Back to Basics

After my schooling show last weekend, I realized rather quickly I was missing out on a few riding basics- e.g.; the sitting trot. We were asked to do that during the judging and well…I never properly learned how to! Despite the fact that I’ve never done it with formal instruction, I did decent but it probably didn’t look pretty at all.

Rori was kind enough to indulge me in my first "airplane" ride.

I had my second lesson with Rori last night and specifically asked Christy if we could work on certain things. The whole session was pretty much all firsts for me and I soaked it up like a sponge. I first learned how to counterbend and did the spiral in and spiral out exercises. It gave my brain a thorough workout- need to develop those independent aids. I wanted to do more cantering but Rori was having an off-night- she’d zoom around in super fast trotting circles, canter a few steps, and go back to zooming so we opted focus on stirrup-less work and work on my sitting trot with the “ride a buck” game/exercise. We used a piece of paper instead of money and I actually forgot it was there most of the time and only dropped it twice during the whole lesson. After a good solid 30-45 minutes with minimal walk breaks, I was feeling the burn.

I had a really hard time getting up this morning and my body is protesting any movement involving my abs and thighs (…if anyone ever tells me that riding is easy, they are going to meet my foot and/or fist). Discomfort aside, it feels great working all those riding muscle groups properly and tangible proof I was “really riding” vs. going for a ride. And of course this is all towards continually developing that good solid seat. I'm really pleased with Rori's energy level at the end of the lesson; after an hour she was still bright-eyed and bushy-tailed. I think our trail rides have definitely gotten her (and me) into leaner shape.

Stirrup-less riding with the "buck"