Confidence and... Dressage? Sigh

it's a stretchy trot, ok?

So after my impulsive and rash decision and then my quite successful jumping lesson, I had a complete panic and scheduled a biomechanics lesson with S because...

Well. You know.

I CAN NOT HAZ DRESSAGE

(noted: no media from this lesson. all pictures are from other rides.)

And while I accept that clinics are all about learning and learning is great and all that, I just feel like if I'm going to sneak into a clinic full of fancy, competitive warmbloods on my green, self-"made" OTTB, well, I need to bring my A game so I don't look like the hick cousin we all ignore at parties. Does that make any sense?

this is good

Like I'm completely used to embarrassing myself in public and at shows, but if I'm riding for an internationally renowned clinician at a fancy barn that some kind soul invited me to, I don't want to be the idiot that everyone remembers.

And I realize that's probably too lofty of a goal.

Regardless. Lesson with S. It started out fantastic. She said I had nothing to worry about and that my position wasn't that bad and then promptly fixed everything. I felt like my hands were pretty much in Courage's ears, but I finally got them out of my lap. Body was up. Horse was forward.

She really emphasized sitting down on my horse while riding forward--which changes "MADLY CAREENING AROUND SKETCH FOOTING" to "hey, nice forward canter". Interesting. She was sensitive to Courage being green and pointed out that I always need to give him some place to go--like a small circle, but give him the inside rein.

We were having a grand old time and then she wanted one more canter.

(guess where this is going)

BOUNCE BABY BOUNCE

Courage was like "ENGAGE MELTDOWN MODE". And proceeded to hop up and down in place and fling himself around, which is the thing that immediately precedes the hijinks he's been favoring lately. So with S on hand, we played with different methods of addressing it.

It took a lot of hard riding on my part, but what really worked for us was to go to the place he was trying to get to anyways (the gate), then push my hands forward and loop the reins, and just clamp my legs down like vices and keeping him going forward.

And release when he listened.

You could totally see him go "well now this game is poo. nothing to have a fit about and just have to work ass."

I've got this better in jump tack

At this point, we are treating it as a behavioral pressure response--he goes really well until he hits his pressure limit and then he tries to take the pressure off by freaking out. If I take the pressure off (throw the reins away and relax), he calms down. So the goal is two fold--increase the amount of pressure he can deal with by doing 3-5 minutes hard work, then 3-5 minutes easy. This helps him increase his pressure tolerance and takes enough pressure off that he shouldn't hit the top of his limit.

Oh, and biggest takeaway from S?

"You ride him great. I know it feels precarious, but you're actually just fine. You need to trust yourself that you can handle this. Be more confident, because you've got this."