I was feeling better yesterday about the mare's progress, because she felt better than she did on Wednesday, but this morning I'm irritated again. She apparently confuses dressage training with a Nazi invasion, and therefore building a resistance movement becomes necessary. Vive La Résistance.
Speed up, slow down, speed up, slow down. Rhythmically speaking, that is.
And it was about 80 yesterday, so going forward and pushing from behind into the bridle wasn't happening. Oh, and I wasn't allowed to use the whip, only my own two feet to urge her to push. Why feet and not calves, like any sensible rider would do? Because she wasn't listening to the calves. Unfortunately, my left leg doesn't work. She isn't normally like that but it was hot and she hasn't shedded out fully.
I'm in the "if they don't respond immediately to the leg, then smack 'em and send 'em forward" camp, for right or for wrong, but of course the trainer isn't. Partially, with Nic, I would prefer to use the whip because she shoots forward when hit hard (meaning anything harder than a little calf pressure) and with the whip it's easier to half halt her to recycle that energy as part of the going forward process because i'm not putting my body into a difficult-to-attain position (meaning, lifting the left leg up and hitting with it) then having to re-adjust myself to half halt her.
What can I say, I'm right handed, and that leg hasn't had to kick for most of my life (the right did the work thanks to skating). When you add a stiff back (La Résistance) to shooting forward and 80 degree weather, it's just not a pretty picture. Oh, yeah, add to that the full seat britches I had to wear (when you get up at 4:30am sometimes remembering the jeans goes out the window). How do you people ride in those things? I can't move around at all in them.
I've noticed she forms La Résistance after a hearty game of figure 8 (right lead canter-trot-left lead canter), which stinks, because that's one of her favorite games.
I'm hearing that the name of the resistance game is consistency on the part of the rider, and once i got that concept, things got easier. Sort of. As easy as it could get in 80 degree weather wearing full seat britches. Man, it was HARD adjusting (read: half halting) her with just my abs. They got tired pretty fast. Do recall that I had to make an adjustment (either tightening the abs or releasing them and the hips) every 2 strides or so. Go ahead and try it. Your abs will get tired fast too.
Well, Wednesday was a lot worse, (La Résistance and the Gestapo had quite the interlude), so maybe that means today will be back to normal. She was fine last weekend, before the rousing game of "Figure 8" we had on Tuesday.
