Importance of the Rhythm 

WallE and I rode a few times between the January 2nd lesson and this week's January 9th lesson. None of the rides were spectacular, but none were awful. WallE was amicable and tried to do everything I asked, we jumped the Saturday before our lessons and the whole ride was just 'blah.' 

When we came into the arena on the 9th, Laura immediately recognized that WallE was behind the leg and gave us some exercises to get him moving forward and not so sloth like. 

Working over trot poles that are 4 feet, then 5 feet apart helped us tons! There were three trot poles to a cross rail bounce to a one stride vertical to a one stride vertical set up on a long side. Beginning, we started out with just poles and then worked up for the fences. 

At the start it was very challenging to work through the obstacles. WallE kept trying to canter instead of lengthen the stride and I noticed we were not quite straight. So I tried to straighten WallE and encourage him to trot faster instead of simply canter. Eventually we were able to do the line of poles without struggling or adding extra steps or cantering. Laura moved the trot poles back to 4 feet and started adding the jumps. 

Through the lesson we tried to keep our forward tempo. Working to trot into our combination with gusto and to keep the gusto through the turns to other fences. WallE and I both prefer 'slow' as our default, so this is a challenge for us. 

Take aways from this lesson include the pole exercise, importance of rhythm and straightness. We ended the lesson with the ability to make an outside line in five strides or six, working on collection rather than slowing down. Will this carry over to future rides and practices...we will have to see!