I had to take some time to digest last weeks double-length jumping lesson before posting about it. It was a very useful lesson, with some quite interesting exercises, but I don’t remember when I last had so many issues with a jumping lesson. In part I blame my decision to use my new winter shoes; they were a little too stiff and I couldn’t quite get a good feel for my leg position and leg usage. But the rest was all about some really bad habits.
I was on Murphy for this too (not much to choose from for jumping right now), and we had hauled in quite a bit of material. We had a basic straight line, the figure-of-eight setup from last week and a diagonal line. To start with we jumped a single obstacle on the straight line, brought the horses down to a walk and rode across some ground rails. Getting the walk in time, and riding straight ahead after the rails, were the key points. This wasn’t so bad, though Ulrika did feel that here (and during the warm-up) my legs were constantly chafing away at Murphy’s sides. But I really felt this was more due to the shoes than me being on him constantly for fear of him slowing down, because while he wasn’t very forward he wasn’t lazy either.
Next up was jumping the same line in the other direction with two obstacles. Now it started getting hairy. The distance was such that Murphy kept putting in an extra, short stride ahead of the second jump, and I kept jumping ahead of him. Ulrika had to tell me several times that I was actually making it harder for him by jumping too early and then staying in the forward position instead of coming up with him. This is all due to me having had it drilled into me that the worst sin when jumping is to pull at the horse’s mouth. Since I don’t trust my own timing, I’ve ended up developing the habit of being early rather than late. If a horse has a really good sense of timing and a strong signaling of the jump, I can manage to wait and following along, but few horses at the stable do. Murphy certainly doesn’t.
The third exercise, the figure-of-eight, actually went pretty well, as I managed to get a good flow through it, and Murphy stayed on track better than last week. Though he’s still hit and miss as far as getting the right canter after a jump. And then we moved onto the diagonal for the last exercise. My first time through I had too little speed, and the distance between jump two and three was all off, so I jumped way ahead of Murphy. Next time, he actually went to the side of the second jump because he’d been a little unsettled by the first attempt, and because I was a bit off on the line. I tried again, now with more energy, and got three good jumps ... but threw myself way forward on the last, especially afterwards when I dove forward to pat him on the neck.
Of course, that meant I was punishing him instead of rewarding him by making the landing uncomfortable. So, for the final attempt, I had to really concentrate. Fortunately, it worked, so I got to finish with a really nice series of jumps. Murphy galloped on really well, the distances worked out, my timing was just right and I kept myself from throwing myself forward. But that was really hard to do. However, this is something that has plagued me on and off for a long while, and I think this lesson finally helped me realize the underlying cause, perhaps because the length of the lesson allowed more repetitions in close succession. Hopefully being more consciously aware of what I am doing and why will help me tackle the problem.