However, that does not mean it was easy in any way, shape, or form... he certainly made me work for it. We started out with the same old stuff, trotting around and doing small circles to keep his attention. My plan was to trot and maybe canter some cross-rails, which had to change when I realized how sticky he was going to be about his canter transitions. He pulled the exact same move he's been using the past couple of days, AKA running trot instead of actually transitioning.
Luckily (but not so lucky for him), something in me snapped and I was suddenly incredibly sick of it. I took off my spurs (didn't want to get too aggressive with them), grabbed a whip, and got down to business. Let's just say I used it judiciously enough that he was much more responsive for the rest of the ride... like Shelley said in one of her comments, I was a little bit of an evil dictator, but he more than deserved it. I'm sick of him being lazy, sick of him not moving off my leg, sick of having to wallop him with my leg, and sick of that stupid-bouncy-running trot!!!!!!
All that said, I felt extremely accomplished and proud of myself afterwards- probably the best I've felt after a ride in a while. I needed to finally stand up to him and letting him stop pulling me around, but I wish that I had made this kind of progress in my lesson. Do any of you ever feel like you don't ride your best in lessons? Sometimes figuring things out on my own helps me more than anything else... I've also decided that I LOVE this bit for us, I just have to remember to keep my hands low and quiet to avoid pissing him off. Hill was nice enough (even after a crappy day) to record most of my ride, so here you go!
Also, here are some screen shots from the vid:
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| He's "listening," his ears are not pinned! |
