Today, I would not have minded continuing with Malupin, considering how well things went last week, but I still can’t say I was disappointed when I was assigned to Murphy. We were going to continue with the same type of exercises, and I knew that would be quite effective on him as well if done correctly. While we were signing in and getting our horses handed out, my instructor also mentioned that she’d found a horse she thought I’d like. Apparently someone at a nearby stable had asked her to find a buyer for a horse they had there, and she seemed to think it would suit me. Very, very tempting. A 6-year-old black Knabstrup gelding. Fortunately, a tad too tall for me at 159 cm, because at 50,000 it didn’t sound all that bad. And hey, its nice to know my instructor feels a horse of my own would be a good idea for me. She asked again later on, and I admitted I was very tempted, but at the moment I am not sure where I’d find a stable near enough to where we live given that the one that used to be here was taken down to make room for a clubhouse for a golf club. And I hear golfers don’t much appreciate it when you ride across the green. ;P
We started off today’s exercises with just turning across the arena a little before we reached each corner, so that we’d get used to actively turning the horses instead of having them turn just because they were about to hit the wall. From the get-go, I was determined to think of my seat, my hands and of getting a lot of horse in front of me by getting Murphy onto his hindquarters and lighter in his front. It worked fairly well, though I wasn’t able to get quite the right feeling in front. He also felt very frisky when we started trotting, and I had to work fairly hard at getting him to wait enough between strides.
After the warm-up, we moved on to riding diamond shapes within the two main circles, like last week. Murphy quickly decided that he knew what he was supposed to do, and kept trying to turn too early (and, of course, not properly on his haunches either). He would also be rather wobbly between each corner, since we were doing the exercise slowly in order to get good turns and the speed just wasn’t enough to keep him moving steadily forward. Unfortunately, he was still moving too quickly to get the turns just right, so the pace was to in-between to be right for either part of the exercise. Later on, my instructor told me to pick up the pace between each turn, and then collect him just before each turn, and that worked much better, though I should have realized how to do it myself.
Once we had tried the exercise in both laps, our instructor asked which lap was the toughest to work in, and what we thought that was due to. I said I thought it was probably mostly due to Murphy, since it felt like I was riding him in the same way in both laps, and she agreed and commented that I now ride in a quite even-sided way, whereas before there used to be a big difference in my riding depending on which side was the inner side at the time. So, that’s good news. It does feel like actively focusing on my seat has started to lead to improvements, even though I am only able to practice once a week.
When we moved to doing the exercises at a working trot, I put my stirrups up, and worked very hard at trying to sit as far forward into the saddle as possible and to sit so that I could feel my seatbones. I managed fairly well, I thought, but my instructor wanted my stomach a little more forward and then I couldn’t quite feel my seatbones any longer. I asked her about this, and she said that with my build, its difficult to get quite the right feeling. She did, however, instruct me to get my knees up a bit more (and my toes as well—have to think toe up instead of heel down) by using (I think) the muscles at the front of my thigh (not at the back or the inside though). At first, I couldn’t quite get the right feeling, but then I recalled something I had read elsewhere (in Judith Tarr’s livejournal), about lifting your knees high in front of you when sitting in the saddle. I tried this, and sure enough, I found my seatbones and a much better seat. Unfortunately, this was towards the end of the lesson, so I didn’t get a good feel for how much it might help, but I’ll definitely try that again. At least as long as I am on a reliable horse like Murphy.
I am starting to think I should make one of the private lessons I plan to somehow squeeze in during spring into a lunge lesson. I really want to keep improving my seat, and that would be the perfect way to concentrate on working on my seat.