Several Rides and Lessons Later

Since i last posted Boomer and i have had many rides together. So as not to bore you, i'll give you the rundown of our overall progress and some good rides. He has been generally fairly well behaved. Our lessons have been a test of my patience, determination, muscle strength and ability to ride. He tests me. In the lesson if he believes he can get away with mischief.... he'll try until i show him that i am ready to fight with him, and win. The fights aren't psychical or violent, mind you, merely mental. I'm a taurus, naturally stubborn, and he is a percheron cross. We tend to butt heads when we both have something in mind we want to do. It's the only time Boomer and I don't get along; when we work on expanding and learning really technical, advanced flat work. As my coach says "You love him! He knows that, and he uses it against you." She wants me to be slightly more a more agresssive rider. (Again, not phsyically ARGH! agressiveness, but mentally dominating and agressivley using the correct aids with the correct amount of pressure to be in control.)

Boomer & my coach had a training session last Sunday. A training session for those who are unfamiliar with the term, is when my coach rides my horse for an intense 45 min -1 hour session every couple of weeks to tune up and assess how he's doing. If he responds beautifully to something i haven't been able to get him to do, we try to isolate what she is doing and i'm not. It gives me a great starting point for my rides. It's so hard because Boomer and i are struggling with alot of things i NAILED last summer and didn't even have to think about. Having 8 months off has really thrown me for a loop and made me quite negative about my own riding abilities. Watching my coach ride him really made me realise i need to work alot harder and apply my knowledge because the two of them took my breath away! He really is beautiful, talented horse.
A couple things that stood out to me that she could do with him and i either can't, or want to improve on:
-They worked some shoulder in's at the walk to get him all loosey goosey through his shoulders and neck. I found shoulder in's made him really responsive to her leg aids. I can do a shoulder in, but don't usually apply them in every ride. My coach said that she rode mostly with her legs in that ride, and instead of alot of calf msucle like i tend to use, she engages the back and inner thigh. He seemed to be very agreeable to this type of muscle and i've been really working on changing the muscle groups i'm using. I need to take all of the tension and gripping out of my calf and apply my butt & thigh muscles.
-She isolates her muscles and uses them. She would say, here i am only using my right butt cheek. Then i would observe what effect this muscle had on their movement. Isolating and using each leg muscle independantly is a really important technique to master in order to improve one's riding.
-Transitions transitions transitions! Gorgeous, he stayed in a beautiful frame, floated in and out of canter without any resistance or hesitation. It was amazing to see him be able to not only hold himself in a frame, but also hold the rythmn and impulsion of his stride w/t/c. Very impressive and something i definatley want to learn how to do! With us transitions are super awkward. It's all me, i know that. Actually most things are all me, which is disappointing. He's in great shape and ready to rock and i'm just not quite there yet. Anyways, today when i go out to the barn i'm going to focus on transitions.

Our first show is this sunday! It's an in-house schooling show, hunter/jumper. We are doing just the Hack Division. Hack consists of four classes; show hack, road hack, pleasure hack and hunter hack. Hack classes are usually at hunter shows. Whats important about a hack class is engaging with the different elements of each class, instead of riding your horse one way for the whole hour you're in the ring. Three years ago when Boomer and i showed we aced the pleasure hack and road hack. This year i'm hoping we do well in these classes (he's calm, quiet disposition is always awesome for those two divisions) but that we will also place in the show and hunter hack classes. Now that i have him working out of the hand and activley using his hindquarters i'm hopeful that we will do well all-round. This is a link to a basic and useful definition of each hack class if you're ever interested in competing. It's good to review each class before entering the show so you can show off the specific qualities which the judge will be looking for.

We are not jumping in this show, which is a huge disappointment for me. Our first time out jumping on Tuesday went horrendously. I was nervous, gripping, tight through my back and shoulders and just not riding well at all. We were schooling over a 2'6 line. It was embarassing and i wish no one had been watching. Boomer was ready to jump but my hesitiation was causing him to get flustered and upset. He tried to throw me after landing most of the jumps. I keept spurring him somewhat accidentally while trying to stay on as he bucked, which just made him more upset. It was really frusterating for me because my seat isn't all there yet, and my first time jumping he lands and starts not only bucking but THROWING his head down and trying to get me off. I know you may be thinking he had a sore back, which was my initial thoughts as well but the more times we jumped (especially after i removed those damn spurs) the more confident i got. The more confident i got the more i held my core and went into a proper position. Anyways, he was a star the last 3x we did the line. I was feeling better and so was he. Still, i feel really negative about the ride. My coach wasn't pleased with my position and was annoyed with my nervousness but she did say 1) you stayed on 2) it's your first time jumping and 3) although you weren't all there he really shouldn't have been bucking. he was merely taking advantage of the situation. SO her advice would be to keep jumping as much as possible until we're comfortable jumping together again. I need to start feeling my position and really feeling good about it or there won't be any showing this summer done by us!