Hello again! Yesterday I posted about the no stirrups work I did in my lesson last week with my coach Belinda Trussell. When I took my stirrups back we did canter work. Then, after a break, I asked to do some trot work . I wanted to see how it felt to ride the trot with stirrups. We did some half passes from the centerline and then worked on keeping the frame up and his hind end engaged. Belinda asked for a very specific series of aids.
- Lower legs on to engage Biasini
- Half halt with my back and shoulder blades to bring him together.
- Feather the reins and then give. No holding of the rein aid.
That series of aids will take me awhile to master. The timing is very quick but so effective. Biasini was on the “hot tamale” train at this point in the lesson. The work we had done had energized him! So when Belinda asked me for a medium trot across the short side of the arena he broke to canter. Woo Hoo! Belinda advised me that I needed less ‘gas pedal’. There were a couple of other times that Belinda reminded me to ride that horse. Not the la di da Biasini that I had been riding in our warm up but the ‘hot’ horse that I was riding now. Here is a video. And my thanks to Belinda for videoing while also teaching.
Once again I have to say that the no stirrups work had helped me with my position especially of my legs which are such an important part of the horse and rider equation.
This past week I also read a post by fellow blogger Mary Lynne Carpenter at the Backyard Horse Blog. She wrote a truthful post about starting up her horse after the winter off work. This is not a dressage horse nor is Mary Lynne a year round rider with an indoor arena. But what she found is very similar to me riding that horse. Her blog post is titled “Ride the horse underneath you”. Click on the link to see it from her perspective.
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