Lesson time!

With Mia's neck issue, we had to cancel my lesson. And then the next lesson was cancelled due to illness (not mine). With my extensive traveling, I haven't been able to ride a lot but I have built up some stamina in preparation of our lesson. On Monday, we did a quick fitness ride with lots of trotting before working on transitions. While not super crisp, the canter transitions are coming back and the canter is slowly getting better even with the haunches  moving around.

The lesson went well. Really well. The instructor, A, and I seem to get along great. The biggest takeaway of the lesson is that it is time to up my education game. I make all of my transition queues via my legs, and I need to start making them via my seat bones (GAH). This is going to take time, obviously, but Mia is super smart and the instructor is confident, I am sure we will have it in a few weeks. By using my legs, I am very slightly changing my balance and am affecting her balance. If we can cue off of seat, my legs will be free to do other things. Makes sense I guess!

She also had me change my hands again. I used to ride with my hands down by my hip bones. In MI, I started riding with my hands up. When I had that fix-a-text this year, the judge said (among a lot of other things) I needed to ride with my hands down and wide again. Ugh. A wants me to ride with my hands up, so I am changing again. She also said my saddle may be a little small, my thigh is much longer than my calf and as a result, my knee pokes the plane of the knee roll when I have my stirrups where A wants them (up one hole from where I ride now). Since I am still very passively looking for a new dressage saddle, it may work. A is going to bring out other saddles for me to try out to see if I can find a model I like.

We worked a lot on holding contact and timing of my leg to get Mia to not only step under, but also step out. As soon as I let my leg up, or squeeze when her outside leg is active, she will gladly swing her haunches in. Time to fix that!

My next lesson is next Thursday, after Christmas. I will only be able to ride a couple of times before then, thanks to the last travel weekend for the foreseeable future and my now being sick. I'm actually excited to ride again though, and am really hopeful that weekly lessons will fast-track my progress and success for 2020. Let's bring on change, I am so ready for it!