Lesson day

No photo today, just a little post about our lesson today.

It wasn't a perfect lesson, as in perfect behavior. But it was a good lesson in that I felt like we've come a long way.

I was a little curious as to how things would go because we haven't had a lesson in two weeks and our rides this week were a bit all over the place.

On Tuesday, I rode without stirrups the whole time to get a feel for how I can balance. It felt really good, and Bestie felt good. We jogged along for about a half hour, around the perimeter, and some smaller circles and diagonals. One of those "sitting on the sofa" rides.

On Friday, she was so sluggish I couldn't get her going. She'd jog a few steps, then fall out of it. Her whole attitude was "meh." After about 20 minutes of this, I decided to move outside to the round pen. She perked up out there - change of scenery, cooler air, more to listen to in terms of noise on adjoining properties, lots of stuff rustling in the wind. We walked around for about 10 more minutes, and I'm pretty sure she moved at a faster pace at the walk outside than she did at the jog in the indoor.

On Saturday, we went back into the lower indoor and she was fine. Much more perky. I mentioned her sluggishness to a couple other people, who said they had noticed the same with their horses. Summer doldrums? Who knows. We had a good ride.

So today, I wasn't sure what she'd be like. She was a little sluggish at the beginning, and Paula was after me to get after Bestie. After jogging the perimeter and doing some quarter lines, Paula set up a fan pattern with 3 rails on the ground. I don't know how many times we circled and went through going counter clockwise, but initial attempts were a little, um, ugly due to operator error. I didn't keep her on the circle, so we'd kind of drift out after the third rail rather than continuing to head on a circle to the left. I have this problem with getting my leg on her behind the girth - it's so awkward for me. We got better, though.

But when it was time to switch and go clockwise, Bestie decided she had had enough. No more sluggishness ... the speed demon took over. The difference is that now I can ride her speedy trot, and I have a little internal checklist of things I can do to slow her down. Sitting deep, half halts, circling. It took a while, but she finally calmed down and we walked through the fan a few times, then jogged around the  perimeter again and in a few small circles to end on a good note.

These little outbursts have become few and far between. I'm just so happy that we can work through them, that with a calm response, she does return to the task at hand.