Possible new lessons --

[laura jeanne]

I've talked to a dressage trainer that's not too far from me and I think I will book a lesson for as soon as I can. I hope OH will take with me!!! And she has her own horses that the students ride on so having no horse will not be a problem. XXXX there's my fingers crossed!

[kedwards]

Great news that you found something a little closer! I'll keep my fingers crossed that it works out. Best of luck and keep us posted.

[Holly B]

How fab for you! Hope you have a great time and it all works out! :)

[KarinUS]

Good Luck. Let me know how you like it. We are still desperatly trying to avoid moving to Boston. The only thing hiring for my little space cadet's (Ray) skills around here is NASA so we might be coming your way! :eek:

Hope you have lots of fun! :)

[laura jeanne]

We had one lesson and it was very strange. I'm kind of embarrassed to even describe it. No lesson this week because of the Parelli clinic (which we are not going to) and no lesson next week because we will be in San Francisco at my daughter's wedding !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! They are going to Hawaii and Japan- 10 days each- on their honeymoon.

Karin, it's already in the 90s here and very very humid already too. At 9:30 a.m., it was too hot to sit out on the patio. Still, it would be really fun if you moved here! At least TX does not have a state income tax and the housing is cheap (well depending on where of course). The NW part of Houston- out towards Tomball and Magnolia is very horsey but getting expensive. Of course Nasa is in the SE so you would probably be looking that way which I'm not very familiar with. I have a friend that keeps her horse down in that area at a stable that she really likes.

We are reserving judgement on these new lessons until we have had a few. Meanwhile, after the wedding, I hope to start regular trail riding if we can stand the heat.

[Scarlett 001]

We had one lesson and it was very strange. I'm kind of embarrassed to even describe it.

Hmmm. You got my curiousity going here. Was it strange in a good way or a bad way? Did you learn something about your riding that you were unaware of? Did the instructor have unusual methods of teaching? Curious to get an update in due course.

[laura jeanne]

We had our second lesson at our new barn and it went a little better. I THINK I will like them.

In the first lesson, we were taught something I have never heard about (maybe it's western?) which is to stop the horse, raise your hands up so they are on a trajectory from the withers to your navel (English tack) and from the witheres to your sternum (Western tack because of the pommel). Then gently squeeze the reins. It works perfectly on her horses. She had 4 lesson horses.

Also in the first lesson, she said to raise the hand on the side you wanted to turn to or move over to, keep the other hand still, look over and use the opposite leg to push the horse over. Admits these are fairly simple commands which will be refined later such as with the indirect rein for the lateral movements.

In the first lesson, neither of our horses would do anything for us but zoom into the center of the arena and stop with their noses on the instructor (kind of cute really). I was feeling totally disgusted with myself since this hasn't happened to me since my beginning lessons.

Anyway, things went much better this time, probably because we followed her instructions about keeping our hands still and just doing what she told us. If you use those cues, the horses will do just what you want and if you don't, they take the immediate opportunity to go to mommy.

We are going back to the very basics as you can see. I can't even see us doing more than walking for a while. I have the feeling that this is just what I have been looking for- I always felt like I could not do the basic things with the horse and just got rushed into progressing faster and faster til we were jumping and trying flying lead changes in our other lessons. In both of those cases, we asked the instructor to back off since we knew ourselves that it was too fast for us. I have such bad habits such as looking DOWN, not even closing my hands on the reins, slouching, etc. all the basic booboos that one could have. So many, in fact, that I could never have a chance to think about any one of them for more that a few seconds before we were off cantering or whatever in our previous lessons. On Saturday, I was sitting up, looking up, keeping my elbows back and my hands correctly and my horse was walking oh so daintily in a straight line around the arena. OMG!!!

This instructor says that she will teach us to communicate with the horse and to be able to listen to it and respond to it. We should be able to ride any horse regardless of how it has been trained. This is not really dressage I guess but just basic flatwork. I am definitely not in a dressage saddle and OH is in a western because she said that men are more top heavy and hmm, I forgot exactly but she is starting him out in western tack to be switched at some point if he wants.

We do exercises- breathing and stretching and tension release and the last 10 minutes or so we have free time and she goes out of the arena and we can do whatever we want for relaxing and bonding with the horse even getting off and walking it. I don't know if this whole thing is really great or really corny but we are giving it a chance.

I've seen a couple of her other pupils and they really do look in tune with the horse, have great posture and just seem to be good riders. She also says to ask her anything, she will never be insulted. Also, her horses are capable of collection which my previous instructor admitted that she didn't expect of her horses. ALSO covered arena- worth all the rest in this heat.

What do y'all think?

[Tangle]

This is not really dressage I guess but just basic flatwork.
At the end of the day, that's all dressage is :p.

Sounds promising - especially for the progress on your position, which sounds really good :)

She's saying lots of the right words and seems to be doing lots of the right things (raising the inside hand on a turn helps to stop the horse falling in or motor biking round the turn, and is definitely preferable to raising the outside hand, which will just encourage all of the above ;)). I think it's quite good that she leaves you alone with her horses at the end of the lessons - for one I've always found I can learn a lot more when I'm free to experiment, and for another that's placing quite a lot of trust in you :D

Hope they carry on being productive (oh, and happy belated birthday & I'm really glad your daughter's wedding went so well :))