Is He Broken?

Feeling inspired after our weekend with Molly Xanthopoulos, WallE and I practiced our dressage over the Thanksgiving holiday week. On Monday and Tuesday we rode after the sunset. Practicing getting collected and loosening up through changes of directions and reins encouraging contact (without my hands spread apart), leg yields, shoulder ins and canter transitions. We worked on employing half halts throughout all of the movements. 

After a long four days of dressage drills and mental taxation, WallE got to take Wednesday and Thursday off. Surprisingly he came to the gate each day when I went to take family members on pony rides...as if to say, 'Aren't you going to ride me too?' He seemed a little sad, so on Friday I brought him out to help teach a beginner lesson. We played follow the leader and did a few obstacle courses (quite different from our dressage schools earlier in the week). 

Saturday afternoon I cleaned up the arena and set up a four loop serpentine with jumps along the centerline. I thought that since we focused on being supple and responsive in our dressage schools, that  a serpentine of jumps would be easy and the perfect crossover. I was very wrong. 

We warmed up with our leg yields, shoulder ins, canter transitions and even played with coming off of the rail and going back to the rail in the canter ( to start thinking about the counter canter). After our warm up, we jump the single at one end of the arena off of both leads (not difficult). However, once we started jumping and trying to change direction through the simple change, the fancy dressage trot emerged and both of us became increasingly confused about what was going on. I would go for the simple change in the turn and end up with the extended trot down the long side of the arena. I think WallE was trying to do what he thought I wanted (after our four days of dressage-ing) and I was not being clear in my communication. 

So, I decided to not 'break' him any more and to do a few simple jumps and not worry about the serpentine. So we jumped two jumps on a circle both directions and called it a day.  Sometimes I think it is good to recognize when things are not working and stop. I would hate to 'punish' WallE by me continuing to try the serpentine and failing to communicate correctly. Instead we ended on something I knew we could do relatively easily. I like to end on a successful note that gives us both confidence in the hope that it will help us be bold when it matters.