Better!

Had a bit of a disordered day but it turned out great!

Last night my partner and I drove 45 minutes to go eat a belated Valentine's Day dinner. Well, we noticed on our way out of town that there was "lots of cool fog" and remarked on how beautiful it was. Unfortunately, as the light faded and fog got thicker, it got TERRIFYING.

We kept going because we both thought, well, fog never lasts THAT long, and it certainly wouldn't stay that thick at the very least. So we kept going and going, and the visibility got worse and worse. Eventually we got past the half way point, so we were better of continuing. We couldn't see more than 30 feet ahead of us down the road, our headlights were extremely ineffective, and as all the wear and tear on the winter roads had worn the painted lines down to nothing... Yeahhhhh, you can imagine. He almost took us off the road once, not aware of a curve in the road, but I yelled "WHOA WHOA WHOA WHOA!!!" and he slammed on the brakes and cranked the wheel. It was a bit of an overcorrection but we stayed on the road. 😱

Anyhow, we had our nice dinner and then, as it was still just as horribly foggy afterwards, we spent the night in his parents' spare room. It was STILL that foggy at 3am, but okay by morning.

We hurried back to our house this morning so I could run out and do barn chores, etc., when I got a call from my riding coach. She was already up there and had fed the horses and put them outside! Hooraaaaay! So I didn't need to rush up!

I stayed at the house working this morning, then headed up there at noon and did the stalls, etc. While I was out at the manure pile, the... precocious.. five year old tried to get out there for the first time ever, so I had to shoo him away and close the gate. On my next trip out, while I was at the pile, he walked over to the arena, lifted the board across the door with his teeth, and let himself and all the others into the ring where they ran around like tools, like they do. He and Kazz started chewing on the cavaletto. Jones started eating the wooden bracket the board had come out of. It was pretty early for them all to come inside but... ughhhh, whatever. I brought them in and got M tacked up and hopped on.

Within five seconds of me swinging my leg over, I heard "Door!" and my coach came in, so the lesson that we though we'd have to cancel went ahead!

Everything felt really good in the ride today. My legs felt strong, my seat was cooperating and for the most part I didn't pop out during transitions. M was just a touch pokey at times but not bad at all really. I actually used my whip to reinforce my forward aids a few times, instead of just flailing it. So that helped!

My canter was instantly better than it has been in ages. The difference? I was watching a video yesterday, I think one of the Natasha Althoff ones, and I watched her seat in canter. She wasn't doing any exaggerated rolling or rocking of her hips to follow; she was just using her back to move her hips in the correct backwards-oval motion of the gait. And I went "OHHHHHHHHH!" and I guess it clicked! My coach has been saying "Move your back!" for ages to get me to follow better with my body and lose that pesky bounce. But I was interpreting that as "use your back to shove your hips under you." No, just MOVE your BACK to move your body! The hip angle doesn't actually have to shift during the motion anywhere near as much as I was thinking it needed to. Hopefully this revelation will stick!!

Otherwise, we worked on some trot serpentines which included sitting for several beats periodically to work on my sitting trot; and on my standing-in-the-stirrups exercise (which was way more stable than it used to be!); and we did my best -- so far -- flying changes across the diagonal. I didn't drop into the turn and cut the corner, and she actually stayed in canter on two or three out of four or five tries. Which doesn't sound like an amazing ratio, but it is for me!

It was only a half-hour lesson as a mother and daughter were coming in to ride the same horse right after me, but it was definitely a quality ride! Felt good!