That After Lesson High

Jetta was great for our lesson with TS yesterday! I was very pleased with her :)

I had been working a lot on our "homework" which was keeping her inside hind leg active through our leg yields, asking for a lower headset at the trot so that she came over her back properly and slowing our tempo, as well as trying to smooth out our canter transitions. I'm happy to say that our work did not go unnoticed and like last time TS was very complimentary of Jetta! She kept saying that she was going to be my FEI horse :) That just sends me over the moon, I'm going to enjoy the journey of getting Jetta working through the levels!

Jetta was much better this lesson than our last one. Mostly because I actually rode her better. I'm always afraid of messing up in front of a trainer so I have a tendency to freeze up, but I got my act together this time. TS said that I was a very instinctual rider and when she asked who I had trained with before, she was surprised that I hadn't ridden with any "big name trainers" just little backwoods ones :) But my trainers were awesome anyways and she said it showed in my equitation. Yay! That's been a tough one with Jetta because I feel off balance a lot of times either with Jetta trying to pull me out of the saddle or her disliking it when I try to sit deeper on her. TS said I had done a good job with her training so far and that we obviously had a good relationship, which was really nice, especially because there are several things that if I could start all over again with her training, I would definitely change. But regardless, it was a productive lesson.

This time we worked on haunches-in. Something I had only slightly introduced to Jetta before and we haven't worked on it in a long time. Jetta was pretty good, though that'll be our "homework" for this time. I may have to bring out the baby spurs to get her off my outside leg because she just doesn't really get it at this point. But at least she tried. Then we worked more on our canter transitions. Getting her to transition slower. TS had me keep her in a slow trot and keep her from rushing into the canter, even though it felt like I was restricting her. By the end we got some great upward transitions so I'm excited to play with that. Another great tip was that if Jetta breaks from the canter to the trot, don't slow her down, but make her work in almost a medium trot, so that she knows that if she breaks, she still has to work hard, but at the same time, don't rush her and still insist on coming over the back and not laying on the reins.

We also played a bit with the lengthened trot which I've been trying to work on a little bit without making Jetta too excited about it. I found that by posting higher I can get that longer stride with out the faster tempo. 

I found out TS actually lives where I grew up (from here on out referred to as town A and where I live now as town B). Basically she lives about 5 minutes from my house which I thought was awesome. She wants to continue to give ML and me lessons throughout the summer in town A, and while I can't afford weekly lessons with her, I definitely plan on having her out a couple times since she'll come to where I live.

The dressage team isn't going to have another lesson with her for at least another month or two, but we are going to have two more lessons this school year, so I'm really looking forward to it. Especially since I know everyone else on the team is really improving too!

Unfortunately I think this week is going to be rather horseless since I have a major project or final exam every day of the week, but hopefully I'll be able to squeeze in a ride or two. I'M SO EXCITED TO BE DONE WITH THIS TERM!! In case that wasn't obvious ;)