Today was a fun lesson, and not just because I felt physically much better than the last one. Cypress was being relatively well behaved up until I tried to put the bridle on him, the second I moved the harness to his neck he made a beeline for some hay and made it clear he was going to continue to eat if he could get away with it. Rather than fight him on that, I put the harness back on and walked him to the arena and put the bridle on him there. I almost got the lower part that goes under the chin in his mouth again but was looking for it and adjusted before putting the top bit around his ears. Oh and I also checked the fit and sure enough it would have been too small, so I adjusted before even trying to put it on him. Go me!
We worked on turning the shoulders where I lean back into one of his haunches to freeze it, pick up the reins and ask him to move while applying pressure to the girth on the same side. I was fairly successful at it and Catherine seemed quite pleased, she said it was a very difficult thing to get just right. As usual it then became a question of being able to do that at a walk, at a trot, etc. Much more difficult, but I'm getting there, it'll take more practice to make it feel at all natural.
This was in aid of correcting him when he was being stubborn and not turning properly, not moving his shoulders, whatever. There was a mare on a lunge line in the other half of the arena for the first half of the lesson or so and it seemed like he kept wanting to go over and say "hey baby how YOU doin" and I was fighting him on certain corners, so turning his shoulders like that was a correction to make him understand exactly what he was doing wrong.
Near the end she took off the bridle and put on the harness, got us on the lunge line and we worked on canter again. It went a lot better this time, felt a lot better, still a long ways to go. I told her I don't feel like I'm floating above the saddle, in fact quite the opposite, but at least I have an idea of what I'm going for. She said it just takes practice, so for a little bit of time in each lesson we'll work on it.
She also said as we were putting Cypress back in his stall that she really liked having students like me who seem to learn quickly and progress well, so I'm very happy about that.
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