Look Who Had a Lesson!!

look at my horse in his dressage stuff in FEBRUARY 

I won't write another progression post

I won't write another progression post

I won't write another progression post

I feel I should get a gold star. There will be another progression post eventually, but I won't make you look at them every single time I get new pictures.

Anyways. Courage and I had our 4th dressage lesson late last week and Alyssa came out to take pictures. Hooray!!

JANUARY

The thing I love about lessons with C is that I never feel like Courage and I are being pressured and yet after every single lesson, we've made huge strides. It's not exciting to watch or high energy or intense, but Courage and I get little bits of information in manageable chunks.

Since our last lesson, Courage has been more and more willing to work into the contact and stretch down at every opportunity. He's getting stronger and more flexible on the right side, which makes it less like riding two different horses when we change direction.

DECEMBER

We introduced some lateral work at the walk--just enough to give him an idea, and releasing immediately after 3-4 correct steps so he thought it was fun and easy.

We had some of our best trot work yet.

There were some lovely moments in left canter, some nice moments in right canter.

Ok fine, I made it a progression post.

YOU CAN KEEP YOUR GOLD STAR. I'M KEEPING THE TROTTING PICTURES.

mmmm stretchy trot his hard direction

Here's the thing though--there isn't a ton of visible improvement between January and February (imho ymmv). What makes me excited is what was a really fantastic moment in January is becoming the new normal in February.

Now Courage can do awesome things like this.

showing off that hock action

And this.

look who can soften his body in the canter!

And even this:

So we're doing a lot. We're improving a lot. I'm really thrilled with how my little bay horse is progressing.

I'm not super thrilled with my position, but eh, could be worse I guess.

you'll know I've arrived when I post a canter right picture

I'm hoping to get Courage going back over fences again this week. I'm excited to see how he'll be with his new understanding of using his body. We're obviously keeping up the dressage lessons and I'm not ruling out any dressage shows. ;-)

I dunno, guys. When I'm dressaging, I have so much fun with dressage and when I'm jumping I have just as much fun. Problems of having a fantastic little horse, I guess.