A little late, this, but I was unusually tired after the riding yesterday and the task of writing up my usual lesson post seemed far to great. So, I put it off until today. I think I still remember most of what we did, however. It was another jumping lesson, and as I had expected I was put on Murphy. While tacking him up, I decided to try out some of the stuff we discussed last week, about how to ensure the horse really does defer to you as the leader. So, I insisted that he move his shoulders away from me when I entered his stall. This seemed to work quite well, and he responded by chewing to indicate he was submitting. So far, so good. Saddling him was quite painless too, and once down in the arena he only considered trying to take a bite out of me once and he stood perfectly still as I mounted up. A definitive improvement.
As we started the warm-up, I tried to focus a lot on my seat, even though we would be jumping. I noticed, however, that I am feeling a little uncertain about precisely how my legs should be, given that I’ve read and heard differing opinions on the matter of late. I think I need to get a hold of a good book or two, and get my instructor to actually place my leg in position once or twice, so I know what to strive for. What I did know to work on, however, was to avoid pushing my heel down (since that causes tension) and instead let the weight come down through my knee. Not too much, though, since it needs to stay bent to keep my lower leg far back enough. So I tried to combine the feeling of pushing down through the leg with a feeling of lifting my toes up by using the muscles on the front and outside of my thighs. I think that’s the correct approach, but I have had a few too many instructions from different sources of late, so I am not entirely sure it all matches up. Either way, I was pretty happy with the steadiness of my leg for most of the class.
The selected exercise was intended to keep us focusing on our seat (so, I guess I had done the right thing from the start, by chance) while leaving the jumping to the horses. We had three obstacles lined up along one side of the arena, and started by trotting and walking over the poles on the ground, with minimum interference from us riders. We then built up one obstacle at a time, and kept trying to as little as possible. Given my past problems with doing too much, this was a very good exercise for me, even though it did leave Murphy a little uninspired now and then. Unless, of course, there was a small pony in front of him that he could chase down with the intent of trying to kill it. Sort of like using a lure to make a greyhound run. When he didn’t have that goal to aim for, I worked a bit at keeping him on his toes between each round of jumping, but he’s pretty laid-back. Still, a little nudging and lots of praising meant he did pretty well.
For my own part, I managed to not interfere too much for most of the time. Once I sort of started working too much with my upper body, but felt that he was coming at the last obstacle slightly wrong and so I held still and allowed him to sort the distance out. It worked quite well, and my instructor thought it was good I caught myself before getting too active. Though I didn’t really realize what I had been on the verge of doing, I just felt the effect of starting to happen and reacted to that. Still, I think I am getting more sensitive to such things, so that’s good. Other than that, most of my rounds went well, except for the second to last where she felt I got a little too far forward (though I did keep still). For the last round, I kept closer to the saddle and my upper body was held more upright, and Murphy went over the three obstacles in good balance and with no problem at all when I did as little as possible and kept myself in a good, steady position. They really don’t need us. ;)
Afterwards, in the stable, I tried a little more horsemanship work with Murphy. He’s very happy to his shoulder away from me if I am on his left, but on his right its a very different story. He’d push against me instead, and when I tried to move him, he’d threaten with his teeth. I suppose I did get a little nervous then, so I didn’t manage to be as firm as I should have been from the get-go, but after a while I managed to get him to move away from me (I had to ‘bite’ his shoulder once or twice with a pinch from my fingers, though) and to show at least some small signs of accepting it. I then gave him a treat, and repeated the process on the left side again, so we’d finish off on a high note. I am thinking this will improve things a lot over time, though, and I am pretty confident that if I were to buy him, I could work fairly well with him. Of course, no chance of that any time soon.