Henry's Classical Dressage Diary

Lot1983

Active Member
Oct 16, 2006
7,267
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The Cotswolds
11th October 2011
So today we had out first lesson with this lady: http://www.classicaldressage.co.uk/

Started off with her watching us warm up. Small Horse was on his toes as two of the horses had limbo'd under some fencing and were stood on the bank next to the school, very distracting.

The first point that she noted that I was behind his movement especially when we trot, I have HUGE issues with trotting. So she made me stand in my stirrups and move my legs until I could balance, once my legs were in the correct position I could balance and my heel, hip and shoulder were in line. Once I got the hang of keeping my leg there it all felt much more fluid and in step with him.

Then we moved on to a little inhand work, if you've ever watched any Phillipe Karl you'll be familiar with the concept of lifting the bit in the horses mouth, so instead of pulling back on the bars, you lift the hand towards the ears and put pressure on the corner of the mouth on the inside rein, I think you can see what I mean in this video:
Phillipe Karl Clip
We're to do this before we ride as what you can do inhand in 10mins could take 20mins in the saddle (also a great exercise for when it's too dark for me to ride).

We then moved on to doing it ridden, it's a great exercise and really helped me gain control of the shoulders, we had to do it less and less and he was naturally dropping down into a contact. I actually felt him lift his back and start using his back end properly. Towards the end he was trotting around stretching down to the floor and we even started to get the hand of changing direction like this.

It was one of the best lessons I've ever had, I learnt loads, I've got clear things to work on and neither of us got grumpy of frustrated. She was also the only instructor that hasn't tried to rush him forwards, she said that we could go as slow as he liked because as long he was balanced then we shouldn't push him, once he gets the hang of it we can then more on to doing it a bit quicker.

The instructor was brilliant, she seems to like Henry and said he was a good old fashioned stamp of a tb, she said he's intelligent and learns quickly and she hopes that he should start to come on quite quickly. She's also the only person who has ever referred to him as normal! :D (and another person that thinks he looked a lot younger than his 7 years! Baby faced pony :cloud9:)

I can't wait to get back out there tomorrow night to practice again, he felt like a totally different horse to the one I schooled on Sunday night.:inlove::inlove:
 
Sounds fantastic, Lottie. I'm looking forward to reading your next post.

A friend of mine used to have CR lessons and did indeed do the walking around beforehand....
 
I can't wait to have a play tonight! The difference in his attitude to working was amazing and to feel him use his back end for just about the first time ever really was WOW!

RI thinks he should make a nice little dressage horse, I suppose I can forgive him not jumping if he takes up dressage instead! :D
 
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