Well, my back is definitely telling me that the autumn semester at the riding school started this week, and that Tuesday’s lesson was the first for a few weeks for me. I am not quite sure how I managed to make those particular areas of my back so sore, however. Possibly I was tensing muscles I don’t normally use to compensate for my lower back being a bit week after a 12-hour car trip on Monday. But either way, its good to be back in the saddle.
For the first lesson, I was put on Fleur, and while we kept to fairly basic exercises we certainly didn’t laze about. Most of the lesson was spent focusing on maintaining a rhythm but shortening or lengthening strides. Fleur has a naturally steady rhythm, but not a lot of scope, though she actually moved quite well towards the end.
At the start, she went into bicycle mode for a bit, with her head up and her back down. She’s getting on in years, so I allowed her some time to warm up, and of course I ended up being a little slow to then start putting some demands on her once she was ready. As usual. But after a reminder from Ulrika to ask for quicker reactions from Fleur, she responded quite nicely.
I had some issues towards the end, when we were cantering and trotting and she got a little too eager. I always end up shortening her too much in those scenarios, and since I didn’t have my usual riding pants on, I was feeling like my seat was less steady than usual. That made me even more inclined to hold her back rather than ride her forward, as I ought to. But on the whole, I was pleased with how I worked through most of the issues. Ulrika thought my seat was pretty confident on the whole, so maybe the extra training during the summer has helped some. Though I need to keep working on getting my shoulders back without tensing and pulling myself up out of the saddle.