Dressage lesson #2

Yay the time change means more daylight when I go to the barn late! I am so tired of trying to avoid ice and mud in the dark! A flashlight only helps so much.

Our dressage lesson was today. We did "square corners" and I had to introduce a new cue. She doesn't like my western cues lol Fine, it's no problem for him to learn cues under different circumstances. So outside rein and outside leg mean turn. (No inside rein, which I knew, but it's such a fun and easy crutch). And the neck must be stick straight. Yeah you can imagine how this went. He was like, "Wtf does leg behind the girth mean when we are moving forward? I can turn my neck everywhere, right? My head can be as random as my neck, no? I can anticipate the turns, weeee! Are you asking for a leg yield? Is that your leg? Who cares, going straight! Can we stop? Change my mind! I'm not stopping when you ask!" LOL cripes. Try to keep up with him!

So we shall practice the new cues and square corners later. He worked up a real sweat and I'm sure will be sore and tired tomorrow. I will try to do ground work with him or I think he might be grumpy.

March 15th: I did the ground work and well, it was alright but not productive. Arena was busy and I think he found the whole thing a tad confusing. He didn't really want to walk forward while I did ground driving from his hip. The busy arena didn't make it much easier, as we had to be careful where we were going and he was already confused, making him difficult to steer. SO much for that. But I did get some turns out of him with my leg. I guess I will just have to focus at that on the circle as he walks forward. I just need to watch that I don't put my leg so far back. I'm so used to exaggerating that I end up twisting the saddle lol Ah, the joys of refinement and teaching new cues.