My blog of riding lessons

Mary Poppins

Mary Poppins

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Oct 10, 2004
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Thank you to everyone who was so supportive regarding my nerves at starting lessons on Ben. I had one this morning which was just amazing and I want to keep a diary of what I did and what I learned so I thought that I may as well do it on here.

The lesson started with a discussion between my RI and myself about what I wanted to get out of the lesson and if there was anything particular that I wanted to work on. I told her that I wanted a number of things:
1. I want Ben to gain muscle in the right places and build up his body in the proper way.
2. I want to work on his halt because we seem to take 5 strides to halt rather than stopping straight away.
3. I need to get him more 'connected'. We have lots and energy and impulsion, but I can't get him into any sort of contact without losing the impulsion and we end up riding with his nose poking out and reins like washing lines. This makes it hard for me to ask him for bend/dressage movements etc. because my reins are too long.

She asked me to ride my normal warm up in walk, trot and canter. As we moved off into walk Ben started jogging as he sometimes does when he is keen to work. She told me that I was contributing to this by nagging with my legs and I need to leave them still when he is moving forward. We walked, trotted and cantered, and the RI was pleased with his energy and thought that he was tracking up well.

We then moved onto an exercise in walk where we walked 3 10m circles down the long side of the school. This was designed to improve his suppleness. I had to use my inside leg more strongly than usual but make sure that he was straight and that my rein contact was even. As we got back to the track each time I had a tendency to shift my weight to the outside and this made Ben lose balance. I need to make sure that as I end each circle, my weight remains the same.

After this exercise I was then asked to leg yield down the other long side - again this was with the aim of making him more supple. He did this well and I learned that if I look where I am going, he travels in that direction much better. As I leg yield to the left, I need to look left. This made a huge difference. He tends to be a little like a banana while leg yielding at times, and this is due to my inconsistent rein contact. As soon as my rein contact was even, his body remained straight and he did the exercise much better.

We repeated the above exercise a number of times, and increased the leg yield so we were moving left, then right, then left, than right. This got Ben thinking and I had to really make sure that my rein contact was consistent. I was pleased with how easily he moved off my leg when I had to keep him guessing about what we were going to do next.

I was then asked to introduce halt at various point in the school (we were still walking). As usual he was difficult to halt to start with and my RI said that this was a common trait amongst heavy horses who tend to lean on the riders hand. I explained that as soon as I took my feet out of the stirrups he stopped. Apparently this is common as well and the chief instructor at the yard also has to do this on one of his competition horses. She said that I shouldn't worry too much about it at the moment and that when he is more engaged, he should listen more.

As we halted, my RI asked me to see if I could get him to soften in the halt. To do this I had to make my rein contact completely even and then 'sponge' my reins by keeping my hands very still, but just moving my fingers slightly. This made Ben go backwards because I think he thought I was asking him for rein back. It took a good few halts to get him to soften at all, and even when he did we lost it when I asked him to walk on again.

TBC....
 
When I had managed to get him to soften in the halt and for a few strides in walk, we moved up into trot. We went on a 20m circle on the right rein. My RI asked me to make sure that he was going into an active trot and to maintain an even rein contact. This was hard because Ben kept throwing his head up in the air. She said that this was an evasion and that I should simply ignore it. We had periods of his softening and going into a lovely outline, but at times he felt very heavy in my hands. We went back to halt to experience the 'lightness' of the correct contact and to know what I was aiming for and proceeded into trot. She also said that Ben crosses his jaw to avoid the contact on the left rein, but this isn't something that I need to worry about for the time being.

As we were trotting round, my RI asked to me try and relax my hip and really try to eliminate any tension in my body. As soon as I did this - WOW!!! He went soft and forward. It felt like he was free. My RI said that this was because the tension in my seat was blocking his forward movement and he was a horse who was very sensitive to the riders seat. As soon as I got rid of this tension I was no longer blocking him movement and he could move forward in the way that he should be doing. As the tension crept back into my body (I have a lifetime of tense riding to undo), he starting to put his head up and become stuffy again. The difference in him when I relaxed was simply amazing.

We did lots of changes of rein in trot and lots of circles. The three things that I need to work on are making sure that my rein contact is even and consistent, making sure that I don't push my hands forward as I ask for an upward transition, but most of all - getting rid of the tension in my hips.

We then worked on canter on this 20m circle. Ben and I love to canter and we are both comfortable with it. However, my RI said that his canter was a little flat and see if touching him with the whip on his shoulder would make a difference. This was another WOW moment. I didn't hit him, I just touched his shoulder with the whip, and all of a sudden he felt that his weight was on his back legs and he was much lighter in the canter. It was lovely to ride him like his. My RI said that this was the type of canter which I need when I am jumping and that I will be much safer and secure if I can get him used to working like this.

It was then the end of the lesson, but I was so pleased with the quality of teaching - the RI was fantastic in the way that she listened to what I wanted to achieve, gave me advice which I understood and could do, and at the end of the lesson Ben was a different horse.

£50 is a lot of money for a lesson, but I have booked another one for next week! I am hoping to have 2 a month for as long as my finances allow. I'm still buzzing!!!
 
MP what a great thread so glad you enjoyed your lesson but more importantly got something out of it.

Again it just proves that with out forwardness the rest does not come.

I look forward to reading the next one
 
Interesting you didnt say anything about your confidence when RI asked you what you wanted from your lesson and you had such clear goals in mind which is brilliant :smile:

So chuffed it sounds amazing and worth keeping up with the lessons - photos next time please :wink:
 
That is a good lesson and a very excellent accurate report so we can all learn from it. Asking Ben to soften in halt and asking you to relax your hip sounds so like what Rashid teaches - and you are right that the effect is immediate.
So will you also be reporting on your homework with Ben? I hope so.
 
OwnedbyChanter said:
Again it just proves that with out forwardness the rest does not come.
Click to expand...

My RI said that Ben could actually do with slowing down a little because at the moment he is a little flat and drawn out. I need to ensure that he stays tracking up, but he becomes more 'bouncy'.

My legs are killing me though. It made me realise that to get a horse to bend, you really do have to use your legs!
 
TBminx said:
Interesting you didnt say anything about your confidence when RI asked you what you wanted from your lesson and you had such clear goals in mind which is brilliant :smile:
Click to expand...

My RI knows that I lack confidence riding, but I didn't want to dwell on it too much. She did say that she thought that my confidence with Ben had really grown, but I have achieved this by almost over riding him and being busy in the saddle. I need to keep my body still, but my mind busy.

She is spot on though. One of the reasons that I find hacking in walk so difficult is because I just cannot sit still. I find cantering around an open field 100 times easier than I do walking around it.
 
Skib said:
That is a good lesson and a very excellent accurate report so we can all learn from it. Asking Ben to soften in halt and asking you to relax your hip sounds so like what Rashid teaches - and you are right that the effect is immediate.
So will you also be reporting on your homework with Ben? I hope so.
Click to expand...

Oh yes I will. I feel more inspired than I have in a long time and feel much more confident in my ability to get the best out of Ben.
 
I am glad it all went well. I will have a good read through later. My eyesight and aches and pains don't allow me to read through long posts that well this time of the morning lol.
 
Wow! Well done MP. That lesson sounded so good it bought tears to my eyes! I look forward to following the diary.
 
I hadn't schooled Ben since the lesson as on Saturday we went for a good canter round the fields and on Sunday he had a day off as I was away. Yesterday afternoon I got to the yard determined to replicate the success of our lesson.

However, it's not as easy when there isn't an instructor telling you what to do! Ben is always difficult after a day off, I tend not to give him one if I can help it because he becomes backward thinking and opinionated. Today he had his eyes on stalks as it was windy and there was a big plastic bag flying around (which the lovely yard staff soon caught for me). And for the rest of the session I felt like he was shoving 2 fingers up at me saying "I'm not doing ANYTHING today".

I did exactly what my RI had told me to do. Firstly to warm up in walk, trot and canter on a loose rein. Other than spooking (very little spooks) and snorting, he did this fine. I then repeated our 10m circles and leg yielding exercise in walk, which he kind of did OK, but he was fighting any attempt at a contact and kept throwing his head about. I tried to make him halt to get him to soften, but he just would NOT stand still and kept looking around at anything and everything, would not concentrate and kept turning mini circles. After trying for about 20 minutes (with some breaks for a few trots and canters), he finally did as I asked and we got a lovely connected walk with his head exactly where I wanted it to be - for 5 seconds only, but at least we got it.

There was no hope of getting any connection in trot. I found it difficult to get him to concentrate and have any kind of straightness, but his canter was perfect. I ended the session with our lovely walk again and figured that while I hadn't been able to replicate the success of our lesson, we had achieved some improvement in the walk.

I feel like I need to change the whole way that I ride. I block constantly with my body, I don't swing my hips and I always have reins like washing lines. I can't really blame Ben for complaining about me asking him to move properly, because if I am honest I have let him get away with murder. I was always so grateful that I felt safe on him and that he didn't try to kill me, that I have let him go around with his nose poking out and not using himself properly. While I love his safe personality, I do want to improve both myself and him so I will stick at it. It's far easier to just sit on him and let him do what he likes though!!!
 
It is very difficult to recreate that 'lesson feeling'.

I tend to stick with what I can do confidently, as if I am struggling to do something right or to know if it is correct or incorrect, I feel like I am teaching Galaxy it all wrong. That is not to say don't experiment, but if you get stuck best to stick to what you can do, like you did with the walk.
 
I always say I need a recorded lesson playing in my ears when ride as just not the same doing it without a trainer. :unsure:

I try to get my OH on the ground to help and motivate me and have a clear idea in my head before i start what going to do with a goal to achieve and always finish on something we can do well so a positive ending :smile:
 
I find it really difficult to school outside of a lesson. Without my RI there I just lack conviction and if Raf isn't co-operating I can't decide for myself whether my attempts to correct him are right or wrong. I wish I could have her there all the time for me.

I'm so glad you enjoyed your lesson and you and Ben are doing so well. You have such a great deal of perserverence and patience that I'm sure you'll make really fast progress.

Looking forward to the next update!
 
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