Nicole is doing better in the double - no more resistance at the trot, and minimal resistance at the canter. She is less supple to the left right now - you wouldn't necessarily see it from the outside, but I can feel it. If she has any other resistance in the canter, it's because of something I'm doing, probably putting too much pressure on the curb. I've got the hang of only engaging the curb as needed at the trot, but at the canter I'm still working on keeping my "curb fingers" loose until I need to actually use the 2nd bit.
We started on counter canter and canter half-passes this week. Nicole, of course, already knows canter half-passes, which sounds like a funny thing to say, but half-pass is sort of her thing, and it just took asking for the movement for her to actually perform it. Her haunches trail a little bit, but I'm ok with that for now because we just introduced it.
This isn't the first time Nicole has done counter canter, but it's the first time she's done it in over a year, and certainly the first time she has completed the exercise in balance, rhythmically, and without a huge amount of tension. We re-introduced it using the one-loop serpentine that occurs in USDF First Level, Test 4. To the left, it's really simple, to the right, I have to remember how to distribute my weight. The feeling isn't too dissimilar from a half-pass, and as soon as I figured that out, things got a lot easier to the right.
