Growing Pains

In case you haven't noticed, the Yves-centric nature of the past month or so has suddenly taken a nose dive. Nothing is wrong, he just got... awkward. About a week and a half ago, he was going forward and into the contact on the lunge with side reins like a pro in all three gaits. Undersaddle, he was already offering to seek a steady contact at the walk and trot while his canter was forward and balanced.

Now, however, he can't really do much of anything. On the lunge, he tries to canter, but ends up cross firing while falling out with his shoulder while, undersaddle, even turning at the trot has become a precarious situation.

So, what is wrong? While I did check his back and legs, I think the issue is that, during the past two weeks, I have been slowly watching his hind end creep up until, now, it is a good inch and a half higher than his front end. Watching him trot around in the turn-out, "spider legs" is an accurate description of his gaits as he frantically attempts to keep his top- and front-heavy self from hitting the ground.

This being said, his workload has been heavily reduced to mostly turn-outs, plus trotting in sidereins on the lunge and hacks out on the trail like a big kid. Steering and brakes still aren't there, but I love the confidence he is getting from conquering the trail with no lead pony or person. That is exactly what I want for my future eventer.

Once he begins to regain the ability to remain upright at speed, I will go back to the Off-Lunge-Ride cycle I had going. Until then, it is more like Off-Lunge-Off-Hack.

Application of Longitudinal Flexion

After my lesson on Tuesday, it was nice to have new "homework assignments," most of which encompassed around making Ed my unicorn. Working on it on my own made me realize how little I had previously worked on him actually bending around my leg. My focus had been keeping him straight off my outside aids.

It was interesting, while I was having him bend around, to get him to give me the bend I wanted, I had to allow him to bend with my outside rein by pushing my outside hand forward and towards his mouth. The amount of contact stayed the same during this.

Going to the right, I was made aware of both of our weaknesses. Ed tends to lean on my right leg while I tend to be overly stiff in my right shoulder, leading to a bit of a conundrum. I had to be 100% aware of my right arm to open my inside hand away from his neck, which requires me to relax my right shoulder so that I can actually follow the rhythmic contact characteristic of the trot. Once I had him going at a trot around my right leg, I would ask for canter. With the transition, he automatically came against my right leg again. I had supple him around my right leg through constant use of my right leg, encouraging the "wrap" with my outside leg slightly back, being aware enough to give with my left rein as needed to maintain the same contact, and staying conscious of helping the bend with my inside rein through a opening rein, not a direct rein. After suppling him around my right leg again, which took about 5 strides, I would have him canter with the correct longitudinal flexion for one circle and then back down to the trot. Again, he came against my right leg. Suppling for about 4 strides, trot circle, back to canter. With each transition, he more easily gave to the right bend.

Once he was going around my inside leg consistently through the transitions, all the way down to the walk, he was done. We'll see what we have today, eh?