Great lesson - we cantered!

This was our best lesson yet. It was only 30 minutes and I rode the entire time for the first time. Although I was having issues with my hands (still can't maintain contact with my outside rein, unless I'm focusing 100% on that), KT said my body position was great.

For the first time, we worked on collecting the trot. Since we've been having positive sessions with a very steady trot rhythm, we've started to play with it - slowing her cadence and speeding it in various parts of the circle. My lessons are almost all done on a large (30m?) circle/oval, mostly due to the other end of the arena being underwater.

As Mara got what I was asking, I remembered my training from the 90s, and rode her up the imaginary hill. KT exclaimed immediately, "Wonderful, that's beautiful, great!" Wish I could have seen it from the ground. Mara's body was completely in front of my leg at that moment, and she slowed her rhythm to almost motionless if that makes sense. Like we were hovering.

I think Mara was pleased with herself, she got lots of praise from KT and from me, and I think she likes a 30 minute lesson with just me on her back. (I have a very negative blog entry yet to post about our last lesson.) I had her ears back on me, focused, almost the entire 30 minutes. At one point another lady got her horse out and Mara's attention was suddenly on them, and when I took both reins, KT scolded me, "Never do that - never pull both reins at the same time!" She's right - it solves nothing, but gives the feeling of entrapment to the horse.

Then I was sitting the trot on the circle and KT said to canter. My body went, "No, the falling, remember!" but KT was clucking to Mara, kind of controlling her from the ground, and I finally let myself cue it. To psych myself, I imagined a series of jumps in front of us that we had to make it over, and to do so, we'd need to canter. Funny cuz I don't jump, but that visual helped my confidence.

After much praise, I knew KT was gonna ask me to go the other way, the hard way - to the right. She said, "You think too much. Just stop your thinking, now sit the trot." And again, we played with collecting and extending, what fun! Mara thought, "New game?"

I'm especially happy because last week KT tried 3 times to get Mara to canter, failing each time, then giving up.

Then we cantered - TO THE RIGHT - two or three times around. I was prepared this time and cued her verbally "Canter" which she knows very well now, and just lightly brushed her with my outside leg. We had a lovely canter, it's unbelievable to me. (Need video!!!) Mara never canters in her field on the right lead, and rarely does while free lunging. She's like an OTTB. But I've been doing a lot of double lunging to the right, canter and trot transitions, and trying to decrease the size of the circle to show her how to balance. I think that was the trick.

Then KT said drop the reins and praise her. I did, then jumped off, and rubbed under her bridle, loosened the saddle, praising her enthusiastically. Rubbing under her bridle is a special treat, even though she's never sweaty.

I wanted to also mention that after I warmed her up with 15 minutes of hand walking, I got on her and started following KT on Gandur, the Icelandic. I had been riding around trying to stay out of their way, but I'm not very good at that, so I decided to mimic everything they did. It was great fun, and took my mind off my fear of hitting the dirt again. Gandur has a speedy toelt and trot, but he's so small Mara doesn't have to try hard to keep up.  We did all sorts of figures together, I think Mara likes this game too. I wish I could do it more often, but usually no one is there when I am.

OK now to continue watching the WEG endurance ride as the flags progress and leapfrog each other over the beach......go USA!