Awesome lesson!!

Tonight Christina said, "it's only for a half hour, but I'm going to make it FEEL like an hour!"

And then she told me to drop my stirrups and trot around the ring. Then back to a walk. Now do a walk to canter transition and canter twice around the ring. Now do it the other direction.

Only after all of that did she set up a teeny crossrail with a placing pole. I got the choice of going over it without stirrups or without reins. I chose reins, hah. I don't think my stirrupless two point is nearly up to par.

Anyway, the first time around, we went over it with reins (just in case the spacing was wrong), the next time around, as we got to the placing pole, she had me drop my reins. Then after, pick them up, go around again, go over without reins and remember to put your arms out to the sides.

Then we did it from the other direction.

Then she made it a tiny vertical.

Kieran was really good and the last time through, even though you could tell he was starting to get tired from all the cantering, he went over the jump really well nor did he try to stop right after like he sometimes wants to. One time through, I went around the whole ring with no reins and we more or less stayed on the rail, hah.

My biggest problem tonight was that my feet kept sliding "home" into the stirrups. I don't know why as this isn't a usual problem for me. We think it's just that all the time off from riding and I'm still gaining back what fitness I had and thus tensing my legs upward at the canter again. It's always something. :)

Oh yeah, and he gave me a bunch of nice walk to canter transitions. Now if we can just learn canter to walk....