. Charlie, like any young horse, is inexperienced and uneducated. This means that I, the rider, do not get a lot of "breaks" in the saddle, and this exercise reinforced that notion.

We started just on the poles - but straight ahead of the poles is the bleachers, where we had a small audience. Let me tell you, that was scary! Charlie would pull up halfway through the poles, lose his balance, and then shy to the left. So, what were we just working on? Straightness! The same idea applied to that situation - only this time, it was to be incorporated into a different task. Using my hands and my legs in the same manner described above. I rode him through the poles and halted at the wall. This took a few times - mostly for me to remember to focus on my hand and my leg aids at the same time. I focused on riding him to the poles - sitting him and waiting for the right moment in his stride - through the poles, and halting afterwards. When the halt became successful, we simply switched it from actually halting, to riding straight and waiting for a turn when I asked for it. And you know what? He figured it out.

We then incorporated these poles into a pattern with the jump - jump up one side, then turn for the canter poles down the other. Again, this involved a lot of thinking, and riding every stride on my part. On the approach: shoulders back, elbows bent, and make him wait. On the landing: ride it straight, as if I was going to ask for a halt at the wall, but ask for a turn instead. This enabled me to collect him and have a straight approach to the poles.


And there you have it! The first lesson recap done. I'd love to hear from anyone who managed to read this whole thing - I'm new to the blogisphere and I'm trying to work on the efficiency of my posts. Feedback is welcome!

Happy trails :)