With Charlie and I it is definitely a case of Less is More. Still in a euphoric mood with our advances in schooling we were thoroughly looking forward to our lesson with Tori yesterday.
We started off analysing why Charlie does mini rears when I try a little Inhand work on the left rein. I got these on Saturday and was well miffed.
I have been accused of a multitude of misdemeanours and my sins include in no particular order
blocking by being in front of his shoulder
Not getting him walking forward before lifting the bit ring to get his weight off the bargy shoulder
Making him feel trapped by leaving the Vienna reins connected.
In my defence I was just showing she who must be obeyed how just touching the bit ring caused the reaction however today I took this on board and not being of a mind to avoid the issue I took it full on.
Well when I say full on obviously I mean I was stood by his shoulder wearing no V reins. I asked him to walk forward and did a circuit with just my hand on the bit ring not asking for anything. Followed up I asked him to walk forward raised the bit and asked him to move his shoulder. Not fantastic,not brilliant but good enough for me no silliness.
Today we lunged in the v reins and I appear to have broken the canter transition. I was working speaking very quietly so that instead of concentrating on noises off stage Charlie had to concentrate on me more. As a result the snappy aaaand canTER was either missed,ignored or totally ignored. It is there somewhere I will try and dig it out tomorrow.
On to ridden work and try as we might yesterday we couldn't get Charlie not to head toss. He even tried to throw his head down and get my bum off the saddle which unfortunately worked.
Today I girded my loins and after lunging popped on the boy determined to manage the situation.
Whenever he threw his head up I was ready with my Tori rules kept my hands soft (ok as soft as I can manage) used my stomach to resist and let him do his worst. Immediately with an increased use of leg I found I couldn't stop him tossing his head but it was much reduced and I swear I heard some gentle bit chomping and the head tossing reduced but we didn't manage to get to zero.
We did some pretty magical shoulder in leg yieldy move across stuff and I even got to the point of asking him to align his shoulders and quarters as he moved...oh yes we did. All of this in walk I may add we aren't up to it in trot ....yet.
We practiced getting my weight to the outside using my inside leg near the shoulder asking him to bend to inside and work into this corners.
I can happily report the following
No hop into trot transition, no bounces of any sort and LESS how do I get him soft and forward and MORE ooh that was nice lets get it again.
We have a long way to go but we have not, as yet, come off the rails.
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