Woohoo! Improvement.

I love those aha! moments when everything just comes together. Today was one of those days. I don't even know what changed everything- all my eq problems just poofed away. (Maybe it was listening to Patti's prescribed 20mins/two point every day... haha)

I started off with the two-point to loosen her back and get my legs functional, and spent probably 13 mins/walk, 6/trot, and a few laps of canter. And bingo- my seat was great. None of the annoying pumping that I'd developed. And that made a world of difference to the rest of my ride- now that my position was functional, I could ask her to come up off the forehand and maneuver her around without her overbending to the inside.

We jumped a small line as well-an eighteen inch line set three strides apart. Basically, I wanted her to l-i-s-t-e-n to where I wanted her to put her feet, and learn that such small fences don't require a herculean effort. So I'd trot her into it. Halt her on landing, and trot her out. Then I'd canter her through it, have her halt at the fence, turn on the haunch, and trot in/canter out the other way. We probably did this five or six times each way. She still weaves horribly between fences, but now she's not panicking into her lines and I've had an opportunity to fix my position. I actually am back to my steady self (jeez, I'd hope, over such teeeeeny jumps lol), which makes me a lot happier. We improved together- once I had her cadenced between fences, our crazy long spots fixed themselves (like when she was taking a flying leap over the cavaletti with Patti the other day, lol.)

Also, we worked figure eights over a ground pole. God only knows why she's so worried about ground poles, but she is. It's quite funny- she'll jump that like it's going to eat her, and will glance off the side if I don't keep her straight. After some OHMYGOD it's just lying there... all inert and scaaarryy... we got it down and I could start working on what *I* needed to work on: asking her to step over the pole with a specific foot. Like, I'd come into the approach and decide I wanted her right foreleg to go over first. Then, I'd extend her trot or shorten it until I could get whatever leg I wanted consistently. We worked it at the canter a few times, too, and tried a change over it, but she didn't seem to understand what I wanted. We got our changes on the flat, however. She's such a compliant horse- I just have to position her so she can do it naturally.

Hrmm, what else do I have to say? Well, I've found the balance between our hunter under saddle stuff versus functional schooling. I think the key is to start her off long, and then bring her into some lax dressage figures and keep her on the bit, and then push her into her HUS frame toward the end when her muscles need a rest. Just magically, she gave to my leg pressure and started rounding up through her back, which usually doesn't happen without her long and low or after a lot of transitions. We schooled with a working attitude for a while, including over the trot poles and coming into the little vertical line, and then we schooled our hunter under saddle stuff when she felt ready to relax.

Her quality of movement has improved 100%- being in front of the leg seems to do that sometimes ;), and I unearthed her Western training entirely by accident. She lopes. She lopes! Lol. I half-halted a little to hard in our canter and we got a lope. It was.. different. I could feel the three beats and the whole rolling thing, but it was just weird. And she was back on her hocks, so yeah... not sure what to make of that just yet.

Anyways, I had a lovely day. Got our tickets for the Alltech World Equestrian Games (saying I'm psyched doesn't begin to describe it), went out to lunch, and then got to have pony time. Chagall is back to complete soundness again- our resident fanceh A-hunter is back in business after he made himself sore giving Allanah a concussion. Paige was a little leery to ride him, but he did just fine.