In Which Limerick Gets a Butt Kicking.

I have days where I'm feeling braver than normal and have no interest in putting up with Limerick's crap. Today was one such day! Hillary had a lesson, which I filmed, and then went to get tacked up. We started out with a fun hack around the property and Limmer-face was a saint, despite the scary noises of the nearby construction site. I went in with the intention of having a really good and productive ride, which I did :)

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: 

He's "listening," his ears are not pinned!

Elevator

Today, I had yet another lesson with E. I asked her if we could focus on trot-canter and canter-trot transitions, which have been our messiest area lately and something Limerick definitely tries to freight-train his way through. In fact, he pulled on me so badly at the beginning of my lesson that E switched us from the eggbutt snaffle to the elevator french-link. I had only used it once before (in August) and Limerick didn't seem to like it very much, so I was slightly nervous. However, it made a huge difference and effectively prevented him from leaning on the bit/pulling me forward, which was much appreciated :)

We started out asking for a balanced trot, getting him to listen to me, and then sitting and asking for the canter. Limmers is bouncy and his trot is hard to sit when I tense up, which I do when he starts his running trot thing. This makes it nearly impossible for me to ask for the canter again because I get bounced out of the tack and have to take time to regroup. She had me ask effectively and "block" him from running with my reins, all while keeping my elbows behind my shoulders and maintaining my position... A LOT to think about, but towards the end I got some pretty stellar transitions! The lesson left me frustrated, but looking back on it I realized that I was mostly frustrated with Limerick for being a lazy ass. All in all, I was pretty happy with how I rode and E was complimentary, which made me feel  good because she definitely doesn't hand them out if you don't deserve them. I also rode in my back brace today, something that I need to always remember to do (COLLYN). If I don't, I feel like I'm literally slamming into the saddle at the canter and get incredibly tense, so this is just a little reminder to myself to wear it at all times!

I'm riding tomorrow and Hill has a lesson, which I'll be taking pictures/videos of per usual. My next lesson is on Thursday, and it'll also be my last one before heading to France :o! Here are a ton of videos/screenshots from the lesson today, courtesy of my best friend in the whole wide world:

We both thought this one was funny :)

DOWNHILL MONSTER 

AND, here's video of a good portion of it :)