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As usual, I used my Pivo Pod to record my Sunday ride. While I love having a lesson on Saturday with Sean Cunningham, owner and trainer at STC Dressage, it's my Sunday rides that give me a chance to try out what I learned the day before. While I have learned to be flexible with each day's riding goals - Izzy doesn't usually read the same playbook as me, I knew that playing around with creating bend from the inside leg was definitely a must do. It didn't matter if we did it in the canter or not, but we were going to work on it. I warmed Izzy up as usual, but I kept reminding him that if he braced and leaned into my inside leg instead of bending around it, a sharp poke would be waiting for him.  Not too shabby, eh? Just to be clear, the goal is not the sharp poke. The goal is to encourage softness and bend around my inside leg with the lightest possible aid. Ideally, that would be a weighted inside seat bone. Right now, I haven't made that aid clear enough for Izzy which is why I am helping him to connect the dots: inside leg at the girth means bend. If he doesn't bend, he will feel a sharp poke. If I can become very consistent in asking and reinforcing, he will learn very quickly to wrap himself around my leg and soften through his neck and poll. He is already making those connections. Early on in the ride, I asked for the right lead canter. As soon as he braced and leaned into my inside leg, I gave him a poke and carried on. It only took three circles for him to make better life choices. In the video below, you can tell right when I put my spur in because he hops away from me, but about the third time around, I had convinced him to stop bracing as we passed the gate end of the arena. Was it perfect? No, but he demonstrated that he was listening. We went on to something else. Throughout the ride, I put on my teacher hat and presented the idea of creating softness from my inside leg in lots of different ways. So often, my students only learn a new idea after seeing a number of different examples. With Izzy, I walked up each quarterline asking for a change of bend with my inside leg. It was like dribbling a soccer ball: bend to the left, bend to right, bend to the left, bend to the right. Each time I asked for the new bend, I did it by first weighting the new seat bone and then pressing my calf at the girth. Only if he didn't change the bend did I poke him with the spur. I also asked for some steeper leg yields which he is doing really well. We still have too much shoulder one moment followed by too much haunches the next, but that's really all just pilot error. I need to remember to ride him forward into both reins evenly while monitoring the haunches. I tend to ask for too much haunches which is something Speedy "taught" me. To finish up the idea of creating bend and softness with my inside leg, we worked on traverse to half pass. The half pass to the right was a real struggle. He kept fighting to take the bend away from me. I had him do the half pass twice, and when he gave me a half pass that was at least better than the first one, I took what he was willing to offer and moved on to the left side. It wasn't great by any means, but I was really encouraged by the effort he offered. In the video below, his traverse is pretty decent, maybe not super consistent, but the bend is there. In the half pass, the bend is not nearly enough - at least I don't think so, but what I was rewarding was his effort. He didn't take the bend away; instead, he kept trying which is all I ever really want from him - the try. The one thing that I have learned about this horse is that as he's learning something new, it tends to get worse before it gets better. It might take him a few weeks to accept my inside leg as an aid for bend. And for certain, I know that over-using the spur is a recipe for disaster which is why I've asked Sean to keep an eye on my effective use of the aids (as it were). Even knowing it might get worse for a bit, I am so encouraged by the progress we're making. I know none of this is brilliant, but I am proud of our progress.  Who knows? Maybe we'll get to show Training Level, Test 2 next year!
Part 1 All of that feel good stuff from yesterday was real. It didn't come easy at first though because I was stressed out about the uncooperative virtual session with my trainer, Sean Cunningham, owner and trainer at STC Dressage. When it became obvious that technology was not going to be my friend that day, my husband - who never comes to shows, finally told me to ditch the Pivo and focus on my horse. It was the best piece of advice of the week. I've had Sean in my ear for every warm up ride for the past year. Not having him there was stressful, but my husband's confidence in my ability to ride without the help, gave me the push I needed. I shut everything out and started to really ride Izzy. As though I had been doing it my whole life, I started asking Izzy those little questions that Sean has taught me to ask. Can you give me some flexion? How about a bit of leg yield? Can you walk? Can you do a balanced canter transition? and on and on. Through it all, I kept reassuring him; I got you Izzy, and I will be alright. Every time he lost his balance and threatened to make his own decision, I gave a tiny half halt, and reminded him that I got you. The more times I said it, the more I believed it. As a result, Izzy believed me too.  My absolute favorite photo of the day: my husband and Izzy in the same photo. (PC Jessica) As we headed up to the show arena, Izzy kept asking are you sure? He gave the bathrooms a stare, the man on the bench looked scary, and the announcer's booming voice over the loud speaker caused him to leap forward. There's always a friend when you need one though. Izzy leaped on top of "J" when the announcer's voice startled him, but instead of running her down, he gave her hair a deep sniff and took a deep breath. My friend Laurel saw the insecure look in his eyes and happily stood next to him while we waited to head into the ring. By the time we were waved in, Izzy was looking to me for direction.  I halted Izzy in front of the judge's booth and gave our number, then I asked for a trot and rode every step of that test. During the test, I recognized every unbalanced step and worked over and over to keep him steady. I knew we were in a bit of trouble when he kept asking to walk, but I put my spur in and told him to keep going. And then I knew why he wanted to walk. Izzy had to poop. Lord have mercy. Rather than fight with him, I made a decision. I let him poop knowing that it would lower our score, but since the day was not about scores but about me actually riding and making decisions, I knew listening to him was the right decision. I was right. We earned a 4 for that 20-meter circle. For the canter circle at C, He felt terribly off balance, so instead of just trying to make it around the circle, I asked for a half halt and got a downward transition to trot. I didn't care. He was listening, and I wanted him better balanced. We earned a 4 for that movement as well, but we followed it up with a 7 for our working canter, and for the next canter circle, we earned a 7.0 with the comment "smooth depart." After our final halt, I broke into a huge smile. There were lots of unbalanced moments, but I couldn't have cared less. My goal was to ride my horse rather than sit there frozen, and I knew I had done it. I was pretty sure we had earned yet another mid-50 score, but I didn't care. I had done what I had set out to do. To my surprise, we earned a solid 62% and change. Not only that, but it was only the two little mistakes that brought the score down. The test was filled will a solid string of 6.0s, 6.5s, 7.0s and even a 7.5 for our first halt. Had we not had the poop incident or the off balance canter, we would have had a 65% or higher. On the other hand, if I had picked a fight over the pooping or not fixed the canter, we might have had yet another 54%. I am more than happy with the score.     Before I wrap this up, there is one more part to this tale of I got you and I'll be alright. Stay tuned ...
I have made it my goal to record my ride the day after a lesson. So far, I am doing pretty well. Before I started using my Pivo Pod for virtual lessons, I would drag my set up out to the barn every six weeks or so. A friend told me that she records every single ride and watches every single video. There is no way I am up for that kind of torture, but I figured that I could, at the very least, skim through 45 minutes of video once a week. Sunday was that day. This post is really about the video clips that I created from that ride, but I just need to say this: Holy cow, Izzy looks like a real dressage horse! When did that happen?!?!?! This first little clip made me laugh. First of all, I never stop talking to Izzy. I must say good boy at least a thousand times during each ride. During this particular clip, I publicly acknowledged the error was mine even though there was no one watching. I am pretty sure I was apologizing to Izzy. Sound up. There is nothing humorous, interesting, or even cringeworthy in this next clip. I chose it because it represents what most of our rides look like now. We have our share of bobbles here and there, but our rides are slowly coming together. One of the many things that I have learned from Sean Cunningham, owner and trainer at STC Dressage, is to have more patience. Sean has helped me see that asking for anything - whether it's a transition or a leg yield or a shoulder-in, before the relaxation is there, serves no purpose. Getting a prompt canter doesn't matter if the next step is a bolt or stumble. Instead, I now know to just sit and wait until Izzy is ready. I ask, and if Izzy doesn't answer correctly, I wait and ask again. My reward is transitions that are getting quieter and quieter. This is the first canter transition of the day. I've shown these clips in order of how they happened during the ride. After cantering to the right, Izzy started to anticipate the left lead canter. When I wouldn't let him hurtle himself into the gait, he got a bit sassy and then didn't know what to do with his attitude. That generally means a bolt and scoot is coming. While he did bolt into my hands, I LOVED that he very quickly let go of the tension and came right back to me mentally. After the spook, it took a few minutes for me to get Izzy back on my team. I didn't worry about it. We walked for a minute or two, and I changed the subject. We halted, did a rein back or two, and then carried on. Our left lead canter is still braced as he is learning to canter without leaning on my hands. Even though there are a few rough bits, over all, he looks pretty darn good. I usually dread watching my videos, but now, I am starting to recognize that my riding is improving quickly, and as a result, Izzy is becoming so much fun to ride. While he still gets very distracted, more and more of the time he's listening to me and trying so hard to do what I am asking. I can't believe what a difference a year can make. Making the switch to STC Dressage was really hard to do, but I am so glad I took that risk.
Think about where we'll be in another year! Izzy loves to work midmorning under a bright blue sky. Sunday was that kind of day. After some big shifts in my thinking from the lesson the day before with Sean Cunningham, owner and trainer at STC Dressage, I was ready for a fantastic ride, and overall, that's what Izzy gave me.  Keeping everything in mind that Sean and I had discussed the day before, I thought about control as a conversation between Izzy and me. Rather than flipping the control switch, I just asked him questions, something Sean has been saying for six months. Finally though, I understood what he meant. The way Izzy answers those questions will let me know how much control he is willing to let me have. Understanding those words and feeling those words are two totally different things. I finally felt what Sean meant.  The true test came at about twenty-six minutes into the ride. We had just finished some great canter work to the right, and I was hoping to wrap things up with a bit of canter to the left. At the C end of my arena is a tall stand of trees, and on the other side of the trees lies the neighborhood. There is always some movement in that direction, and Izzy long ago decided that the C end of the arena is often times a no fly zone. Using the corner at C-H can be very tricky.  C-H like a pro. As soon as I started putting him back together for a left lead canter, Izzy decided that there was something behind those trees, and he wanted to look. I knew a fight was brewing. I didn't even need to see one of Izzy's tells to know, I could feel it. I realized I was being given the perfect opportunity to show Izzy that I wasn't going to fight with him nor was I going to force him to give me control. I was going to be patient. In the video below, you can see him flip me off at about 20 seconds. The whole conversation lasted six long minutes; I only showed you thirty-two seconds. Since I was using my Pivo to record, I was able to watch the entire thing later that day. For six minutes, I sat there quietly and kept asking him to bring his attention back to me. At about five minutes, he took a deep breath, and much of the tension left his body. Thirty seconds later, he took another deep breath, and we got back to work.  As we were finishing with the left lead canter, I reached down to pat him and praise him. I am not sure if he spooked or just lost his balance, but Pivo caught a great video of both of us nearly hitting the ground.    As I watched the video of the ride, I found myself smiling despite the blooper moments. Nothing about the ride was prefect, but I was able to see glimpses of the proactive rider that Sean is teaching me to be. By being a thinking rider, I am definitively cracking through Izzy's shell of resistance and anxiety. Throughout most of the ride we were checking in with each other. How's that? Are you good with this? Depending on the response he gave me, I took more control or took a step back as he worked things out.
It was as though the rough moments were passing in slow motion allowing me to adjust the amount of control I was taking to suit that moment in time. I never lost control; I just never forced it on him. By giving him time to cope with his urge to check things out, the tension de-escalated without much effort on my part other than sitting their patiently; that's really hard for me to do. Sean insists that little by little Izzy will begin to understand that I am not going to force him which will teach him to trust me. For the first time, I think I really can do this. The one thing that I dislike about doing virtual lessons with my Pivo Pod is that the Pivo app can't do a meeting and record at the same time. Given its very reasonable price though, it can't be expected to do everything. Two weeks ago I recorded video the day before my lesson, and for this last lesson, I recorded my ride the day after the lesson. While there is nothing fancy about the videos, there isn't anything horrible either. I recoded twenty-five minutes of pretty basic work. No one wants to watch twenty-five minutes of anything, so I found some stretches of trotting and a bit of canter and uploaded them. This is us without any filters. It's just raw footage captured without any effort at looking well schooled. I am not as happy with the canter work that I grabbed. I can see how tight I am in my upper body, particularly through my elbows. At fifteen seconds you can see me push my hands forward so that Izzy can carry himself for a moment, and that sort of reset my position as well. The other thing I am trying to fix is my swinging left leg. I keep my right leg much quieter. While I haven't done much recording over the past year, I think it would be worth my while to try and record once a week. I've discovered that even watching it in fast forward gives me an overall impression of my position. As I make changes in how I ride, I see those changes reflected in how Izzy moves. I have the tools to quickly and easily record; I need to make use of them.
There's nothing like a bunch of honesty to make you feel naked. |
About the Writer and RiderI am a lifelong rider.
I began endurance riding in 1996 where I ultimately completed five, one-day 100 mile races, the 200-mile Death Valley Encounter, and numerous other 50, 65, and 75 mile races. I began showing dressage in 2010. Welcome to my dressage journey. 
Photo by Lori Ovanessian
About Speedy GSpeedy went from endurance horse to dressage horse. After helping me earn a USDF Bronze medal in the summer of 2020, he is now semi-retired. Speedy is a 2004, 15'1 hand, purebred Arabian gelding. His Arabian Horse Registry name is G Ima Starr FA.
July 2020 (PC AJSK Photography)
About IzzyIzzy was started as a four-year old and then spent the next 18 months in pasture growing up. I bought him as a six-year old, and together, we are showing at the lower levels. He is a 2008, 16'3 hand warmblood gelding. His Rheinland Pfalz-saar International (RPSI) name is Imperioso.
March 2021 (PC Tess Michelle Photography)
Bakersfield Dressage approved!
My favorite breeches!
FOR THE SMALLER EQUINE ATHLETE
I love her stuff!
Watercolor Artist and Friend
National Rider Awards
USDF Bronze Medal - 2020
USDF Second Level Rider Performance Award - 2018
USDF First Level Rider Performance Award - 2015
USDF Training Level Rider Performance Award - 2013
State Rider Awards
CDS Ruby Rider Award - 2018
State Horse Awards
Speedy G - 3rd Level Horse Performance Award - 2020
Speedy G - 2nd Level Horse Performance Award - 2018
Working Towards:
CDS Sapphire Rider Award Third Level: 63.514% Third Level: 62.105% Fourth Level: Fourth Level: 2022 Show Season
Show Rating (***) CDS/USDF/USEF (*) CDS (s) Schooling (c) Clinic (r) Ride-a-Test Clinic (Q) Qualifier 2022 Show Schedule
pending ... 2022 Completed … (*) Tehachapi 5/22/22 (*) Tehachapi 7/24/22 (***) Tehachapi 8/28/22 2023 Qualifying Scores
Regional Adult Amateur Competition (RAAC) Qualifying 3 Scores/2 Judges/60%: Score 1: 62.115% Score 2: Archives
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