As promised, I'm providing an update post-Quiessence withdrawal. What the hell am I talking about, you say dear reader? Well recall my post of Friday, July 27, in which I discuss my concern regarding Nic's spooks, and their escalation to a dangerous point.Since that time, I've put her back on the Quiessence (which is mainly comprised of magnesium), and the amount of dangerously stupid spooks has reduced tremendously. So, I guess the horse is officially deficient in magnesium, and needs to be on the supplement in order to function sane by her standards (sanity being merely relative, of course).
This week we had the pleasure of having a lesson with Walter Zettl (for the uninitiated, one could make the argument that this is the most respected dressage trainer around). I've uploaded the lesson (45 minutes long) and the interested reader can view it. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=9204320389161285374&hl=en
I videoed it just for you, dear reader! Just teasing: My memory stinks and I wanted the audio of his comments so I can refer to them in the future.
The things I need to work on regarding my position are: 1. Look up more 2. Keep my back flat and "don't stick my 'poo-poo' out" (I'm not making that up, I swear. I caught it all on video) 3. Make sure I use my inside hipbone more when I ask for canter. We had a hard time with halt/canter transitions because I wasn't using the inside hipbone enough.
Regarding the horse, he said I need to do more transitions with her. He also said Nic will have no problem with piaffe or moving up the levels. The horse and I received a lot of positive comments, so I guess I'm doing something right with her, despite not having any real lessons to speak of in almost 2 months.
