Core exercises

No cantering tonight. Probably a good thing. I told Christina after that I was glad we didn't, and I'd been thinking of asking if we could back off that for a while until I work on my own core strength and give him some more miles. I don't want to get him in the habit of running into a canter or thinking he can just trot faster instead of moving up to the next gear and I figure we'll both be better for more work at the other gaits first.

In the meantime, I can still work him with lunging and get him used to listening to a command for canter and then when we try it under saddle again, I can use that command along with the proper cue. I think that will help.

Instead we did lots of trotting and mostly worked on me. What did that entail? First, she had me stand straight up in the stirrups, then move down into two point (without sitting again), then keep my calf on and use my core to lower my chest as close to his neck as I can without falling in on myself. Then move back up to two point, then back to standing the stirrups. Ad nauseum.

Ow.

And then right at the end she had me half-seat without stirrups for one lap around the ring.

Ow.

But a good kind of ow. :)

Oh, and the exercise we did that was more for him than me was trotting over poles laid out in an "M" shape. The idea was he couldn't just go straight over the poles (like he would with ones laid parallel to one another) but had to pay attention to where his feet were going and adjust his stride accordingly.

The first couple times over were pretty hilarious, but it only too two or three times and he had it figured out. :)