Our jump lesson on Tuesday with Ann was awesome! No surprise there though because Ann is our magical miracle worker. It was hot (probably about 85) and HUMID, and Kwik was lazy lazy. We worked on keeping up the energy at the walk and trot, focusing on looking in the direction I wanted to go and giving Kwik a purpose. Then we moved into the canter. I can't believe I'm actually saying this, but I think our canter work is better than our trot work right now! Kwik seems to have found his balance at the canter (probably because I am riding much better) and now easily carries himself. The left lead is a little more tricky for us, and he picked up the wrong lead the first time I asked. Our transitions are much MUCH smoother now. We are now able to circle at the canter, do a simple change across the diagonal, and pick up the other lead! It's a great feeling to see the canter becoming something we naturally incorporate into our everyday rides and not just something special we do in lessons. Now it's something we can practice and improve upon with each ride.
Ann set up a little course of jumps: one single crossrail on the rail, one vertical on the rail, a vertical-pole combination on the inside line, and a rail-crossrail-rail combination on the centerline. Ann always starts off with a little course. I actually kind of like this because it gets me and Kwik thinking right off the bat and gives me more practice memorizing courses (which I'm terrible at). We started over the crossrail pole combination, around to the single crossrail, over the pole-vertical combination, and then over the vertical. Kwik wasn't quite sure what to do over the pole-crossrail-pole combo and sort of just walked clumsily through the entire thing. He jumped the single crossrail nicely, and we had a good approach to the pole-vertical combo. Again he sort of ran out of gas at the pole, but I pushed him back into the trot on the approach to the vertical. Again, he wasn't quite sure what he should do and stopped at the vertical. By this time I had finally realized he wasn't going to take off with me and it would be okay to put my leg on and ride him confidently to each obstacle. After that, we didn't have any problems with stopping. He did feel hesitant a few more times over the vertical with the box, but all I had to do was put my leg on and ride with confidence. In addition, I learned to ride with a more relaxed rein so Kwik could use his neck over the jumps. This helped boost his confidence, and he started to jump better as a result - he even had quick (Kwik!) feet on our last trip through the pole-crossrail-pole combo!
-If I ride confidently, Kwik pretty much jumps anything I ask him to
-Trust a little more and ride with a more relaxed rein over fences so he has more freedom to use his neck
-Focus on maintaining a balanced seat on the approach to and away from a fence and anchoring my lower leg over the fence
Hopefully these things will get easier and easier, just like the canter. I think this lesson makes it about 6 times Kwik has jumped EVER? What a good pony!
You guys look super!
ReplyDeleteThank you! :-)
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