Thursday 2 August 2018

Changes (Of The Fun, Flying Variety)

This might have been my favorite lesson ever.




I know I've mentioned a few times how good Audrey has been for reminding me to stay centered and to keep my upper body strong but not resistant. If I shift my weight or tense any part of my body, you'd better believe she's going to offer up SOMETHING because she is a good girl and gives me a lot more credit than she should.

Bridget prefers sleep to offering solutions to my requests, but I love her for it.

You've probably also gathered by now that often, in the canter, her SOMETHING offered in reaction to my above rider challenges often involves inadvertant flying changes :)

I'd like to think I'm improving, because it's been a few rides since I've had rider issues resulting in pony drama and the surprise changes have been minimal of late. Full disclaimer: It could be the magic saddle, though, too.

Today, as I was cantering  and shortening through the center of the arena, I could feel her really thinking and hoping I'd ask for a change. I laughed and mentioned it to EC, who suggested I just go ahead and surprise her and ask.

Random pics of my girls, sorry once again for the lack of Audrey lesson pictures. Especially in summer,the barn is empty of barn rats when I have my lessons in the evenings.

That's when I had to fess up. I've never really had a horse with solid changes, so I could probably count the times I've ridden them in a dressage context (intentionally at least, lol)  on one hand. My question: do I ask the same as on a western horse? Or jumping? Answer: Don't over think it! Get your good canter, keep her straight, feel where her legs are at like you would as you ask for a good walk to canter transition. Simply weight your new inside stirrup slightly and slide your new outside leg back a little. Catch her with your new outside rein. Ask her to stay round and stepping up. Do not pull on her nose....she needs to be straight! Basically, most of the things I'm doing when I inadvertently get a change on her when I'm just trying to change the bend :)
Sophie is still really bum high. Grow pony, grow! Become a mini Audrey, please :)

EC remained convinced changes are no big thing and we didn't need to discuss it to death. I just needed to go play around and ask for them. And so I did. It took a couple of tries to get the feel (after all my talk about Audrey being uber sensitive, I still wanted to override them the first couple of times and ended up with some very crooked and...expressive! changes and cross cantering, even a couple of inadvertent one tempi changes down the long side as I over-corrected my body, lol, it's incredible that she puts up with my shenanigans :), and then after a couple of tries each way it was like the light bulb went on and it really was no big thing. She's fairly tricky to keep straight enough on her tougher side, and almost too easy (anticipating) on the other, but we did it! On purpose! Nicely! Easily!

And, oh my goodness, was that fun. I know for a lot of you changes are no big deal. For me, it's pretty exciting to start to get the feel and timing nailed down and have that tool available to me. One day I want to do tempis (on purpose), after all!

G has about a million pics of my ponies on his phone! Who knew?!

I'm very lucky that EC will let me ride her up and coming "big" horse and play around with new to me things and never worry I'll set her training back. I'm also aware of how lucky I am that Audrey is that perfect mix of very expressive and opinionated without being dangerous if you mess it all up. She's giving me a lot of confidence in using my rider toolkit and problem solving when it doesn't go to plan.  Quite often I have been far too passive because I lack confidence in myself to do the right thing, but that's changing a little because she is so responsive to what I ask...I'm communicating a lot more clearly and confidently. I'm very hopeful that what I'm learning now will translate over to Sophie and even Bridget.

Trying for a nice picture of us, 20 pictures taken and not one has all of us looking "normal" lol. Just keeping it real over here :)

Although, to keep me humble...Audrey did pull a very dirty move and nipped me hard on the arm as I was leading her into the barn prior to the lesson. Very, very quick and stealthy about it too, then the whole instant "OMG I DIDN"T ACTUALLY MEAN TO TOUCH YOU! PLEASE DON"T HURT ME" shocked face and so much sadness when I got after her a little for it. All the mare feelings, lol. So, yeah, don't worry. she's not a complete perfect angel! (But pretty close, IMO ;)





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13 comments

  1. How cool!! Like you, I haven't ridden changes except once on a school horse over a pole in college. What a cool thing to get to feel and learn on her!

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    1. Very similar to me! Definitely did them with western trainer back in the day, and of course on jump courses more recently. I'm unsure if it really does vary by discipline, or I was lacking good instruction, but the way I am doing them now is a lot different (And really so interesting to me from a biomechanics perpective)

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  2. expressive changes always make me giggle

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    1. A is always expressive, lol. At least she's not throwing herself on the ground anymore when the world becomes too much for her. Ill happily take the extra expressive changes instead :D

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  3. Oh man, I would totally share your excitement about getting to work on changes like that! I've only worked on changes with one horse and in that case it was the blind leading the blind because neither of us knew the movement so we would attempt it off and on for literal years and never made much progress. I need to find my own Audrey to practice on before Kachina gets to that point!

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    1. If you're ever on the coast, get in touch! I'll set you up with a lesson - my coach has two really good horses to learn on :)

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  4. Oooh that’s so cool!! The only real dressage changes I’ve ridden were on Megan’s Rico and it was incredible - he legit just busted out the tempis while I mostly just sat there giggling lol

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    1. That's what Audrey does too, so much fun!

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  5. Audrey sounds like a fun horse to learn on!

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  6. So fun! P has changes, but you have to be very exact how you ask, so I mess up more than get it right. When I leave him alone and don't override them, he's very generous. Love that last picture!

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    1. P is such a great horse, love him! Ha, the last pic is basically how we roll. B is grumpy, Sophie looks for trouble, and I just can't even :)

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  7. It's so funny how when you go to learn something new you get up in your own head about what you need to do and that it MUST BE PERFECT. And despite our trainers being like "Just don't overthink it" and like... we just DO over-think it. Ut kinda happens on the regular when I ride, haha. I have to remind myself to do nothing sometimes and then magically Annie goes better.

    I'm glad you are enjoying your lessons. I love that picture of B and Sophie - B looks SOOO enthused. Hahaha.

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