February Goals

Izzy was kind of having a day yesterday, so we jumped through a little crossrail grid a few times and called it good. Instead of worrying about that, let's do a January goal wrap-up and make some goals for February.

1) Ride at least four days a week, even if it's cold. Do two days of dressage, one day jumping/cavaletti, and one day western. Any extra days can be used for whatever. (Hacking and trot/canter sets will commence when the weather is better and the track isn't covered in ice. Probably late Feb/Early March).

Semi-success. This was complicated by people visiting me and me visiting people. I nailed it the first part of the month, then got off track, but did well in the last week. We'll keep this goal for next month.

2) Focus on dressage--specifically lengthen/shortens for Izzy and position for me. I tend to collapse my shoulders forward and lose my seat. Focus on sitting up, driving with my seat, and looking where I'm going.

Success! I admittedly changed up the goals a little bit, but only to make them harder. I would definitely say that Izzy and I made progress from our dumping around barely pretending to do dressage to the work we've been doing. She is more balanced. My position is improving. Last time we did a dressage ride, I would check to see if my legs were stretched down with my heels down, and a couple of times they were! So, more progress to make, but we've definitely improved.

3) Trot/canter transitions. Work on timing, accuracy, and riding both gaits well.

Semi success. I sort of forgot about this goal until about a week ago. I wouldn't say we have "good" trot canter transitions, but they have improved. Specifically, all our work on going forward from the leg and me actually using my legs correctly means that when I have Izzy ahead of my leg, we have semi-decent transitions, better to the left than to the right. In order to improve further, we NEED a sitting trot.

Ok, so February goals:

1) Ride at least four days a week, even if it's cold. Do two days of dressage, one day jumping/cavaletti, and one day western. Any extra days can be used for whatever. (Hacking and trot/canter sets will commence when the weather is better and the track isn't covered in ice. Probably late Feb/Early March).

2) Sitting trot! We will practice EVERY SINGLE TIME I RIDE. English, western, bareback, I will sit the trot. Not excessively and not a lot, but enough to start getting my body used to the motion.

3) Dressage: continue to focus on my position, specifically long legs and erect upper body.

4) Jumping: continue working through small grids. Add in crossrails and verticals as we feel comfortable. Focus on giving Izzy a release over the fence, staying in balance, and keeping my heels down and leg effective.

5) Legs: continue to work on getting Izzy forward from the leg in all three gaits. W/T/C transitions that are freely forward with no whip. <--This one will be super hard.

This is kind of a lot of goals. I know. I tried to keep it around three, but I wanted to be pretty specific in setting my goals, which gives me specific things to work on, which makes it easier to gauge our progress. Obviously, I want to do other things, too. I am so tempted to put "shoulder fore both directions" on there, but the truth is, until I have Izzy really and truly forward, there isn't much point. So, we will work on it, but it's not a goal this month.

Any thoughts?