This week’s lesson was a painful experience. My back hasn’t been great for a long time but lately its been really bad and this Tuesday was probably the first time I’ve had serious pain while riding.
Needless to say, it didn’t improve on my weak focus. :P I rode Nelson and we worked on getting the inner shoulder into the body in preparation for a transition. We rode straight down the center line, picked which way to turn right off and then rode with the new inner side prepared for that turn the whole way. The transition came a bit after the halfway poin.
To start with Nelson was an awful lot like a sewing machine, his little legs just moving up and down rapidly, and he was not too interested in waiting for me at all. I did take that conflict without prompting from Ulrika, so go me for that, though I wasn’t able to be completely consistent in my application of the rules. But he did stop pulling my arms out of their sockets. However, once we got to the cantering my back just said “owwie” and even though Nelson has a great canter, I just couldn’t sit it well enough which had me lapsing back into my over-active canter riding.
I was also constantly messing up where I was looking; I kept looking inwards which of course had my hips turning the wrong way. I have to remember to focus on the outer ear when cantering, but it just feels wrong somehow. Towards the end, I did manage to get my eye right at least and I managed to sit somewhat better, but overall I could have done much better. Fortunately, my back is now a good deal better following some pills and an acupressure kind of thing that you lie down on, so I am hoping next week won’t be so bad.