A Lightbulb Moment

Doncha love those?

So I had my first lesson in close to a month today with Belles. We did dressage, which have not done in a lesson since, uh, summer some time. Started out with simple loosening up stuff, then moved into lateral work. She's fat and out of shape so does not maintain as well as she should, but she was energetic and obedient and fitness will take care of the rest. Then we did some transition work, which went quite well.

Our light bulb was during lengthenings. She still only gets canter lengthens, not trot. She tries. She shows an extremely modest change of step. But she doesn't maintain well, she isn't getting it, and she does not see the point of this in an arena, either. Up a hill, yes. Across a pasture, sure. Ring? Her attitude is 'WTF? The wall is *right there*. Where's the fire?'

So we were doing cantering, then back to trot for a few steps and then lengthen. Better, but still not really. And then I did a stretching circle, and I thought about how when she does stretching trots nowadays she is really free in her shoulder and working from behind and fluid. Hhhmmmmm. So I just eased out of the circle and did a lengthen of stride down the long side in her long, low, stretching trot. She stepped right up and under, big difference in stride, big overtrack according to my coach.

By George, I think we are on to something here. So we started getting more subtle about the stretching trot, so I would ask for both together 'stretch down/lengthen frame AND lengthen stride' but I was doing less with the stretching of the frame. I think I will be able to build her muscle up so she can maintain better, and I will slowly bring her posture up so that we are just doing a slight stretch. As Jane said, 'hey, even if you get dinged for her being too low in front, at least you she is actually DOING the lengthening now!'

Anyone else have any nice training moments?

Eileen Morgan
The Mare's Nest
http://www.themaresnest.com
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