Fix Your Position

For the past two lessons K has filmed the jumping for some of us, which is great because I don't often get to see what I look like when I ride. I'm a bit disappointed by it to be honest, so I'm not going to post any of it. I must be pinching with my knees and not realizing it because my lower leg doesn't stay still over the jumps, it swings forward and back. K hasn't said anything about it, so I'm going to ask her if there's things I can do during lease rides to work on it.
You would surely think, after so many years jumping the same heights, I would have a decent leg?

The other thing we have to work on is getting him on the bridle at the trot, because he often gets inverted/carries his head like a giraffe, not quite as bad as Zander though. He gets it every once in a while but doesn't carry it for very long.

Our next lesson is scheduled for Saturday morning provided the weather and work don't ruin it.

Saturday Lesson

Wolfgang doesn't seem to be much of a morning horse, when you go to catch him out in the fields he will run away unless you bring cookies. Which I've done for the past few weeks but forgot this time, luckily he was expecting them and came over so I didn't have to wade through the snow after him. Even though he got a few as soon as we got in the barn he will probably remember that I forgot last time and run off again. It's so much nicer to go in the evening when he's inside already. He won't usually avoid being caught in the afternoons.

He was pretty good for the most part, he went on the bridle decently going to the right but we will definitely have to work on going to the left.
A lot of what we need to work on is over fences, such as me keeping my eyes up properly and not looking at the ground over his ears and really keeping my shoulders back because I seem to hunch them a bit when jumping.
The other thing I really, really need to work on is my back strength because I've not got very much (!!!) so that will mean a few planks and super mans everyday to get on top of that. It's easy to feel when jumping long courses, practicing holding the two point around the ring or doing things like up-up-down trotting.

Unfortunately, the roads are terrible tonight so I didn't get to go to the barn, we've got at least a foot of snow today. Hopefully I'll be able to make it out on Wednesday though.

K pointed out that Wolf tends to get a bit "luggy" when going on the flat so setting up trot and canter poles might be a good exercise for us to do on lease rides. As well as doing short hand gallops and bringing him back to a nice canter because that turned out to be really helpful doing the line on Saturday, it was a two-to-a-two with the middle jump being the largest one. We did pretty good, definitely better than last week when we were trotting into a grid that was made up out of a bounce, a one stride to a two stride. I think that exercise could have gone a lot better if we had been able to canter in because it just doesn't feel like there's enough power and momentum at the trot, but we did it decently a couple times.

Can I eat that?

Tongue!

Pet me!!!