Pedro
2nd Feb 2001, 10:40 AM
I was a little busier with work this week so I'm a bit late. But anyway, here are two more chronicles.
Wednesday, 24 January
I had quite an ordinary lesson today, there really isn't much to be said about it. I was riding Catraia and there were three of us in the lesson. There were the usual exercises, the only one worth noticing was the canter at the end. The progress I've made in terms of sitting the motion without "excessive limb motion" :-) has been steady. I can now keep my feet firmly in the stirrups and go along with the horse's head motion with my arms and hands. With the easier more natural position it becomes less problematic to exert some form of control and orientation over the horse. I'm now also more able to cadence and restrain or extend the gait. We did some circles in canter, each pair following it's own routine. One circling in one side while another circled on the opposite side, with the third pair keeping to normal path. All this according to the orders given by Francisco to get in and out of the circles, so we would not get in each other's way.
The only real novelty in the lesson was an increased tutorage by Francisco on finer and more intricate use of the aids. He explained to us the natural logic behind the aids, and different uses of the reins and legs than what we have been doing so far. As an example of this little bit of theory we were to achieve first an inside drift of the hunches, and then an outside drift, while performing circles. Despite my body giving the idea of a mutiny taking place - each limb trying to accomplish something different on its own :) - still we all managed to show some results... even if they were as small as they were!
With all the chatting that accompanied and followed "dinner" we managed to stay around till some time past eleven. If it weren't for a ride home from Carlos I'd not have arrived that much before mid-night. But, as I stated in the beginning, that's hardly out of the ordinary :-)!
Friday, 26 January
When I arrived at the school the previous lesson was still far from finished. It consisted of five kids, four of them ridding saddless. Out of the horses present Lord quickly became conspicuous by misbehaving himself. He took advantage of having a kid on top to lag behind, refuse upward transitions, cut the work short and drift inwards all the time.
When the lesson was finished the other horses went to rest but Lord stayed for the next lesson. Francisco assigned him to me and asked me to make sure he'd do his work in the lesson, so he wouldn't get away with being lazy. The rest of the lesson was made of students even greener than me, so it was up to me to set the pace for the "train". There were three other students, ridding Montera, Astérix and Catraia.
We started with rising trot, which presented me with Lord's first attempt at testing me. When I asked for trot he ignored the leg, and when I insisted he veered inside. Instead of keeping a steady upgrade of aids, I jumped a few steps and immediately gave him a sharp tap on the croup. I find it better, in these "tests" from a lazy horse, to be assertive and demanding in the beginning. If the problem is laziness, it cuts a lot of hassle short, for both of us - if! With Lord I'm pretty convinced it is so, as he never makes more serious "protests" if made to work. If he recognizes the rider as imposing he will put up of a fair hour of work and really earn his oats (sweet feed and hay in this case).
Anyway, my move worked, he made some token resistance for a few minutes, but he was just fine for the rest of the lesson. Guiding him to the corners was a breeze (as long as he was first in line, that is!), and he was responsive to the leg and yielded to it well enough. During part of the lesson we were to trot without stirrups and I took advantage of this time to try to work more impulsion out of him, and prevent him from either dragging his feet around the arena or getting too fast. For a while I managed to maintain him in a livelier bouncier trot while not going much faster. I guess that after a while, he understood what I wanted of him. When he ignored the leg and reverted to dragging himself around again, all it took was a quick succession of soft taps with the legs to get him back where I wanted.
The other students did just fine, the occasional clanking sound telling me that Astérix still enjoys banging the rider's leg against the railings :). I looked back frequently to make sure I was not leaving them behind, but they were always right after the two of us. The only difficulty came up during canter. We were cantering together, and I was having difficulty getting Lord to increase the speed - I don't know where the line between work and really hard work is in canter, so I don't like to push it. When in doubt I'd rather be ignored than be excessively demanding with the horse! Because the other students had more difficulty in restraining the gait, they soon found themselves in a concertina effect. At this point I heard Francisco shouting "Stop Pedro! Stop!", so I rose in the stirrups (to avoid bumping in the downward transition) and set my hands. We stopped in a couple of steps, and I turned around to find the third rider in the line grasping Astérix's neck while Francisco and the fourth student were grinning from ear to ear! It seems that he lost his balance with the frequent changes of speed, he almost fell to one side, managed to throw himself to the other side - almost fell to the other side - and managed finally to grab the neck and stop himself. As Francisco said: to that student "...up to the ears it's all horse!" :D! After they had laughed it out (and after they had told the story in complete detail to us in front of the line), we concluded the lesson and gave the horses their well deserved dinner.
Pedro Fortunato
Lisbon, Portugal
Wednesday, 24 January
I had quite an ordinary lesson today, there really isn't much to be said about it. I was riding Catraia and there were three of us in the lesson. There were the usual exercises, the only one worth noticing was the canter at the end. The progress I've made in terms of sitting the motion without "excessive limb motion" :-) has been steady. I can now keep my feet firmly in the stirrups and go along with the horse's head motion with my arms and hands. With the easier more natural position it becomes less problematic to exert some form of control and orientation over the horse. I'm now also more able to cadence and restrain or extend the gait. We did some circles in canter, each pair following it's own routine. One circling in one side while another circled on the opposite side, with the third pair keeping to normal path. All this according to the orders given by Francisco to get in and out of the circles, so we would not get in each other's way.
The only real novelty in the lesson was an increased tutorage by Francisco on finer and more intricate use of the aids. He explained to us the natural logic behind the aids, and different uses of the reins and legs than what we have been doing so far. As an example of this little bit of theory we were to achieve first an inside drift of the hunches, and then an outside drift, while performing circles. Despite my body giving the idea of a mutiny taking place - each limb trying to accomplish something different on its own :) - still we all managed to show some results... even if they were as small as they were!
With all the chatting that accompanied and followed "dinner" we managed to stay around till some time past eleven. If it weren't for a ride home from Carlos I'd not have arrived that much before mid-night. But, as I stated in the beginning, that's hardly out of the ordinary :-)!
Friday, 26 January
When I arrived at the school the previous lesson was still far from finished. It consisted of five kids, four of them ridding saddless. Out of the horses present Lord quickly became conspicuous by misbehaving himself. He took advantage of having a kid on top to lag behind, refuse upward transitions, cut the work short and drift inwards all the time.
When the lesson was finished the other horses went to rest but Lord stayed for the next lesson. Francisco assigned him to me and asked me to make sure he'd do his work in the lesson, so he wouldn't get away with being lazy. The rest of the lesson was made of students even greener than me, so it was up to me to set the pace for the "train". There were three other students, ridding Montera, Astérix and Catraia.
We started with rising trot, which presented me with Lord's first attempt at testing me. When I asked for trot he ignored the leg, and when I insisted he veered inside. Instead of keeping a steady upgrade of aids, I jumped a few steps and immediately gave him a sharp tap on the croup. I find it better, in these "tests" from a lazy horse, to be assertive and demanding in the beginning. If the problem is laziness, it cuts a lot of hassle short, for both of us - if! With Lord I'm pretty convinced it is so, as he never makes more serious "protests" if made to work. If he recognizes the rider as imposing he will put up of a fair hour of work and really earn his oats (sweet feed and hay in this case).
Anyway, my move worked, he made some token resistance for a few minutes, but he was just fine for the rest of the lesson. Guiding him to the corners was a breeze (as long as he was first in line, that is!), and he was responsive to the leg and yielded to it well enough. During part of the lesson we were to trot without stirrups and I took advantage of this time to try to work more impulsion out of him, and prevent him from either dragging his feet around the arena or getting too fast. For a while I managed to maintain him in a livelier bouncier trot while not going much faster. I guess that after a while, he understood what I wanted of him. When he ignored the leg and reverted to dragging himself around again, all it took was a quick succession of soft taps with the legs to get him back where I wanted.
The other students did just fine, the occasional clanking sound telling me that Astérix still enjoys banging the rider's leg against the railings :). I looked back frequently to make sure I was not leaving them behind, but they were always right after the two of us. The only difficulty came up during canter. We were cantering together, and I was having difficulty getting Lord to increase the speed - I don't know where the line between work and really hard work is in canter, so I don't like to push it. When in doubt I'd rather be ignored than be excessively demanding with the horse! Because the other students had more difficulty in restraining the gait, they soon found themselves in a concertina effect. At this point I heard Francisco shouting "Stop Pedro! Stop!", so I rose in the stirrups (to avoid bumping in the downward transition) and set my hands. We stopped in a couple of steps, and I turned around to find the third rider in the line grasping Astérix's neck while Francisco and the fourth student were grinning from ear to ear! It seems that he lost his balance with the frequent changes of speed, he almost fell to one side, managed to throw himself to the other side - almost fell to the other side - and managed finally to grab the neck and stop himself. As Francisco said: to that student "...up to the ears it's all horse!" :D! After they had laughed it out (and after they had told the story in complete detail to us in front of the line), we concluded the lesson and gave the horses their well deserved dinner.
Pedro Fortunato
Lisbon, Portugal