Jump Gymnastics

Some videos forthcoming after I upload them, but here's some screenshots:

Part of our warmup after the regular walk->trot->canter warmup bit was going over some extended trot poles then transitioning to canter for a couple of canter poles.





The rest of the lesson we took up with a gymnastic that Jessica set up with four jumps. A bounce to a one stride to a two stride. Periodically, she raised them until I think we were at 2'6" or 2'9" or so by the end.






He was so happy today. :)

Split Focus

Just wanted to put this up here...I get that look from him a lot, with the ears. One on me, one on what's coming ahead. I wish I could split my focus like that, LOL. I'm still at the stage where if I start thinking what to do with some part of my body, something else falls apart!

Hip to be Square

Had a good lesson today. Mostly flatwork, though we popped over the crossrails I'd left in the corner a couple of times as a reward for Kieran so he could so something 'fun' when he'd been good.

The idea today was working on square halts and kind of pushing Kieran into the bridle. Lots of trot->halt->trot transitions, some trotting circles (spiraling ones and regular 20 meter circles), a bit of work over ground poles, and some cantering. Kieran stayed happy and quite cooperative throughout the whole ride though it was funny at one point, we had a long walk break because I got caught up in talking with Jessica about a new horse she'd got and then when I went to trot again, you could tell Kieran was like FINALLY we can do some WORK. I was so BORED. :)

Anyway, a bunch of videos below of most of what we worked on.


Worked on trotting around the 'ring' and halting on every side and tried to get a square halt. I love how on the last one here he's kind of like, "okay, what do I do with this foot???"


Had a nice canter around the ring since he really wanted to go and he'd done good work so let him do something he wanted to do.


Did some trotting spiraling circles.


Trotted over the extended trot poles, then picked up a canter for the canter poles, then came around and gave Jessica a heart attack, oops.


Did some cantering around a circle.


Went around the other way.


Sitting trot, 20 meters.


Gave him the reins and let him stretch out at the trot.


Finally ended with doing the poles on the side again (extended trot to canter) and then around the ring to the crossrails, then halting at the gate. See how he tucks his rear under him to halt? I figure that's pretty damn amazing progress from where we started. :)

And we ended on a very good note. :)

Playtime

Attempted to joust today. Sort of. Have been wanting to do it for a while but haven't found a suitable "lance" yet that I could feel okay riding around with and not worrying about impaling us on. Saw a pretty long mailing tube in the tack room that had been tossed. Figured it might work. Taped a bucket's handle so it would stay up. Used the space between the arena and the pasture as our chute, propped the bucket up on the fence post, and did it...at a walk.

Because I realized as I was holding the mailing tube that Kieran was going, "wtf woman what are you doing?" so we mostly walked and I waved it all around till he figured out it wasn't going to smack him in the head. And tried to figure out how to hold my reins and the tube. Realized that it's really just a bit too wide to be practical so considering a smaller-diameter (and also longer) pvc pipe instead. Did manage to spear the bucket once (at a walk) and did ride up the 'chute' at a trot and holding out the tube just to show Kieran it was okay. Pretty sure he thinks I'm crazy now.

Also had a short ride in the ring.


Not real exciting, this was while we were warming up, but my point is...I lengthened my stirrups by a half hole and suddenly all the work I'd been doing to get my leg back and my heels down became about 10x easier.


Hopped over a couple of crossrails


And caught Kieran playing with his feed tub after all. :)

Flatwork

So I missed out on the gorgeous weather of Friday to do any riding due to a serious headache that had me curling up in the dark under covers. And then yesterday it was raining and icky. But today, though chilly and windy....was nice and sunny. So I went down to the farm to use the 'dressage' arena I had put together last Sunday out of jump standards, traffic cones, and 49 cent letter stickers from Tractor Supply. Oh, and some of the landscape timbers we use as jump poles. I could not for the life of me to get B and E to properly line up on their respective vertical lines and I gave up. I apparently can't see straight lines or something, I don't even know. Anyway, it ended up being approximately 20 meters by 40 meters so that was fine. I also was careful to leave some room around the whole thing so none of it was directly next to the fence so we didn't have that to lean on.

Today I just set my camera on a post that had a pretty wide view of almost the whole thing (though it occurs to me now I might have done better putting it closer to A but oh well, maybe next time if I'm not able to get a lesson tomorrow) and just let it take video as I rode. Pictures below are screencaps from that and then the videos were a couple I cut out of the big video to show so you're not having to watch the whole thing.

After warming up, we did some trotting circles (I'm proud to say our circles are way better than what they once were) and a lot of figures, going across the diagonal, up from K to E and across to B then up to M and around to create a big figure 8 basically. Some cantering all the way around the ring, then a bit of 20 meter circles cantering too (and let me tell you how amazing that is, I once was convinced we'd never be able to do that).

Did some nice trotting where I let the reins out for him to stretch and also a tiny bit of riding without stirrups at the trot. Finally, just before I cooled him out, I let him really stretch out at the canter and go, because the whole time he'd really been asking me to let him go more.

Okay...pictures!


Nice square halt from a trot.


He looks like he's using himself well at this trot, huh?


You wanted an uphill canter, right?


Extended canter at the end.


Coming over to turn off the camera.


What's this? Can I eat it?


And the closest I've gotten to a confo shot in a while.

Videos!


Basically what the title says, trotting 20 meter circles.


Cantering around the arena to the right, then turning around and going to the left and after he relaxes a bit instead of being all strong on me, we do a canter circle. :)

All the jumping

Yesterday was a lesson-day and we spent it doing 'courses' and slowly raising up jumps again. By the time we finished, we did so with a 2'9" jump so that was pretty cool. Kieran was on it all day, just really ready to go. I'm glad he's enjoying his job. :)

We also encountered a "scary" jump, one of the lattices, but I wove dollar store flower garlands into it. He didn't care, LOL.

No pictures because I forgot my camera, but I have a few from today.

Jessica just trailered over one of her horses she's working with and had a 'fun' day using the same jumps we did yesterday but a bit lower because her horse isn't working that high yet. Anyway, here's a few screencaps.




I know it's tiny, but I just love how he looks here. He's offering me this more and more now instead of the old strung out on the forehand canter he used to have.




Scary flowers!


Happy pony.


He's so pretty. :)


Good boy! Let's cool out now. :)

Consistency

Okay, so had our lesson. It was really, really good. Kieran was a total superstar. Mostly what we had set up was a jump we were using in the center of the ring. It started out as your basic crossrail with a ground pole on either side set out about 6-12 inches to make it look wider so Kieran couldn't come right up to the base of it and hop over. The jump progressively grew taller and wider, until we were going over about 2'6" high and about that wide as well.

Jessica wanted to do 'wide' to encourage Kieran to stretch out and also so we'd have a bit more 'airtime' so I could have more time to work on my position. Which. Still needs a lot to be desired, I realize, but I see improvement in it even from last week. I think my ride yesterday helped with that and I think in general riding more often will help. Mostly I just tried to remember: weight in heels, calf on, look up!

Also, I'd forgotten my crop in the tack room so Jessica said she'd go back and get it if Kieran got lazy. Well let me just say, he was anything but. He was totally down with the lesson today and rarin' to go. It was really great and I think it helped me since it was one less thing I had to think about keeping track of and let me concentrate more on my legs and less on my hands.

So anyway, below are some screencaps and below that are some videos from today.


One of our first jumps. Look how nice he's going! And remember, most of these he's jumping from a trot and he still looks really good!


This is one that shows how much my form needs work but my actual point here is...this is one we trotted into. Look how nicely he brought his hind legs together, look how he's pulled his knees up!


Seriously, this horse is amazing.


Cantering away like a boss. ;)


Afterward he got an extra-special bran mash as a treat.







I believe this is the one we were actually on the wrong lead the whole time and I remember thinking, "I think he's on the wrong lead" but since he felt pretty balanced and I didn't want to screw up his forward momentum, I didn't want to take him back down to a trot for a simple change.




Just figured we'd hop over some of the other low stuff so we weren't doing the entirely same thing every time.


Last one of the day, figured it was a good note to end on.

Anyway, the title is because, well...Kieran was pretty damn consistent the whole time. Willing to listen and just...jumping pretty nicely over everything I asked him to do. I'm really, really happy with him. I just need to catch up now!

Oh no, I'm getting old!

I have a lesson later this morning I will probably post about tonight but first...

I just realized, the blog is "the trials and jubilations of a twenty-something re-rider" on my signature line in various forums I'm in. That made total sense when I started it several years ago. But. Uhm. I'm 29. So in about eight months I guess it will have to be a "thirty-something" re-rider. Or maybe I should just come up with an entirely different line for that since after riding for several years, should I still be referring to myself as a re-rider? Even if I'm still not a great rider?

Yay, trails!

Had my first trail ride of the year today. Took Kieran out on the trails and it was nice to see they'd been through and cleared them out and everything was nice and open, though the footing wasn't packed down again yet so it was actually a little deepish. (I don't know if the neighbors who own that land dragged it with four wheelers or what. They definitely had been doing some brush burning though as all the brush was cleared out between the trees and there was ash on the ground).

Anyway, we were out for about an hour, mostly walking, but some nice long trots too. I was focusing on keeping my weight in my heels and my calf on and doing two point by closing my hip instead of throwing myself forward (it helped that I reminded myself we were out on the trails and if he tripped or something and I was too far forward, I'd probably come off right over his shoulder, hah).

Did have a nice canter up the hill that's on the way back to the house, then I made Kieran walk back down it and trot up it nicely. It's the only hill of any reasonable size in the area so I figure we should start using it for fitness. I'm sure Kieran will not approve when it's so close to the farm and why can't we just go back, mom?

Then spent a while grooming, got his tail all nice and brushed out and pretty, then let him graze in the arena while I cleaned up my tack. Also mended a couple of jump poles some previous boarder had left (a 2x4 with some lattice stuck to one side, the lattice was falling down so I wrapped some duct tape around it for my ghetto mending) so we can use them for making the jumps more interesting than just the regular poles.

Have a lesson tomorrow!

Jumping again

So had a jumping lesson, my last lesson two weeks ago was entirely on the flat (I forgot to post about it) because I was having a lot of medical things happening at the time and didn't want to stress stuff. But now I more or less have things under control so I told Jessica we could probably go back to jumping again and she said we'd start lower than we were doing since Kieran pretty well knows his job now (go over the jump, don't go through it or around it) and focus back on me and my position instead of just "keep out of his way".

Which, apparently when I start thinking about what I'm doing instead of just doing it ....it's pretty terrible. There's one picture that I'm not going to share here but I basically am laying practically totally horizontal over Kieran, I'm not even sure how I managed to get back in the saddle afterward (go me?) but it was pretty fail.

Mostly though, it was a lot of "throwing myself forward" (because we were talking about crest releases and getting my elbows down near his neck which apparently translated in my subconscious to "throw yourself forward!") up onto his neck and standing in the stirrups. :/ Are there any sort of exercises you can do to get the muscle memory built up for "get out of the saddle but stick your butt out so you're actually balanced over the saddle"? Or is that just a "do it for a while going around and around in the ring" thing?

Also I noticed when I really think hard about pushing my heels down and getting out of the saddle...I actually push my feet outward so my calf is no longer on the horse. I sort of noticed it in the past, but it was really apparent today for some reason and I'm not entirely sure how to fix that either, except to think inward thoughts. :/

Anyway, here are some screencaps:


An example of what I'm talking about.


He gave me a nice forward trot today though. I told Jessica it was a nice hunter-y trot. Forward but not too big.


Not bad, even though we're taking off a bit long.


Hovering between ground poles!


I just think he looks good here.

Anyway, what I ended up saying about this lesson was how exceptionally agreeable he was. I mean, he usually is, but sometimes he sort of gets into a "no, I know how to do this, not listening to you" frame of mind. Today it was like, "listening to everything you say, even the wrong stuff!" which was actually nice because we were on the same wavelength but embarrassing when I came off a jump and was thinking about how we had to turn to the left but needed to go straight for a couple more strides and he started going left because that's what my body was telling him to do. Oops.

Anyway, I want to go out tomorrow and just ride around the farm and not do 'work' but get out anyway. And practice doing two point where I'm not standing in the stirrups.